She didn’t pull away or break eye contact.
“Okay,” she said.
I released her wrist. She turned toward the sleeping area and I followed.
We crossed the clearing. Side by side. Close enough that our arms brushed.
Percival’s gaze hit my back first. From the command area, Lucian’s attention followed. They knew even without words that I needed to be alone with Mira.
Because there were other things to treat. Deeper than a scrape, older than a sparring match.
And the words I’d been practicing for weeks pressed against my teeth, demanding to be said.
61
— • —
Solomon
The scrape was not deep.
I cleaned it with antiseptic from the medical kit I’d restocked that morning. Cotton pressed against the wound, solution applied in measured strokes, bandage cut to precise dimensions.
My hands were steady. The rest of me was a disaster.
The den was small. Windbreak on three sides, open at the south-facing entrance, the blanket arrangement I’d rebuilt before dawn creating a contained space that smelled of pine and Mira’s shifting pregnancy hormones and the lingering adrenaline from the fight.
She sat on the bedroll. I knelt beside her. The position put her arm at optimal treatment height and her face at a distance that made focus impossible.
“You’re being very thorough for a scrape,” she said.
“Infection risks increase during pregnancy. Immune response is redirected toward fetal development.”
“Is that from the medical texts or from Farmon?”
“Both.”
Her mouth curved. The scrape was dressed but my hand was still on her arm.
“Solomon.”
“Hm.”
“The scrape is done.”
I released her arm. Packed the medical kit and returned the antiseptic to its compartment with a deliberateness that fooled neither of us.
The den held a silence that pressed against the walls. Outside, camp sounds carried through the windbreak. Percival’s laugh from the training area. Lucian’s voice giving measured instructions. Meanwhile, I was here and couldn’t find a single word.
“You built this for me,” Mira said. Her hand ran across the blanket arrangement, fingertips tracing the pattern I’d folded before dawn. “The blankets, the water, the windbreak. Even the angle of the bedroll.”
“The angle compensates for the grade of the terrain. Without adjustment, gravitational pressure on your lower back would...”
“Solomon.”
I stopped.
“I’m not asking for the engineering report. I’m asking why you won’t say what you actually mean.”
