She stirred. “Kailorien…”
“I’m here,” he murmured.
She went limp in his arms—still aware, but drifting somewhere between dreams and wakefulness. Her fingers rested near his chest then stilled.
Resh held her for a long time after the others dispersed. Even Zarrek kept his distance, his shoulders less rigid, his weapon no longer glowing. The camp moved like ghosts—quiet voices, lowered eyes, no one quite willing to speak above a murmur. Someone handed him a fur blanket to help keep her warm.
Time drifted as the men finished setting up his tent. He stood and walked to it, Zarrek at his side taking last-minute orders. Warriors, cooks, crafters, and blacksmiths milled about them as they walked. Gossip carried on the wind.
“She stopped the river,” someone whispered.
“Witch,” one of the Riftwardens hissed. “Heresy. Blasphemy.”
“No runes.”
One Reskala signed reverently. Then another. More soon followed, all signing the same.
“Sokâr.”
“Child of the Void.”
Zarrek silenced them all with a single look. His golden eyes met Resh’s, and the command did not need to be spoken. Silence the rumors before they grow too vast.
Night came, and with it, the howling of the varkhounds, new rotations, and the smell of freshly warmed rations. In the flickering firelight of the Commander’s tent, Auryn lay still on his bed. The winds settled, the Anchor and its wards holding the rain at bay. Resh sat nearby, watching the slow rise and fall of Auryn’s breath.
He didn’t know what she was.
But she had saved them all.
And he knew—deep in the marrow of his bones—that if she stopped breathing, something inside him would stop too.
Resh drifted at the edges of wakefulness. He let his mind wander, but not his guard. Darkness beckoned, but a sound pulled him from the cusp of it. The soft scrape of a chest opening.
Auryn.
On her feet.
Her steps were steady—but slow, as if her body remembered the weight of the river she’d held with nothing but silver light and her will.
He surged up, startled. “Auryn, you should be in bed.”
She didn’t respond. Just crouched, rifling through a pile of objects—books, sticks, pressed flowers, a wind chime. It was her chest, the one he’d given her to stash all of the little bits and baubles she’d collected over the last weeks. Whatever caught her interest on their travels made it here, except for the objects she couldn’t bear to part with. Those she kept in a small leather satchel that rarely left her hip.
He called to her again. She glanced at him. Then at the bed. Suddenly, without explanation, she tore off the oversized wool socks he’d put on her feet to keep her warm and kept searching. Her bare toes curled against the cold, but he couldn’t miss the sigh of relief that fluttered from her lips.
She was ignoring him, likely distracted. When she was of a mind to do something or explore a thought, hardly anything could sway her from her course. He sighed, sinking back into his chair.
The day’s journal lay open before him. He tried to focus. Winds, troop morale, scouting positions. Rumors of allies moving to cross paths with the Kelvasari. Joining forces could prove advantageous, especially with the rifts so near.
A tug at the back of his neck stilled his hand. He reached back to scratch his nape on instinct when he realized it was Auryn. Long fingers, small and steady, smoothed a section of his hair between them. The sensation was simultaneously jarring yet soothing. Like tiny bolts of lightning running from his scalp down his spine then melting into pleasure.
Once. Then again.
“This is like a river,” Auryn whispered, far too close. “And soft. I like it.”
He stared at the page, paralyzed. Her fingers began to braid. He didn’t stop her. Heat flared low in his abdomen, coiling with slow, dangerous purpose. His body was already betraying him, aching toward her before he’d even dared admit it aloud.
Her fingers threaded through his hair, gentle but sure. Each motion tugged something deeper than flesh. He clenched the quill tighter, jaw set, eyes fixed on the page. He read the same sentence three times. Not a single word landed.
