His gaze drops to my mouth, only for a heartbeat, but it’s enough to send a current skimming across my skin.
“Wait up!” I pull back too fast, voice louder than necessary as I call to Griff and Kane.
Behind me, I hear Rowe’s quiet exhale, followed by his measured footsteps.
Griff’s laughter rings throughthe open-beamed hall, bouncing off timber and vine-draped rafters, loud and utterly unashamed. It draws grins and raised glasses from every direction. He doesn’t command attention so much as invite it, his broad-shouldered charisma tangled with irreverent charm. It’s a far cry from the curated dominance of Eclipsera. Here, energy replaces calculation, and authenticity trumps performance.
I end up wedged between Griff and Kane at one of the long, candlelit tables, the bench worn smooth by years of shared meals and louder nights. The air thrums with genuine camaraderie. For once, I’m not bracing for veiled barbs, or reading subtext between mouthfuls, only food, people and . . . this. Kane is nearly unrecognizable. His usual sharpness unraveling into something looser. He seems younger, even boyish. And I wonder, not for the first time, how much of him was carved by survival rather than nature.
“—so there’s Rowe, right?” Griff gestures wildly, nearly upending three mugs in the process. “Our resident beast whisperer, trying to convince a baby Moonmare that his organic oat blend was a viable substitute for literal starlight. Like,actualstarlight. As if the damn thing was going to be moved by protein ratios and mineral charts.”
“You’re making it sound worse than it was,” Rowe mutters from across the table, but the tips of his ears are turning pink. “The oats were perfectly reasonable.”
“Oh yeah?” Griff’s eyes dance with unholy glee. “So that wasn’t you yelling, ‘Griff, help me, this demon is eating my jacket!’ while being dragged face-first through mud beds?” He spins to the others. “Also, it tried to chew off his hair. Apparently, the pretentious shampoo smells like moonflower nectar.”
Kane leans forward, clearly invested. “Please continue.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Rowe warns, though a thread of amusement slips into his tone. “Some of us actually take our work seriously.”
“Oh, he’sveryserious,” Griff stage-whispers to me. “The lectures on proper creature etiquette? Full-day affairs. We have trauma.”
A woman passing behind us snorts into her drink. “Better that than the drama of his morning ritual. You should see him when theWhispersilkarrives. Nobody’s allowed near the paper until he’s done ‘checking the headlines.’”
Rowe’s spoon clinks sharply against his bowl. “Lisa, don’t you have a habitat rotation tonight?”
“Already handled,” she chirps, leaning against a support column with a wolfish grin. “Funny how the same pages disappear every week. Especially the ones with certain profiles and event photos.” She casts a knowing look at me.
“I don’t know what you’re implying,” Rowe mutters, ears now fully crimson. “Those pages are useful. Operational awareness.”
Griff looks moments away from combusting. “He nearly took out Simon last week when he reached for the paper first. Poor guy just wanted to check the sports news.” He shifts conspiratorially toward me. “And Rowe keeps the clippings. Every one. Catalogued, protected, stored like sacred relics.”
Rowe slouches further, his posture suddenly very interested in the structural integrity of the flagstone floor. And that’s when it hits me—this is who he is here. Not the heir to Eclipsera’s most severelegacy, not Alexander Darkmoor’s shadow, but a man whose people love him openly. Who endures their teasing without retreating into power. He governs through trust, not threat. Devotion, not fear.
They aren’t his subordinates, they’re his kin; needling him, challenging him, drinking beside him without deference and without distance. And for the first time in longer than I can remember, it warms something in me I thought had long since died.
Stories pour out like wine, passed from mouth to mouth along the glowing stretch of tables. Accents bleed into laughter, some tales grand and dramatic, others mundane in the best way. I catch only fragments: burned spells, smuggled creatures, first loves under moonlight. It all blurs as the warmth in my limbs yields to the slow weight of exhaustion.
“—and I told him, you can’t rewire a synthetic core without containment protocols—”
“At least in Helisvein they let you experiment. Try getting approval in Vairen when the elders are in session—”
The sounds blur, and I lean into the moment, letting it carry me, wishing I could bottle the strange serenity rising beneath my ribs. There’s peace in this place.
“—swear the void hounds actually understood what I was saying—”
The hall’s warmth seeps into my limbs, soothing the tension buried in my bones. The quiet hum of conversation, and the gentle clatter of dishes, lull me into a haze too soft to resist.
A boot brushes mine beneath the table.
“You okay?” Kane’s voice is barely audible, pitched low enough to shield it from the rest.
“Mhm. Just tired,” I murmur, forcing my eyes to refocus. Even the simple act of staying upright feels like an effort I didn’t consent to make.
Across the table, Rowe is already watching. Of course he is. That familiar crease has settled between his browsagain. He sees too much, always has. Even now, after years apart and worlds between us, he can read my fatigue before I’ve acknowledged it myself.
The conversation drifts again, but something in Griff’s voice draws my attention back. He’s talking about his homeland, but there’s a shadow behind his eyes.
“Born and raised in the Wastes,” he says, and for a moment that darkness lingers. Then it’s gone, buried beneath his trademark grin. “Where we solve problems with either fists or drinks. Sometimes both. Nobody cares which fork you stab your dinner with, as long as the food’s dead.”
