They spoke in whispers—if they spoke at all—too hushed to reach us. But I felt them glancing my way. Quick looks. Curious ones. Filippos’s ears went red every time we locked eyes. Dorian tripped when I caught him watching me.
The fire cracked again, sounding weary. Its glow caught the edge of the metal clasp at my wrist, bending into crooked, dancing shadows that crawled up my arm.
Mother’s plate lay untouched by her feet. She hadn’t so much as picked at it.
Grigorios stood and crouched near her, bowl in hand. “At least take something warm,” he said gently, offering it toward her. “Just a little.”
She shook her head, her eyes fixed on the trees like she was waiting for something to step out of the dark and call her by name.
Grigorios hesitated. Then, softer—“You’ll need your strength, Hestia. Morning’s a long way off.”
His brown eyes glimmered as he stared at her face. It took me a moment to recognize what I was seeing. The fondness in his eyes. That faint, aching pull beneath his words.
He wasn’t just worried. He wasyearning. For her. For my mother.
Gods.
She didn’t even look at him. Just gave the slightest nod … like swatting at a gnat.
Grigorios soaked up her acknowledgment like a dying flower chasing the last drop of sunlight. His eyes clung to her face, wide, unblinking, as if he’d never seen anything he’d wanted more and couldn’t bear to look away. I shifted, uneasy. Pity stirred in my chest. He wanted what he could never have. Her heart belonged to someone else … and it always would.
He stared a moment longer before his shoulders sagged, and he dropped his gaze to the fire like it shamed him.
I bit into the maza because my mother wouldn’t. It collapsed like ash in my mouth, dry and bitter as dust.
The fire burned low, and my thoughts scattered like birds startled from the brush, wild, frantic, refusing to settle. They shot through worst-case endings and twisted paths, always wheeling back to the same bleak center.
What would tomorrow bring?
The question gnawed at the edges of everything, consuming any moment of stillness.
I stood. My legs were stiff, my knees popping as I moved past the dying firelight so that I could get some privacy just behind theokhèma. The cold bit lower out here, past the fire’s reach. I crouched just beyond the line of warmth and pulled up my cloak, relieving myself with one eye on the woods, my skin crawling like it expected something to lunge. The trees pressed close—silent, watching. When I finished, I stood too fast, half hoping the ache in my thighs would chase the unease away.
It didn’t.
I turned and caught sight of the injured jergin, still tethered near the edge of camp. Its foot was wrapped in linen, dark with seepage. Its eyes tracked me lazily. A piece of the maza was still in my cloak pocket, and I flung it toward the beast, needing it to gain its strength back.
It landed beside its claws. The jergin sniffed it once, then dragged its thick tongue over the crumbs with a wet, sucking sound. Grotesque. It licked again,slower this time—then looked up. Its eyes locked on mine, like it was imagining me as dessert.
I stepped back, spine tightening.
By the time I returned to the fire, my mother had already lain down, her eyes closed, and her face turned away. I eased down beside her, drawing my cloak tight around my shoulders. The ground was cold and unforgiving beneath me, rocks and roots digging into my spine, but it didn’t matter. This was what we had—wool and silence.
The servants murmured a few paces away, keeping watch as they were ordered, their silhouettes barely visible against the trees. One sat up straighter when I glanced over, as if to reassure me they were still alert.
Grigorios sat cross-legged just beyond the fire’s glow, his back to us. His blade whispered against the whetstone in a steady rhythm, catching glints of firelight with each pass. He watched everything—the flames, the tree line, my mother—in a silent, methodical loop.
But even with him there, alert and armed, I didn’t feel safe.
I stared up at the sky. There were no stars. Just the pitch-black canopy looming over us like it wanted to smother us. The twisted branches clawed at the darkness, reaching like they wanted to tear something down. They didn’t move. Not even a whisper of wind stirred them, like the forest had warned it off. I wondered if the storm we’d left behind was still raging beyond the trees, and what damage it had done to our village.
There wasn’t any sound but the grind of steel and the faint twitch of my mother’s breath beside me.
She was curled tight, like something folding in on itself. We hadn’t slept this close in years … not since I was a girl who still reached for her without thinking. There was no comfort in her nearness now. Just heat shared out of necessity.
But I let myself pretend for a breath, pretend her warmth was a shield instead of a reminder of everything we weren’t.
My eyes burned, but I refused to close them. Calismae’s voice rang insistently in my mind:Lower your gaze just enough. Let them think you’re soft. Blush if you can make yourself. Tilt your head when you lie—it makes it sweeter. Make them talk. Make them confident. Then take what you need.
