“Well, you look closer to life than death today,” Talia said cheerfully to Auryn, then jerked her chin at Resh. “Two small tears in the fen to the west, Commander. Closed on their own, but we found spoor and bone in the reeds. Smelled…wrong.” Her nose wrinkled. “Like rot under iron.”
“Frequency rising?” Resh asked.
“Like a heartbeat,” Talia confirmed. “That’s the third night we’ve had tremors without a significant tear.”
Resh’s gaze cut to the Riftwarden down the line, then back. “Shift second watch to the west path. Warden pairs on the hour, no gaps. I want two runners on the south dike—if it sinks another thumb, we move camp higher.”
Talia saluted with two fingers, pivoting. “Aye.”
Thessia rolled her shoulder. “A bigger storm’s coming. I’ll adjust rotations on the Blades.”
“I will,” Resh cut in, too clipped. Then, aware of his own pettiness like grit in a wound, he amended, “Appreciated. Coordinate it with Serra.”
Thessia’s eyes flashed with quick humor, then went warm. “Of course.”
Auryn had gone quieter, listening inward again, her silver eyes distant and shimmering. A gust caught her cloak; the edge flared, and with it the thinness of her breath. Her step faltered.
Resh caught the sway before it could be noticed, turned it into a pivot so natural it looked intentional.
“That’s the loop,” he announced, as if he hadn’t just rerouted the morning. “We’re done.”
Thessia read the shift and didn’t argue. “I’ll bring the map to your table,” she told Resh, then tipped her head to Auryn. “If you’ll let me borrow you after, I’ll buy forgiveness with tea and oil. Your hair is wilder than a Rift line.”
Auryn’s hand fluttered to her crown, startled, then amused. “It always is.”
“Exactly,” Thessia winked. “Let me fix it up my way.”
Auryn giggled, and Resh felt it against his arm like a small bell; jealousy sparked—not of hair and oil, but of the ease with which Thessia coaxed that sound into being. He took the spark and closed his fist over it, the way he trapped heat inside gauntlets on a long march.
“Tea,” he echoed, conceding the obvious. “And a short rest.”
“Aye, Shadeslayer,” Thessia agreed, managing to make the title both obedient and fond. “I’ll see to it.”
They turned back toward the heart of camp, eyes following them the entire way. The wardline purred. The mist lifted a fraction. At the entrance to Resh’s tent, he released Auryn’s arm to draw the flap. She looked up at him, shadows silvering her eyes in the morning light.
“You are frowning,” she observed.
“I am thinking,” he said.
“About socks?”
“About the coming storm,” he lied, and she let him have it.
Inside, the fluxhearth kept a steady glow. A pot of water steamed beneath a lid—the one he’d set before dawn without meaning to. “Sit,” he said again, lighter now. “Tea first.”
“Then Thessia.”
His mouth thinned by a degree. “Then Thessia.”
She touched his wrist as she passed, a butterfly-brief contact that still managed to mark skin through metal. “Thank you for the walk.”
He hadn’t known he’d been holding his breath until that moment. “Always,” he said, and meant it too much.
19
Song of the Heart
That evening, Auryn sat on a low stool inside the tent, wrapped in one of Thessia’s oversized nightshirts. The fabric slid over her skin like water—too long, too broad in the shoulders, but soft. Safe. Her limbs still felt hollow, as though she’d left pieces of herself in sleep.
