He looked up.
She reached for it herself.
“No—wait—”
Too late.
Her fingers closed around the spiny black quill and yanked.
Resh winced harder than she did.
Silver blood welled from the puncture. Viscous. Luminous. It slid down the arch of her foot and dripped onto the moss.
“Auryn,” he growled. “That could’ve been poisoned. Youdon’tjust—”
But he trailed off. The blood shimmered. Not just silver but gold now rippling through it like sunlight in a stream. The wound knit itself closed. Skin drew inward, slow but certain, muscle and sinew reforming beneath a veil of gentle, glowing magic. Within moments, there was nothing left but a faint line—and then that faded.
She looked at him, smug and breathless. “See? As I said. You worry too much.”
Resh didn’t answer at first. He stared, still cupping her foot in both hands, his breath caught somewhere between shock and awe.
“Just what are you?” he muttered, more to himself than her.
Instead of answering, she burst into laughter.
It startled him.
Auryn wiggled her foot, and his thumbs unintentionally brushed a spot just beneath her toes.
She yelped with a giggle. “When you touch there, I can’t help but laugh. It’s sensitive.”
He blinked and abruptly realized exactly how he was holding her. Her calf cradled across his lap. Her body curled toward his. Her ankle still resting in his hand, his thumb pressed to the arch of her foot like some kind of Voids-damned courtship ritual.
He dropped her leg like it had caught fire.
Auryn, of course, only laughed harder.
“From now on,” he growled, flustered as he shot to his feet, “youwearshoes.Realshoes. No more compromises.”
She gave him an exaggerated pout. “But Ihatereal shoes.”
“I hate bleeding out in the middle of a migration route.”
“That seems like an overreaction.”
“Put. Them. On.”
She smirked at him. Wicked. Infuriating. And then she reached for the offending sandal. He watched her buckle it without further complaint, though he suspected the giggling wasn’t quite finished. Still, as she stood and brushed herself off, he glanced at her foot one last time.
No mark. No scar.
Not even a hint she’d been hurt at all.
Rumors spread in camp, though none dared say them aloud. That the Resh’Agar’s companion had gentled Astenos with song. That she’d made the Bloodletter flinch with a single word. And that the Arm of the Void himself had knelt in the mud, her small foot in his lap, bickering over sandals like a man possessed.
Some said the woman was a witch.
Others whispered she was a fallen star.
