Silence. But comfortable now. Easy.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “When you froze earlier. I wasn’t sure if I should have stopped.”
“You asked. That was the right thing.” I traced patterns on his chest, following the black lines. “It happens sometimes. The past intruding on the present. It’s less frequent now than it used to be.”
“Does it help to talk about it?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes it just helps to be reminded where I am.” I laid my hand over his heart, feeling it beat. “Who I’m with.”
He covered my hand with his. “I’ll always remind you. As many times as you need.”
The promise settled into my bones. Simple. Certain. Real.
“The claiming,” I said eventually. “What happens after? You said your sigils would mark my skin.”
“They would. A permanent mark, matching mine.” He traced patterns on my shoulder, absent and gentle. “And we’d be bonded. Not full telepathy, but I’d feel what you feel. You’d feel what I feel. Constant. Both directions.”
“That doesn’t scare you? Someone else in your head?”
He was quiet for a moment. I could feel him thinking, the rise and fall of his chest slow and steady beneath my cheek.
“I’ve spent my whole life alone in my head,” he said finally. “Even with my brothers. Even when we’re working together, fighting together, there’s a separation. A distance I can’t close.” His hand stilled on my shoulder. “The idea of someone else there, someone I chose, someone who chose me back... it sounds like relief.”
“Like not being alone anymore.”
“Yes.”
I lifted my head. Found his eyes in the darkness.
“I see you,” I said. “The assassin and the orphan. The ghost who doesn’t know how to stop haunting his own life. I see all of it.”
“And?”
“And I’m still here.”
He pulled me closer. Pressed his lips to my forehead. When he spoke, his voice was rough.
“I see you too,” he said. “The survivor who learned how to grow things. The woman who stabbed her way to freedom and then built something worth defending. The person who let me in when she had every reason not to.” He paused. “I see you, Anhara. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“Even if we don’t survive tomorrow?”
“Especially then.” His hand found my face, tilting it up so I could see his eyes. “Whatever happens on that ridge, whatever comes through those trees, I’ll find my way back to you. That’s not a hope. It’s a fact.”
I kissed him. Softer than before. A seal on the promise.
The stars were coming out through the window. The moon was rising, marking the hours until midnight. Until the sequence began.
We had four hours until we had to separate, until we had to become operators instead of lovers, until the weight of the world came crashing back down.
“Again?” I asked.
He pulled me closer.
“Again.”
I woke first.
The outside world was dark. An hour before we’d need to move. The house was quiet in that way it only got in the middle of the night, when life came to a halt.
