“She has excellent judgment,” I say.
“Cruel to the end.”
“Come back before dark.”
His smile softens. “I will.”
I watch until he disappears down the east road, coat catching the breeze, shadow behaving itself behind him. When I turn back, Rhazek is already climbing the porch steps with that predatory grace he has never managed to make less distracting.
“You were staring,” he says.
“I was admiring.”
“At Corin?”
“At peace,” I say, then set my tea on the table and catch him by the front of his shirt before he can answer.
He allows me to pull him down, which is generous considering he weighs as much as a cathedral with opinions. I drag him into my lap as best I can, and he helps just enough to make it seem like my idea remains practical. The chair creaks beneath the combined insult, but the wards hold. His arms bracket me against the cushions, and his mouth curves near mine.
“This is undignified,” he murmurs.
“Good.”
“I am a king.”
“You are in my lap.”
“A powerful counterargument.”
I kiss him before he can develop a legal defense. He tastes like smoke, mint, and the honey he denies putting in his tea. The bond glows steady between us, warm and deep, without the frantic edge it carried when every touch felt like a spell deciding whether to save us or destroy the nearest wall. His power brushes mine with familiar heat. Mine answers, not swallowed, not overshadowed, simply met.
Rhazek draws back enough to look at me. “You are happy.”
“Careful. That sounds like assessment.”
“It is wonder.”
That quiets me more thoroughly than any grand declaration could.
I touch his face, thumb passing along the sharp line of his cheekbone. “Yes,” I say. “I am.”
He closes his eyes for a breath, and the bond fills with such fierce tenderness that I feel it behind my ribs. The old fear is not gone from him completely. It never will be. But it no longer drives the carriage, holds the reins, and threatens to leap off cliffs in my honor. Progress comes in strange, handsome packages.
By the time Corin returns, Rhazek and I are still on the porch, though I have reclaimed some dignity and he has reclaimed none whatsoever. Corin pauses at the steps, takes in the arrangement, and rolls his eyes so hard I’m surprised they remain mortal-shaped.
“Delightful,” he says, dropping a sack of supplies onto the table. “I risked Bess, weather, and a suspicious chicken so the two of you could scandalize furniture.”
Rhazek does not move from beside me. “Was the chicken armed?”
“With judgment.”
“Then it resembled Sable.”
I reach over and pinch his side. He catches my hand, kisses my knuckles, and has the audacity to look pleased with himself.
Corin unpacks coffee, lamp oil, bread, and three jars of pickled peppers because he loves me despite every effort to disguise the fact. The sun sinks lower, turning the meadow bronze. Rhazek lights the porch lanterns with a flick of his fingers, and Corin rolls a tiny gold flame over his own palm just to prove he could have done it too. I eat bread with too much butter, Corin complains about Bess’s broom diplomacy, and Rhazek listens with the solemn attention of a demon king studying a battlefield report.
The infernal current hums softly between us, braided through blood, bond, and choice, no longer a wound or a warning. Beyond the porch, evening gathers over our new home with lavender shadows and the smell of cooling grass, and for once, nothing in me waits for the world to punish us for being whole.
