The words hung there, heavier than I intended.
His eyes softened, the gold dimming to amber.
He reached for a cloth, then seemed to change his mind. “Sit. I’ll make tea.”
He brewed it in a small metal pot over a heat cell. The scent was sharp and smoky, like pine mixed with citrus. When he handed me a cup, our fingers brushed. The warmth shot up my arm.
I took a sip. It burned—in a good way. “You made this from mountain herbs?”
He nodded. “For sleep. Or to pretend it.”
We sat across from each other at the workbench, the light between us soft and green. Rygnar asked about my life before the convoy. I told him about courier routes between enclaves—rusted bridges, markets in old parking structures, and the constant negotiation between survival and something that almost resembled civilization.
“Eight years since the war ended,” I said, “and most of the planet still feels like a salvage yard. If the cyborgs hadn’t come back, I don’t think we’d have made it.”
He listened without interruption. “Your kind always rebuild,” he said. “It is what I admired most.”
“Admired?” I echoed. “You mean admire.”
He looked down at his cup, the smallest curve of his mouth betraying a smile. “Perhaps.”
Silence followed, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. The hum of the vents filled the space we didn’t need to.
When I finished the tea, he reached to take the cup. Our hands met again—slower this time.
I didn’t pull away.
Instead, I let my thumb graze the back of his hand, testing the absence of fear. He didn’t move.
“Your skin’s warm,” I said quietly. “I didn’t expect that.”
His eyes lifted to mine. “We are not what you expected.”
“No,” I said. “You’re not.”
The moment held, delicate as spun glass.
Then he turned his hand over and, very gently, closed his fingers around mine. Not claiming. Not testing. Just… acknowledging.
“You should rest,” he said after a long moment. “Tomorrow will be harder.”
“Harder how?”
“Veklan wants patrols sent to the passes. Raiders do not vanish with the war. They wait.”
“Then you’ll need another fast healer,” I said. “Good thing you have one.”
His thumb brushed my knuckles before he let go. “Good thing,” he said softly.
Later, lying in the narrow alcove, I could still smell the mountain tea on my hands.
The chamber lights dimmed to starlight, but my mind refused to settle.
Rygnar’s voice replayed in the quiet—measured, careful, and threaded with regret. And beneath it, something warmer I hadn’t expected to find in a world still healing.
I closed my eyes and saw him as he’d looked in the green light: the shimmer along his scales like candlelight on water, the steady rhythm of his breath, and the kindness in hands once trained for harm.
I liked him.
