“I couldn’t sleep,” I said, hating how thin my voice sounded.
His gaze moved over me—not intrusive, not soft. Assessing. Like he was counting things I hadn’t told him.
“Mother’s Night,” he said after a moment. “It has a way of doing that.”
I frowned, turning the cup in my hands. “What do you mean?”
He didn’t answer right away.
“Did you dream?” he asked lightly.
My pulse skidded. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“They call it the night the veil thins,” he said, setting the tray aside. “Not just between life and death—”
His mouth tightened slightly.
“—but between what is and what is coming. Between worlds. Lifetimes.”
The fire cracked sharply. I flinched.
Veyrion watched the flames for a moment before he spoke again. “Long before halls and kings, this was the night mothers prayed for sight. Dreams were said to walk closer to the waking world.”
His gaze flicked—briefly—to my brow, where the crescent mark rested.
“Dreams were recorded,” he went on. “Carved into bone. Pressed into wax. Whispered to iron so they wouldn’t be forgotten by morning.” His eyes stayed on the fire. “Most were nonsense. Some were warnings. A rare few…”
He exhaled slowly.
“…changed everything.”
I took another sip, eyes fixed on the flames, and wondered—uneasily—how many nights like this he had lived through.
The question stabbed through my caution anyway. “Did you dream?”
His expression didn’t change.
But something in him went still. “No,” he said.
Then, after a beat, “I don’t sleep on Mother’s Night anymore.”
I didn’t press.
The loaves were finished by the time the coals burned low, their crusts dark and split, steam ghosting into the air. Veyrion tested one with his knuckle, nodded to himself, then took a knife and cut a thick slice from the nearest loaf.
The crust cracked cleanly. The inside was pale and dense, still steaming. He passed it to me—warm enough that I had to shift it from palm to palm. “Eat,” he said. Not a command. Not a kindness, either.
I hesitated. Then tore off a piece and tasted it.
It was… good. Honeyed and rich, the grain nutty and filling, a faint bite of spice lingering at the back of my tongue. The kind of food meant to anchor you—to keep you in your body when your thoughts wanted to drift somewhere colder.
My shoulders loosened without my permission. “Oh,” I breathed. “That’s—”
I took another bite, slower this time, letting the warmth settle in my chest.
Veyrion said nothing. He turned back to the hearth, adjusting the coals with measured precision.
But I saw it—the way his shoulders eased. The faint almost-smile he didn’t quite let reach his mouth.
