IRIS
The Arborium’s archive smells like lavender oil and old paper, like pressed petals and warm sunlight filtered through leaves. It’s quieter than Mythara—less humming tech, fewer pressure-sealed vaults and runespark terminals—but I don’t miss the grandeur.
Not really.
Not when I get to walk home every night through firefly-lit gardens and into Garrik’s arms.
The archive itself is tucked inside a living tree the size of a cathedral, with braided walkways winding around the trunk and bioluminescent moss spelling out the catalog index. Every day, a different student from the Arborium’s academy comes by to practice translating old field notes from the early terraforming era. Every day, I sip honeyed tea from the meadery while Garrik’s sister drops off gossip and unsolicited advice about wedding rituals.
Which she insists are different thanmatingrituals. Apparently those involve feathers. And ropes.
And a lot of very ceremonial honey.
Garrik turns the color of ripe plums every time it comes up.
Today, though, we’re curled together on a café balcony in Fablegrove, piecing through an encoded botanical logbook with four missing pages and a map that shouldn’t exist. My legs are draped across his lap, his arm warm around my shoulders, and even though he keeps insisting he doesn’t deserve this—this peace, this love, this life—he keeps reaching for me like he’s terrified I’ll vanish if he stops.
Garrik hums now and then as I read, low and content, his chin resting lightly against the side of my head. His fingers move in lazy patterns through my hair, combing through the curls at the nape of my neck with slow reverence, like he can’t help it.
I’m talking—rambling, really—about the strange sequence in the book’s margin. “See, this part doesn’t match the rest of the log. It’s older. More ritualistic. And if it’s referencing the Arborium’s western quadrant, that means either the plant was moved—or we’ve been cataloging its species origin wrong for, like…four hundred years.”
His hand slows.
I look up, expecting a frown, a furrowed brow, maybe one of his skeptical expressions—the ones I secretly love because they mean he’s about to challenge me, ask for sources, make me explain myself.
But he’s not doing any of that.
He’s just staring.
At me.
My words falter. “What?”
Garrik blinks, like I’ve pulled him from a dream. “Hm?”
“You’re staring,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “Am I boring you?”
His lips twitch. “Never.”
I raise a skeptical brow.
He leans in, brushing his nose along my temple in that slow, contented way he does when he thinks I’m too distractedto notice. “You could talk about soil composition for the next hour, and I’d still be exactly where I am. Listening. Holding you. Wanting to kiss you every time you take a breath.”
Heat blooms under my skin, slow and sweet and settling low in my belly.
“Okay,” I murmur. “But what if Ireallystart talking about soil?”
He kisses the edge of my jaw. “Then I’ll learn everything I can, just so I can keep up.”
I close the book.
Just—thunk—right there against the table, ignoring the flutter of loose papers still tucked between its pages. Because Garrik’s looking at me like I’m the most fascinating thing in the entire archive, and I’ve had enough of pretending this logbook matters more than the way he just saidwanting to kiss you every time you take a breath.
I shift in his lap, swinging my legs around so I can face him, knees bracketing his hips. He blinks up at me, startled and already flushed, antennae twitching with that particular brand of bashful affection I’ll never get tired of provoking.
I reach up to touch his face, cupping his jaw with both hands. His beard is soft under my thumbs, and his lips part just slightly as I lean in.
“Hi,” I whisper, kissing the tip of his nose.
