I didn’t interrupt. Just listened.
“There’s a library in town,” she went on. “The shelves lean, the windows let in more dust than light, but it feels… hushed. Like stepping inside meant stepping out of the rest of the world. I’d slip into the corners no one else noticed—steal books I wasn’t meant to touch, carry them home under my tunic. I built a little archive under my bed, hidden beneath the floorboards with the rest of my treasures.”
Her laugh was quiet, fond. “There’s a wooden box still there. Brass corners, twin serpents carved into the lid.” She glanced at me, fingers brushing the serpent inked on my arm. “Kind of likeyours.”
“I swore it was powerful. A relic. Maybe even dangerous. My family just called it a keepsake. Said it had been passed down for generations. I didn’t know what it really was. But I kept it hidden anyway, so they couldn’t takeeverythingfrom us.”
Her words lingered, pulling something tight in my chest. I thought of her brother, Aeryn—how she still clung to him the same way, guarding his name and memory like a treasure no one else could touch.
I listened, and I could hear the love buried beneath the grief. Love born from survival, from clutching scraps of meaning when everything else had been torn away.
“We’ll help him,” I said quietly. “Aeryn.”
She didn’t answer. Her shoulders eased back into me, as if that single thread of reassurance had stitched something together in her.
The wind caught a strand of her hair, tugged it loose to curl against her jaw. I reached up to smooth it back, fingers grazing the braid Lysara had woven—and froze.
Her collar dipped at her nape just enough to reveal a mark unlike any I’d seen before—starlight carved into her skin, faintly alive.
My throat tightened. It hadn’t been there last night—I would have noticed. I should have.
But now, seeing it in the pale light, it felt older than the moment it appeared. Older than either of us. My hand hovered, trembling with the urge to touch.
Aurelia felt me still. “What?” she asked, voice low.
“The mark,” I said.
“Oh.” She shifted, casual, though her voice gave her away. “Yeah. That happened. Eryndis visited this morning.”
“What did she say?”
“That I’m changing.” Her mouth pressed thin. “That thechoices I’ll have to make won’t be easy.” Her hand brushed her braid again, almost unconsciously. Then her gaze flicked sharp toward the horizon. “But all of that can wait. Right now, I need to get Aeryn back and make sure he gets the help he needs. The rest… I’ll worry about later.”
She didn’t want to carry the weight of whatever this meant. I could see it in the way she deflected, in the way she stared into the distance as though looking hard enough might keep the world small enough to manage. She wanted something solid, something she could fight for. And I couldn’t fault her for that.
I bent forward, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck—careful, at the edge of the mark. Her breath stuttered, her shoulders tightened for a moment, then softened. I let my lips linger in promise.
We rode on. The trees thinned. Fog clung to the earth, rolling in slow breaths across a wide silver field.
A shape moved at the far end.
“Stop there!” a voice shouted.
Aurelia stiffened. I reached for my blade, but she was already gone, sliding from the saddle, boots hitting earth in a run.
“Aurelia, wait?—!”
She didn’t. I nudged the horse to follow. Gabriel cursed under his breath and came along behind me, but she was already halfway across the field.
“Hayat!” she called, her voice cracking the quiet.
The figure halted—then ran to her.
We pushed the horses hard to catch up.
He caught her at full stride, arms locking around her waist, spinning her once before setting her down with care. His hands cupped her face, his thumbs brushing her cheekbones as though she were breakable.
“I thought you were gone,” he whispered, hoarse. “I went to find you. Gods, I thought?—”