That disarms me more than concern would have.
He sits up, smooth and controlled, giving me space without putting distance between us. I follow a second later, propping myself against the wall. The movement pulls the blanket down from my shoulder, exposing the curve of my collarbone to the cool morning air. I tug it back automatically.
His gaze doesn’t linger. That, too, feels intentional.
“Did we make things more complicated?” I ask before I can talk myself out of it.
The question hangs between us, stripped of accusation but heavy with everything I don’t say. The city. The people. The children. The way one choice can cascade into a hundred others.
Korr considers me for a long moment. Not weighing his answer—he already knows it—but deciding how to give it.
“No,” he says finally.
Just that.
I search his face for qualifiers. For hesitation. For the subtle tightening that would mean he’s already regretting something. There’s nothing. I let my breath slip out slowly and nod.
He reaches for his boots, pulling them on with efficient movements. The familiar rhythm grounds me, even as I feel the echo of his arm at my waist linger like a phantom touch.
“I should check the perimeter,” he says, glancing toward the doorway.
Of course he should. He always does.
I nod. “I’ll get the kids up.”
He pauses, boot half-laced, and looks at me again. There’s something careful in his expression—not fear, not doubt, but restraint.
“Thank you,” he says.
“For what?”
“For not retreating,” he replies simply.
I swallow, throat tight, and force myself to meet his gaze.
“I don’t do that anymore,” I say, surprised to find that it’s true.
A corner of his mouth lifts into not quite a smile, but close enough that it warms something low in my chest.
“Good,” he says.
He stands, towering and solid. The soft morning light illuminates his green skin, breaking across the ivory of his tusks. He hesitates as if considering something else. For a fleeting second, I think he might lean down. Touch my face. Press his forehead to mine.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he inclines his head in a gesture that feels oddly intimate for its restraint and steps toward the doorway. As he leaves, the space he vacates feels different than it did yesterday. Not emptier, changed.
I sit for a moment longer, listening to his footsteps fade, my body humming with awareness and something akin to certainty. Wedidn’t pull away. We didn’t pretend. And for the first time I don’t feel like I need to rebuild my armor before standing up.
Illadon wakes, interrupting any further thought. He stirs with a subtle shift. He’s learned to surface from sleep already listening. I notice it because I’m watching for it, because the room has that fragile stillness where even small changes feel amplified.
He sits up slowly, rubbing a hand over his face, wings stretching once before folding tight again. His gaze sweeps the room automatically. Exit. Shadows. Rverre.
Then it lands on me.
His eyes flick to the space beside me, to the imprint in the dust where Korr had been moments before. To the blanket pulled up around my shoulders. To my posture, upright but unguarded in a way I haven’t allowed myself in years.
He gives a single, almost imperceptible nod, as if logging a fact rather than forming an opinion. Then he shifts closer to Rverre and nudges her awake with the back of his fingers, gentle and practiced.
