Extracting herself in slow increments, she crawled from the bed. Someone had turned the chaos of her things into organized piles. Everything had been sorted, like with like, crates and cases lining the perimeter instead of being tossed every which way.
Lunara picked up one of her woven blankets from the top of one such pile, intending to wrap it around her shoulders, and nearly doubled over. The smell of salt and pine resin, of Solyrian’s warmth, lingered in the moonlight fibers, and she knew.
Her neat, orderly mate had been the one to do it. To lovingly fold her linens and stack her books. To straighten parchments and untangle the mess of random trinkets being in the same box as her frying pans.
Shite. Ithurt.
Worse than healing. Worse than the loneliness. Worse than any moment in her life, even the death of her parents. The old wound was exactly that—old and scarred over, the damage healed enough to leave her functional, even if it did twinge from time to time.
Weeping moons, this wound was so new. So raw. A fatal, hemorrhaging gash across her heart and soul.
A tray had been left on the low table, stunted flames left in the enchanted fireplace, and she crossed the room. Her stomach rumbled, gleeful at the idea of sustenance. Of?—
A bowl of cut strawberries.
A crystal goblet of gifted blood.
A single trilliatum in a tiny, porcelain vase.
She leaned in closer, brows dropping together. No. Not a real trilliatum, but a carved one—hewn from a block of glowing, foamy blue and deep viridian wood with her magic all over it.
And it hit her.
Woodcarving, he’d told her. When it was all too much, he turned to woodcarving.
Lunara did double over, then. Just folded herself in two, palms landing on the wooden tabletop on either side of the offering, and sank to her knees in front of it.
Nyri had never left her side. Not after the healing. Not after climbing into bed beside her. Nyri hadn’t done this.
Maybe it made her crazy after all, but she pressed her nose to the sculpted flower and… there he was.
Brand.Brandhad been making the trays all along.
Every morning during her training, they’d been there—the only thing keeping her going. She’d just assumed. Hadn’t made the connection.
She didn’t need to do the deed herself. Leaving him was going to kill her more surely than anything else ever could.
Hacking.Tearing. Gouging.
That’s how she spent almost every waking moment. Lost in the dark, shored up by Hedda and Nyri, some combination of Magnus, Thaddeus, Faldir, Baldrir, or Vann hovering nearby. Only her conditioning and training with Hedda—which the Demon Commander insisted upon each day before starting, and was conducted right in the middle of her chamber—was free of pain or thought.
Weeping. Grieving. Breaking.
That’s how she spent every other moment.
Brand never said a word to her. Never pried. Never demanded they talk or begged for answers. Just tended to her fragmented body, fed her, and put her to bed.
Last night, there’d been no such thing as resisting anymore. She hadn’tseenhim since Argoph, and feeling him hadn’t been enough anymore. Cracking open one eye as he’d walked away, taking him in…
She’d nearly given up right then and been the one begging.
He’d looked worn and ragged, his face drawn. Worse than when they’d thought Faldir dead. Worse than when he’d held Hedda afterwards and they’d trudged across Thodelebor with the terrible knowledge.
Lunara had a feeling that she didn’t look much better. The only benefit was that she’d ignored the other part of herself so thoroughly that it had gone quiet the last few days, too tired and too fed up to bother with it.
Once more, she climbed from the bed without disturbing Hedda and Nyri, going directly for the tray she knew would be waiting. Her one connection to him. Where she could justbefor a moment, and pretend he was right there with her.
By now, she knew that there were at least two others in Fern’s side of their joined chambers, and that she had to be quiet if she wanted to keep her peace. That first morning, Magnus had heard her sobbing and come over to investigate. Thad, the next. She’d learned her lesson where Wolflord hearing was concerned. It was silent tears or nothing from there on out.
