“Your hands know labor. Your shoulders brace before enclosed passages. You ration food even when supply is visible. I doubt noble exile taught you any of it.”
A quiet exhale leaves her, half irritation, half reluctant respect.
“Yes,” she says. “Stone, dust, darkness, men who measured human value by output.”
“Who sold you?”
She goes very still. I guess that is too far. Useful to know.
I tilt my head slightly. “You need not answer.”
“I know,” she replies. “That’s why I might have.”
Interesting again.
I offer a fragment in return, a calculated exchange because reciprocity buys more than pressure once trust enters negotiations in trace amounts.
“My father never sold anyone,” I say. “He preferred to own them long enough that selling felt wasteful.”
The look she gives me carries surprise buried beneath skepticism. “Was that confession?”
“That was context.”
“You grew up in this and still learned charm.”
“I grew up in this and learned necessity.”
The wind deepens after midnight. Fire sinks to coals. Even the beasts draw closer to the warmth. We should sleep, yet neither of us moves first, as though standing would concede something unnamed.
Her shivering begins subtly, a small tremor in the hand wrapped around her blanket, then travels through her shoulders and into the set of her jaw when she realizes I have noticed.
“You can mock the weather if it helps,” I say.
“I was considering commanding it to improve.”
“Try a more respectful tone.”
She rises at last and crosses to the opposite side of the fire where my bedroll lies nearer the stone wall that blocks the worst of the wind. She lowers herself there with all the dignity available to someone stealing warmth through geography rather than admission.
“Strategic relocation?” I ask.
“Efficient use of resources.”
I almost laugh.
Hours later, I wake to added weight against my side.
The fire has burned low to a red pulse beneath ash. Cold grips the grove hard enough to sting exposed skin. Aeryn sleeps curled beside me, blanket tangled around both of us, one hand fisted in the fabric near my ribs as if even unconsciousness distrusts losing ground. Her forehead rests against my shoulder. She is trembling less now.
I should move her.
Instead I draw the spare cloak over us both and shift until her back fits against my chest, one arm settling around her waist to hold warmth where it belongs. She makes a small sound, half breath, half surrender to sleep, and eases further into me.
“Troublesome little prophet,” I murmur against her hair.
The nickname arrives unplanned. It suits her immediately.
I sleep again before deciding whether that is wise.