Corin’s mouth curves. “Define adults.”
“People who do not make hat jokes while I’m holding a knife.”
“Cruel restriction.”
I feel Sable’s gaze return to me before she speaks. “And you.”
“Yes.”
“If you sense something, you tell me before you decide whether it will hurt me.”
“I will.”
She searches my face for the lie that would once have lived there out of habit. I let her see the fear instead, all of it: fear for Corin, fear for her, fear that my power has altered everything it touched and called the ruin salvation because everyone survived. Her expression softens only after she has measured the truth.
“Good,” she says.
Corin extinguishes the flame again and shakes his hand as if freeing it from water. “Wonderful. We are all honest, altered,and emotionally exhausted. Shall I destroy another target, or has the afternoon had sufficient symbolism?”
Sable looks at the splintered wreckage. “Sufficient.”
“Thank the gods. My knuckles may be infernal now, but my dignity remains delicate.”
“You punched through wood.”
“Yes, but handsomely.”
I look at the scattered fragments, the wrong shadow settling into the right shape, the faint gold still lingering in Corin’s eyes, and the Ardyn woman standing between us with her chin lifted against the impossible. The truth no longer waits in corners. It stands in sunlight, smoking gently, wearing Corin’s face.
The Ardyn bloodline is no longer mortal.
31
SABLE
Months later, the porch boards beneath my bare feet are warm from afternoon sun, and nobody is bleeding.
It still feels worth noticing.
The new house sits at the edge of a meadow where the grass grows high and gold, rolling down toward a line of pines that darken purple when evening comes. It is smaller than the old place, sturdier, less dramatic, and so far blessedly uninterested in cracking its windows every time someone has an emotion. The porch wraps around three sides, broad enough for rocking chairs, drying herbs, stacked firewood, and Rhazek’s ongoing campaign to pretend he does not like domestic arrangements while silently improving every latch, hinge, ward, and chimney stone until the entire structure behaves like a fortress wearing a cottage’s dress.
In the yard, Corin stands with one hand raised, a small gold flame hovering over his palm.
“Again,” Rhazek says.
Corin turns his head slowly. “You have other words. I have heard them.”
“Use your hips.”
“Scandalous instruction before supper.”
“Your stance is uneven.”
“My stance is elegant.”
“Your stance is ornamental.”
Corin looks over at me. “Sable, your demon is bullying me.”
