"In Valdara," she said slowly, "grief is private."
"In Valdara, many things are private that should not be." Thessaly reached for her own cup. "You keep your pain hidden because showing it would be weakness. You carry your dead alone because asking for help would be burden. You wall yourself away from the people who might hold you up, and then you wonder why you are so tired."
"I didn't ask for—"
"No. You did not ask." Thessaly's voice softened. "You told Brenneth about your brother because you needed to know about the pass. You told Targesh because you needed him to take youthere. You have not once asked anyone to share the weight of what you carry. You have only asked for information."
Verity's throat closed. She could not speak.
"But we are not Valdaran," Thessaly continued. "We do not wait to be asked. When someone is wounded, we tend them. When someone is grieving, we sit with them. When someone is walking toward something that will break them open—" She leaned forward, her braids clicking softly. "We make sure they do not walk alone."
Delia's hand found Verity's knee. The touch was warm through the fabric of her dress.
"It's strange at first," Delia said quietly. "Being known. I spent my whole life trying to be invisible, and then I came here and—" She shook her head. "They see everything. They smell everything. There's no hiding."
"I don't know how to do this." Verity's voice came out rough. "I don't know how to grieve in front of people."
"You don't have to know." Thessaly rose from her chair and moved to the worktable. "You just have to let it happen. The rest will follow."
She returned with a small leather pouch, pressing it into Verity's free hand.
"For the journey. Willowbark for pain. Dried ginger for nausea. A salve for blisters." Her fingers closed over Verity's, holding firm. "And if you need to weep in the pass, weep. Targesh will not think less of you. The mountain will not judge you. Your brother's bones will not care if you are composed."
Verity's eyes burned. She blinked hard, but the tears came anyway, sliding down her cheeks and dripping onto her hands where they clutched the cup and the pouch and the impossible kindness of strangers who refused to let her carry this alone.
Thessaly did not look away. Neither did Delia.
They sat with her while she cried.
The following days passed in a blur of preparation.
Verity learned to layer wool and leather in the correct order. She practiced walking in the heavy boots until her calves stopped protesting. She packed and repacked the saddlebags Brenneth had provided, arranging supplies according to Thessaly's instructions: food accessible, medical kit at the top, spare clothing wrapped in oiled cloth against moisture.
She did not sleep in her own quarters.
The first night, she had meant to. She had returned from Thessaly's with swollen eyes and a chest that felt scraped hollow, and she had thought she needed solitude. Time to compose herself. Space to rebuild the walls that kept her functional.
Targesh found her in the archives at third watch.
He did not speak. He stood in the doorway until she looked up from the document she was not actually reading, and then he held out his hand.
She went with him.
His quarters were warm, the fire banked low, the furs on his bed turned back as though he had been waiting. He undressed her with efficient hands and pulled her against his chest and held her while she shook with something that was not quite grief and not quite relief and not quite anything she had a name for.
They did not have sex that night. He held her until she slept, and when she woke before dawn, he was still there, his arm heavy across her waist, his breath stirring her hair.
The second night, she did not pretend she was going anywhere else.
She brought her journal to his quarters after dinner and worked at his table while he reviewed patrol reports. The scratchof her pen and the rustle of his papers filled the silence. When the candles burned low, he closed his reports and looked at her across the table.
"Enough," he said.
She set down her pen.
He took her to bed and mapped her body with his hands, learning the places that made her gasp and the places that made her laugh and the places that made her go silent and still with want. He brought her to the edge twice before he finally pushed inside her, and when she shattered around him, he followed her over with a sound that vibrated through her bones.
Afterward, she lay against his chest and listened to his heartbeat slow.
