Not the sharp, careful sound he wore when guarding nobles.Not the sly amusement he used as a shield. But the real one. The kind that cracked open the dark. The kind he saved for me.
We stood at the edge of the Synnex cliffs, where the sky broke wide above the sea. The wind tangled through our hair and clothes, the horizon painted in gold and rose. I wore no shoes. Neither did he. The grass was slick with evening dew, the air sharp with the promise of rain.
He’d been nineteen then, just a year older than me.
He had carried us through more than we’d ever name aloud. But here, in this sliver of light, we were only two souls beneath a too-big sky.
He spun the wooden staff in his hands, cocky and light-footed, the way he always was when he thought I needed cheering.
“You’re still too stiff,” he teased. “Loosen your grip, or you’ll crack your wrist next time I swing.”
“You say that every time,” I muttered, lifting my own staff in defense. “And yet I still block you.”
He lunged. I parried. We circled.
His grin widened. “Because I let you.”
“Because I’m better,” I shot back.
It wasn’t training so much as ritual. Strike, block, retreat. A dance to keep the ghosts at bay, even as our muscles remembered every movement that might one day save us.
He feigned left and tapped me on the hip with the flat of his staff. I collapsed dramatically into the grass, laughing as dew clung to my arms.
Hayat dropped beside me, grinning, chest rising with exertion. “You’ll never be a soldier like that, Elli.”
“I don’t want to be,” I said, brushing dirt from my cheek. “I just want to know I won’t die if someone comes at me with a stick.”
“That’s fair.” He turned his head, warm brown eyes catching the last light of the sun. “But you won’t die. Not with me around.”
I rolled my eyes. “This the part where you swear you’ll always save me?”
His smile faltered, just slightly. Something quieter crossed his face.
“I will always save you,” he said. “But you know you’re fully capable of saving yourself.”
I looked at him then. Really looked. But before I could answer—or laugh it off, the way I usually did—he sat up and flicked a blade of grass at my face.
“Come on.” His grin returned, reckless and bright. “Race you to the well.”
And just like that, the weight lifted.
Just like that, we were young again.
Running barefoot through the fields, toward a moment we didn’t yet know we’d need to remember.
The memory unraveled.
I came back to my body all at once—gasping, palms slick, heart bucking.
And then a second pulse answered under the first. Slow. Certain. Not mine.
The candle on my table flared and guttered as if it had felt it too. My mouth tasted of copper and something sweeter. The room swam. I lay very still and counted both heartbeats until the dark thinned.
32
Malachi
The room returned in fragments.Light. Stone. Hush. But the air had changed.