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“Our people have not always been so welcoming of outsiders and change for good reason, human. But we welcome him now. And you. Perhaps we are changing.” She uncrossed her arms and went to the doorway, pushing aside the strings of shells and beads that served as a door. “Rest now. I will send someone with food after sundown.”
I waited for her to leave before I went to fetch a pail of water from the well just outside. While I’d seen to their wounds, both Hellion and Cian needed to be cleaned.
I hauled the bucket in and sorted through all the concoctions and salves she had lying around. Among them, I found rose water and her jasmine tea leaves. It wouldn’t be as good as the expensive soaps Cian kept around most of the time, but the smell was almost as nice.
I started with Hellion, removing their armor and setting it aside in a neat pile. Carefully, I unclasped the gold bands in their hair. Even filthy as it was, their long, silky hair had always been one of my favorite things about them.
Golden eyes fluttered open as I was combing soapy fingers through their hair. “Nevahn? Where—” They broke off with a hiss of pain when they tried to move their arm.
“Don’t try to move!” I blurted. “You broke your clavicle, I think, and there are nine stitches in your upper arm.”
“Cian?” They turned their head and let out a relieved sound when they saw him lying there. With their one good arm, they gripped his head and brought it close, letting their forehead rest against him. “Thank the goddex you both live. What happened? Is he…”
“You both had shadowbane in your wounds. I think he had a little more. We’re in a gargoyle encampment and they’ve agreed to shelter us until you’ve both recovered if I work in their forge.” I’d gotten the worst of the tangles out of their hair, so I wrung out a rag and gestured to them. “May I?”
Hellion nodded. They closed their eyes as I ran the damp cloth over their neck, cleaning away sweat and dirt. “The battle…What happened?”
I hesitated, staring at the small knot in their throat. “I summoned lightning.” Our eyes met. “You knew, didn’t you? That I had magic?”
“I suspected.”
“Since when?”
Delicate fingers caressed my chin. “I felt the flicker of something the first time we kissed.”
Gods, that had been months ago. It felt like a lifetime ago.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked quietly.
They dropped their hand with a small sigh. “It’s complicated. At first, I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t dare say anything without certainty. The implication that a human would have magic at all was…troubling. I feared it would make you a target. Then, in the tent at the pass, when I saw the lightning… Nevahn, the last Storm Weaver died hundreds of years ago, and one has never been born outside of the Fire Lord’s family line.”
My hand froze, the possibilities making my heart race. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t know what it means,” Hellion admitted. “Which is why I still didn’t say anything. I wanted time to confirm that no human Storm Weavers had ever been born. There are archives in Jaida tracing every line of magical human family known. One of Gresham’s jobs as the Lord of Dreams is to monitor for human mages. Many of them first manifested their powers in dreams. Or they used to.”
“Are you saying my nightmares might have been connected? That all this time, it was just my power waking up?”
They shook their head. “I don’t know. It’s possible. Human mages are hardly my specialty, Nevahn.”
Neither of us pointed out the glaring other possibility, that I might not be fully human at all. My mind raced through theories. What if my parents had never been my parents at all? What if my entire life was a lie?
I pushed the worry down. We could deal with that after everyone was well and safe.
“I think your tunic is probably ruined. I might have to cut it off,” I said.
Their lips tipped up in a signature smirk. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve let a lover cut my clothes off. Too bad I’m too sore to enjoy it.”
I flushed as I got out my knife. “Well, that’s a relief. If you’re well enough to flirt, it means you’re getting better.”
I carefully slipped the knife under the collar of their tunic, the blade facing me so it wouldn’t cut into them. Their chest swelled as they took a deep breath. I tried not to notice the gooseflesh that appeared across their chest as I cut through the fabric, or how their nipples hardened when I pulled the shirt away in strips. It was impossible not to notice the growing bulge in their pants.
I lifted an eyebrow at them.
They returned the gesture. “You have met me, yes?”
I snorted and started washing their chest. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised you have a knife fetish, should I?”
Hellion had a lot of bruises, small cuts, and surface wounds, but nothing too serious beyond their arm, at least not on their abdomen.
