“If you’re not afraid of me,” Aurelia drawled, “then why must I share a tent with this ray of sunshine?” Her chin tilted toward me.
All eyes shifted in my direction, expectant. I didn’t rise to the bait.
“Fine,” I said. “Stay with Lysara tonight. But if anything changes—if you start to lose control—you’ll move. Immediately.”
“Lest you forget,” Lysara cut in, her voice as steady as her gaze, “I am fully capable, Malachi. I stood beside you during the Rebellion. I’ve fought my own fights. I love you, my brother, but I do not need you to protect me.” I nodded once, conceding.
We moved together, each of us falling into the rhythm of setting up camp as dusk bled into something deeper. The air here was colder—older. Even the shadows felt thicker. The closer we drew to the Veil, the more it felt like the woods were watching.
Gabriel stoked the fire, coaxing it to life with the flick of his fingers and a word in the old tongue. The flames caught fast, golden and high, casting soft light over the camp.
Gabriel reached into the small satchel at his hip and began to produce—of all things—wine. A wrapped bundle of cheese. A parcel of cured meat and rosemary bread. Even a tiny pot of jam.
We all stared.
“I didn’t know we were going to be dining so finely on this trip,” Santiago said, adjusting the blanket around his shoulders like a nobleman.
Gabriel did not smile. “Every meal is to be treated as its last. We will always eat well—until we cannot.”
A beat of silence followed. Then Santiago blinked. “Right. Well. Cheers to that.”
Aurelia sat cross-legged beside the fire, her plate balancedon her knee. She looked more like herself now, less veiled in exhaustion, more rooted in the present. A faint flush had returned to her cheeks. I caught her glancing toward the trees, gaze distant.
“These woods,” she said softly. “Do they not have… starflowers? That’s what my mother used to call them.”
Lysara paused, setting down her cup. Her eyes softened. “Motes of Sylvarra’s favor. They’re real but rare, even for those marked by her. They appear when the land calls you forward.”
Aurelia didn’t speak for a moment. Then, quietly: “I saw them.”
All movement around the fire stilled.
“They were faint,” she went on, “like little pieces of floating dust. But they led me. Just a little ahead. Just enough to keep going.”
Lysara’s lips parted in surprise, but it was Gabriel who finally spoke, voice low. “Then the forest recognized you.”
Aurelia looked down at her hands. “I didn’t think they were real.”
“They are,” Lysara said. “But they don’t come for just anyone.”
She didn’t say what I knew she was thinking—what we all were thinking. If they chose to guide her, then perhaps Aurelia Moirae wasn’t merely walking toward fate. Perhaps fate had always been walking with her.
“Kaerani, here,” Santiago chimed in, raising a hand like he was answering a school roll call. “I don’t get shiny guides or helpful motes. I get to bleed, heal people, and love passionately enough for all of us.”
Lysara rolled her eyes, but her smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You do more than that, Santi.”
He leaned back with an exaggerated sigh. “I mean, yeah. I also look really good doing it.”
Gabriel didn’t glance up from where he was rechecking his blade. “Debatable.”
“Rude,” Santiago muttered, but he was grinning.
A soft laugh escaped Aurelia before she tilted her head toward me. “Malachi. I never asked… Who is your patron goddess?”
I thought of the mark of Eryndis at the nape of my neck. The tattoos that covered my body to honor the Nightmother. And how they’d failed me. Or perhaps, how I had failed them.
I met Aurelia’s eyes. “None.”
Her brows lifted, surprised.