“Careful, Princess. People might think I care about their opinions.”
The sound that left her was almost a laugh. “You’re insufferable.”
“You’re shivering,” he said, drawing her back until her spine fit to the curve of him. “Sleep.”
She didn’t, not for a long time, but when her eyes finally closed, it was to the rise and fall of his chest steady against her back.
They rose before dawn, packed, mounted, and were back on the road by the time the sun cleared the horizon, hooves hitting the ground in a relentless cadence. Jakobav said nothing, thoughhis gaze flicked to her again and again, clouded with an emotion that looked too much like unease.
By late afternoon, the border markers rose from the grass, stone obelisks carved with Orchid’s sigil. The air sweetened, warmer and buzzing with life, as if the soil sensed her return.
A pulse of warmth struck beneath her collarbone. Ella’s breath caught as her royal Orchid tattoo unfurled across her chest in black ink, no longer faded and no longer lost. Her mark had claimed her the moment she crossed the border, settling permanently against her skin.
Jakobav had watched her discover the reappearance. His gaze dropped to the mark and went utterly still, a low sound breaking from him, nearly torn from his chest.
He reached out slowly, as if fighting the impulse, and his knuckles brushed the edge of the ink, the touch no more than a ghost—but it felt like a vow.
“Good,” he murmured. “Let the world see who you are.”
They madecamp that night in a sheltered clearing just inside Orchid territory, and Ella had barely dropped her pack before Jakobav knelt by his saddlebag and drew out a dark glass bottle sealed in crimson wax.
Her brows lifted. “Is that?—?”
“Fae wine.”
“Really?” Her tone was unreadable. “You know that’s a punishable crime in Orchid, right?”
His brows drew together. “Who enforces that law? They patrol this far from the capital?”
She met his gaze without blinking. “I could have you arrested right now.”
One dark brow arched, suspicion and curiosity alighting there as he dragged a hand slowly through his hair, his eyes never leaving hers. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious right now.”
“I am,” she said, leaning in as if she meant every word.
Then, with a softening smile, “But I’ll only punish you if you don’t share it.”
He blinked once, and then the laugh that rumbled from him was unrestrained, his eyes glinting in the firelight with amusement—the first true smile she’d seen from him since the news.
His smile faded, gaze darkening as though something far less harmless crept beneath its surface. “I don’t like to share,” he said, voice dropping. “But I suppose I could be convinced.”
An ache pulsed low in her belly, sudden and startling. He wasn’t talking about her…but gods, her body didn’t seem to care.
Minutes later, they were sitting close by the fire on a fallen log, passing the bottle between them, the wine sweet on her tongue, like berries steeped in smoke, settling into every part of her. Each time she took the bottle, her fingers brushed his. The contact lingered long after it was gone, his touch not easily forgotten.
“You’ve gone quiet,” he said after a while, watching her over the flames.
She traced her thumb along the neck of the bottle, the glass already warm from both of their hands. “I’ve been thinking about my mother.”
They sat in silence for a few breaths before she continued, the words spilling, fragments of memory both fragile and indelible: the way her mother’s hair never stayed in its braid, the way she could end a council meeting with a single look, and how she had smelled of rosewater and sandalwood.
Jakobav listened, and she could tell he wasn’t just pretending, his attention hanging on every word, the firelightpainting his face in gold and shadow. When she finished, he didn’t offer empty condolences, but only waited as though he knew she needed a moment to just be.
She tipped the bottle and drank deep, her gaze lingering on the intricate etching along its glass, the way the firelight caught in its patterns until she found herself staring at it as if it might hold the answers to the questions circling through her mind.
“You’re opening up to me,” he said with a faint smirk. “Must be the wine loosening your tongue.”
Maybe it was being back on Orchid soil, or maybe it was simply irritating to have her overindulgence called out; either way, the words struck a nerve.
