And it was alive with celebration.
“What is this?” I breathed, taking in the whirl of activity around us.
“The Harvest Moon Festival,” Nimor said, his form solid and stable since Eltrien’s intervention. “I’d forgotten it was tonight.”
“Of course it is,” Peeble muttered. “Because arriving at rebel headquarters during a massive public festival is exactly the kind of tactical brilliance I’ve come to expect from this operation.”
“The Hunt won’t breach our defenses here,” Kaelren said, though his carved marks pulsed with tension that had nothing to do with external threats. “Not tonight. Even they respect certain boundaries.”
His eyes met mine across the space between us, and I felt the echo of the dream—the waterfall, the promises, the way he’d looked at me like I was something he wanted to devour and worship in equal measure.
Two days of walking. Two days of wanting. Two days of knowing exactly what we’d do to each other if we could just touch without consequences.
The festival spread before us like a test, like a dare, like an inevitabilitywe’d been careening toward since the moment we’d woken tangled together on monastery moss.
“Well,” Peeble said with obvious glee, “this is definitely going to end badly. Shall we?”
But I barely heard them. The scene before me was overwhelming in its strange beauty. Insect drummers created rhythms that seemed to bypass my ears and go straight to my bones. Florakith acrobats twisted through the air on silk ribbons, their wings catching the light like stained glass. Tables groaned under the weight of feasts—glowing fruits I’d never seen, sweets that looked like they were enchanted, bread that released luminous steam.
It was magical. It was impossible. And it made mychest ache with a homesickness so sharp I had to catch my breath.
“Elle?” Kaelren’s voice, closer than expected.
“It reminds me of the county fair,” I said, not looking at him. “Grandma Jo used to take me every summer. The lights, the music, the chaos of it all. Except there the biggest attraction was a butter sculpture of a cow, not…” I gestured at a performer who appeared to be juggling balls of living light.
Through our bond, I felt his conflict—wanting to comfort but not knowing how, not without touching, not without risking another reality-warping moment.
“We should find quarters,” he said instead, falling back on practicality. “Rest while we can.”
But the moment we entered the festival proper, the crew began to scatter like seeds on the wind.
Bryx immediately got pulled into some kind of game involving thrown daggers and moving targets, his laughter bright and genuine. Vashael drifted toward where Nimor stood watching the acrobats, and I saw her hand brush his—deliberate, testing. His form solidified further at the touch, and something passed between them that made me look away.
Sarnyx remained with us, but she was on high alert, watching the crowd like a bomb was about to detonate.
“I need to check our supplies,” she said abruptly. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Then she was gone, leaving Kaelren and me standing awkwardly at the edge of the celebration.
“You should enjoy it,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. “We don’t get many nights like this.”
“What about you?”
“I need to report to the other cell leaders. Explain…” He gestured vaguely at me, at the flowers that had started growing around my feet without my conscious input. “This.”
“Right. The anomaly needs explaining.”
“Elle—”
“Go,” I said, sharper than intended. “Do your rebel leader thing. I’ll trynot to accidentally transform reality while you’re gone.”
He hesitated, and through our bond, I felt words he wanted to say but couldn’t. Then he was gone, his corruption leaving cold spots in the warm festival air.
“Well,” Peeble announced, landing on my shoulder with a metallic chime. “That was sufficiently awkward. Should we find something to eat, or would you prefer to stand here growing increasingly elaborate depression flowers?”
I looked down. The flowers around my feet had turned blue—not midnight like the cosmos, but a deep, melancholic blue that hurt to look at.
“Food,” I decided. “And maybe something to drink that will make me forget I’m apparently stuck in a cosmic shit show.”
