Before we return to the academy, before we figure out what comes next—
We need each other first.
Chapter 7
Kieran
I’ve been awake for hours.
Maybe longer. Time moves strangely in Japti — the light never quite changes, the air stays warm and still, and I’ve lost track of how many times we’ve slept and woken and slept again.
Days. Its been days since the Gate. Since the shadows passed through. Since she collapsed in my arms and I carried her here, to the furs by the hot spring, and held her while she cried herself unconscious.
She’s still asleep.
Curled against my chest, her breath warm and slow against my throat. Her face is softer in sleep — the grief lines smoothed out, the tension in her jaw finally eased.
She’s been cycling between crying and unconscious for what feels like an eternity. Last night — or what passed for last night — we bathed her in the hot spring. All of us. Gentle hands washing blood and ash from her skin, removing the salt from her hair, holding her steady when her legs gave out.
She fell asleep before I finished rinsing her hair.
I carried her to the furs. Wrapped her in warmth. Held her while the others settled around us in a protective circle.
And now I can’t move.
Not because I’m injured. Not because I’m trapped.
Because I’m terrified that if I let go, she’ll vanish again.
The way she did centuries ago. The way I’ve dreamed about for hundreds of years — when we finally made it to the Valkyries that night and I couldn’t find her, leaving me alone with the weight of everything I couldn’t stop.
Even now, unconscious, she twitches. Restless. Running from something in her dreams.
I smooth my hand down her spine. A slow, steady stroke.
“Shh,” I murmur. “I’m here. You’re safe.”
She settles. Just barely. Her fingers curl tighter into my shirt.
I don’t move.
I hardly breathe.
I just hold her.
The others are already awake.
I hear them moving quietly at the edges of my awareness.
They’re giving us space.
I don’t know when they left. Don’t know what silent agreement passed between them. But one by one, they slipped away — Finn and Malrik first, whispering something I didn’t catch. Torric gesturing toward the Valkyrie hall before disappearing into its shadows. Darian going silently, without looking back.
Aspen was last.
He paused at the edge of the furs, looked at me with those ice-blue eyes that see too much, and nodded once.
You need this. She needs this. We’re giving you space.
