"She sounds brave."
"She was." Present tense feels wrong, but past tense hurts too much. "She taught me that healing takes different courage than fighting. That choosing to mend instead of break isn't weakness."
Ressa's eyes open fully, focusing on me with surprising clarity despite the alcohol. "You're like her. Brave in ways most people don't recognize."
The observation lands heavy in my chest. "I'm just a healer."
"No." Her grip tightens on my wrist. "You're someone who sees broken things and chooses to help instead of walk away. That's not 'just' anything."
I don't have words for what her perspective does to my understanding of myself. So I just sit there while she watches me with those warm eyes that see too clearly, even drunk.
Eventually her breathing evens out into the deeper rhythm of actual sleep. Her hand loosens around my wrist but doesn't fully release, like even unconscious she's maintaining that connection between us.
I should leave. Let her sleep and go back to my own quarters and pretend this evening didn't fundamentally shift something in how I understand what's happening between us.
Instead I sit there watching her sleep, cataloging the way firelight plays across her features, how her expression softens without the constant wariness she carries.
Beautiful. Complicated. Trusting me in ways that terrify and warm me simultaneously.
I'm completely, irrevocably in trouble.
When I finally extract my wrist carefully from her sleep-loosened grip and stand, my legs protest the prolonged position on the floor. I pull the blanket higher around her shoulders, making sure she's warm and secure, then force myself toward the door.
Outside, cold air hits my overheated thoughts like physical shock. I stand there breathing fog into the darkness while trying to organize the chaos of realizations from tonight into something manageable.
I need to talk to someone. Need outside perspective before I do something catastrophically stupid like confess feelings to a woman who's still healing from trauma and trusts me specifically because I've maintained professional boundaries.
Kai. I need to talk to Kai.
I find him still awake in the quarters he shares with Saela, his brows furrowed when he opens the door. He takes one look at my face and gestures toward the two seats in front of his fire.
"That kind of night?" he asks.
"Yes." I sink into the chair and drop my head into my hands. "I'm in trouble."
"Ressa?"
"Yes."
Kai makes a sound that might be sympathy or understanding or both. "Tell me."
So I do. All of it—the festival days watching her slowly open up, tonight's confessions, how it felt carrying her home and staying until she slept. The terrifying realization that somewhere between clinical concern and friendship, I've developed feelings that complicate everything.
Kai listens without interruption, his expression shifting through recognition and understanding. When I finish, he's quiet for several long seconds.
"You're fucked," he finally says.
"I know."
"But not in the way you think." He leans forward, firelight casting shadows across his features. "I went through this with Saela during the Valentine Rites. Spent weeks telling myself it was just circumstance, just proximity, just anything except what it actually was."
"Which was?"
"Falling for someone who terrified me because I couldn't control it." His mouth quirks slightly. "Couldn't protect myself from it or predict where it would lead. She didn't want me and had made that clear. I eventually decided I just had to feel it and hope she'd eventually feel something similar."
The description lands too accurately. "Ressa's not ready for this. She's still healing."
"Yes."
