I still. No one here knows my real name—not even Keiren. But something about what he said, about a name unspoken ceasing to be, stirs something inside me. Dread. Grief. Loneliness.
I shake my head.
“It’s alright, little flame. Thank you for my name.”
“That rhymes,” I murmur, letting out a long yawn.
Drako snorts softly and curls his massive tail around me—not tightly, not to trap me. Just enough to shield. To comfort.
“Do not confuse distance with safety, little flame,” he murmurs. “Fire left unattended either dies… or spreads.”
“Then maybe it should be put out altogether.”
“Oh no, little flame,” he replies. “This one must be tended. And I will help you tend it—until you can do so yourself.”
I nod, understanding the meaning beneath the words.
Utterly exhausted, I let my eyes drift shut.
The last thing I remember is his breath—slow and steady—and the warm scent of embers.
Fall has settled deep into the bones of the world. The orchard no longer hums with life; it exhales it. Bare branches claw at a pewter sky, the last leaves clinging like embers waiting for frost to finish the work. The air smells of rain and woodsmoke, damp earth and the faint sweetness of fruit left to rot beneath the trees. Somewhere beyond the rows, a brook murmurs under a thin skin of ice.
It’s hard to believe that nearly five months have passed since the Bloodmoon—since I was chosen. Harder still to accept that it’s been only one since Cassy’s death. A whole month I haven’t spoken to Keiren, refusing his every attempt to reach for me. I expected the grief to dull with time, but it’s only sharpened, cutting deeper the longer I carry it, eating me alive.
The need to rid myself of it drives me back into the garden. Back tohim.
He stands beneath the skeletal arch of an apple tree, his pruning shears glinting in one hand, his cloak dark against the gray morning. He moves with quiet purpose—cutting, trimming,discarding what’s withered so that something new might one day grow.
He hasn’t noticed me yet. Or maybe he has but is giving me time to decide whether I’m ready to break the unbearable silence stretching between us.
I want to flee back into the keep. I want to turn away, every fear and insecurity screaming at me to run—but I’m tired of running. Tired of feeling like this.
I take a step forward, intentionally snapping a twig beneath my boot.
The sound is sharp in the quiet.
When he finally looks up, sunlight fractures through the branches, striking beams of gold through his dark hair.
He stills.
“Hi,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Hello, Fire,” he breathes, his breath coiling in the air like fog.
The word sounds strange on his tongue now.
He takes a few steps toward me, stopping just as I instinctively shift back. His eyes search my face, as if he’s afraid of what he might find there.
“Are you well?” he asks quietly.
It’s a simple question. It shouldn’t hurt.
But the way he looks at me—as if it’s taking everything in him not to cross the distance and pull me into his arms—makes my chest ache.
His hair has grown longer, untrimmed. A faint shadow darkens his jaw. He looks tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. Human. Vulnerable.
I nod.
