I sip my tea. “He’s right about your stance.”
“Betrayal,” Corin says, and adjusts his footing anyway.
Rhazek circles him with the severe patience of a warlord teaching a prince how not to die. His hair is tied back today, though several black strands have escaped around his face, and his sleeves are rolled to the forearm. He looks absurdly handsome in the late sun, which is irritating because I am trying to enjoy a peaceful afternoon without becoming the sort of woman who stares dreamily at a demon king correcting her brother’s posture.
“You are staring,” Rhazek says without looking at me.
“I am observing.”
Corin snorts. “She learned that from you. Horrifying.”
Rhazek glances toward the porch, red-gold eyes bright with amusement. “She uses it better.”
“Flattery,” I call. “Dangerous tactic.”
“Effective tactic,” he says.
Corin groans. “Please don’t flirt while I’m holding fire. It feels unsafe for everyone.”
The flame above his palm stretches into a thin ribbon, then curls back into a controlled sphere. His pulse regulation has improved enough that I can feel the rhythm from the porch if I let myself listen: not through the bond exactly, but through the shared infernal current that hums at the edge of awareness whenever all three of us are near. Corin’s note is lighter than Rhazek’s, quicker, still edged with mortal cleverness and human impatience. It no longer frightens me the way it did at first.Some days it aches. Some days it feels like a miracle with poor manners. Most days, it is simply Corin.
“Good,” Rhazek says. “Hold it there.”
Corin’s expression shifts, the humor thinning into concentration. The gold in his eyes brightens faintly, and for a moment the glamour over his horns wavers, showing the delicate shadow of them against the sunlit air. He breathes in through his nose, slow and steady. The flame tightens, becoming smaller, denser, cleaner.
Rhazek nods once. “Better.”
Corin’s eyes flick open. “Was that praise?”
“Do not become sentimental.”
“I may faint.”
“Do not do that either.”
The flame vanishes when Corin closes his fist. No smoke. No scorch. No panic. He lowers his hand and flexes his fingers, satisfied despite the theatrics he will no doubt build around pretending otherwise.
“I’m heading into town,” he says. “We are out of coffee, lamp oil, and whatever appalling peppered thing Sable keeps pretending isn’t addictive.”
“It is medicinal,” I say.
“It is pickled violence.”
“Bring two jars.”
Rhazek looks at him. “Take the east road.”
Corin lifts both brows. “Because it is safer, or because you remain constitutionally unable to let me walk ten feet without tactical commentary?”
“Yes.”
“Honest. Annoying, but honest.”
I rise as Corin collects his coat from the porch rail and shrugs into it. He moves easily now, strong without being showy, confident in a body that changed and became his anyway.Watching him no longer feels like waiting for disaster to show its teeth. It feels like watching my brother leave for town on a sunny afternoon because we need coffee, and there is such deep, ridiculous grace in that ordinary sentence that my throat tightens.
Corin notices, because of course he does.
He pauses at the gate. “Don’t look at me like I’m riding into myth. I’m buying lamp oil from a woman named Bess who once threatened me with a broom.”
