It’s clean. Just a napkin. Probably saw me wiping my eyes from the spice and thought I needed it.
Still, I feel something split in my chest.
I press my lips together and force my face to stay still. Not soft. Not grateful. Just… neutral.
But my hand moves. Just slightly.
I raise the napkin. A small, stilted wave.
The girl sees it. Her grin widens.
And I don’t know why that matters so much.
I finish my meal in silence. The food is too good to waste. The room is too full of life to ignore. The smells cling to my clothes and my hair and I know I’ll carry them home with me.
When I stand, my knees feel weirdly shaky.
Kenron is still at the back. Still laughing. Still not looking at me.
And maybe that’s a good thing.
Because I’m not ready for what I might do if he does.
CHAPTER 4
KENRON
The sun hasn’t even rolled over in her bed of clouds when I swing my legs out of mine.
There’s a spark in my chest. Not the ache that sometimes flares up when the scars across my ribs pull the wrong way or when I think too long about trenches and phosphorus storms. No. This is something else. Bright. Clean. An itch behind my sternum that has me grinning like an idiot before I’ve even touched my boots.
She came back again.
That stiff-spined, fire-eyed human woman with the voice like broken glass and a heart that doesn’t know how to lie to itself. She came back. Sat in the same booth. Ate the firebomb I laid in front of her like it was a gauntlet I’d thrown. Didn't say a word—but she didn’t need to.
I felt her eyes on me.
I feel them now.
The kitchen is cold when I first step in, just a metal box waiting for a soul to wake it. I toss the lights on, let them buzz to life, and tie my apron around my waist like armor. It’s a good morning. I can feel it in my bones.
I whistle as I move. Something old and wild. A song my mother used to hum while scrubbing the scales on my back, before war or shame or death taught her to stop smiling.
By the time I’m elbow-deep in roots and spice paste, I’ve got the charred stew base bubbling and my palms stained orange.
“You’re whistling,” comes a voice like sandpaper over rust.
I don’t turn. Just grin at the pot. “Maybe the stew’s finally got rhythm.”
My father makes a sound halfway between a grunt and a curse. He’s old-school Vakutan, bone-tired and deep-souled. Still wears his war beads even though the strings are frayed and the memories heavier than stone.
“She’s dangerous,” he mutters.
I don’t ask who he means. I know.
“She’s hungry,” I say instead.
He snorts. “So are snakes.”
