Through him.
He took a breath.
“What is it, Auryn?”
She shifted her weight between her bare feet. Sniffled. “It’s cold.”
He frowned. “I gave you my furs.”
She pondered this for a moment. Looked back to her cot. At the blanket around her.
Then back at him.
And he knew, then, what was coming.
Braced for it like a man bracing for a hammer to the gut.
She tilted her head, leaned down, and touched his chest. “The furs you gave me are soft and pleasant. But your skin is warmer than they are, even covered in armor.”
Before he could answer, she slipped under the edge of his furs as if she had always belonged there. Her weight was barely a dent in the cot, yet his whole body went rigid. Her breast moved against his arm with each breath. The faint scent of her hair was a temptation he didnot needin this moment.
Kailorien tried to think of anything—anything—to keep his thoughts in order. The supply count. Tomorrow’s march. The dull ache in his shoulder. Zarrek’s stubborn pride. That one thought successfully took him on a long tangent.
But then her hand moved. Small fingers brushed his jaw, then lifted to the side of his head. She found the emerald teardrop earring at his ear and twirled it once between her thumb and forefinger.
He flinched as though she’d pierced him with a needle. “Auryn, you shouldn’t—”
“You hide much,” she murmured, eyes fixed on the green stone, “but in this verdant crystal, you carry pain for all to see.”
The words struck deeper than they should have. Impossible. She could not know.Should notknow. And yet, here she was, speaking truth no soul had ever pried from him. She knew his true name. Spoke in riddles. Saw into the world in ways others could not. He locked eyes with her, searching her gaze. But she wasn’t focused on him, just on the earring she twirled between her fingers with care.
In Krystopolis, the legends called them the Resh’Agar’s Tears. Not a name he’d chosen, but the result of centuries of rumor. He’d worn them every day for longer than most kingdoms had stood—never removing them, never explaining them.
“They’re just stones,” he said at last, voice low.
“Not in your eyes,” she replied. “To you, they are a reminder. Much like this world is for me. A way to remember things long forgotten.”
She settled closer, the gem still caught between her fingers. Her other hand relaxed and slipped to rest against his chest.
A breath.
Then another.
“Kailorien…”
Hehmmed in reply.
“Your sweat smells strange, but I don’t dislike it.”
His breath caught, a fraction too long. Of all the things she could have said, that was not the one he had been bracing for. A spark caught low in his gut despite himself, chased immediately by the absurd urge to laugh.
A moment passed. Then several more.
Her breathing slowed. Sleep claimed her.
But for him, sleep was farther away than it had ever been.
He reached up, thinking to scratch at his scar again, only to realize that it wasn’t itching anymore. Something about her warmth had chased away the nagging discomfort, bringing about a new kind of shift.
