She used to do this at the Academy. That night after the combat trial, when I carried her back to her quarters and she pretended to be furious the whole way. Kicked her legs. Called me names. Laughed into my shoulder when she thought I couldn’t hear.
I heard.
I hear her now.
We skid to a stop and I nearly crash into the tree. Ash yelps, her fingers digging into my waist, and when I spin her around to set her down she’s breathless and flushed and?—
Her eyes flash green. Full green, no whites, like the forest looked through her for just a second.
Then it’s gone.
“Flame lord wins again!” Whispen races around my head then back to the others.
Laughter doesn’t just spill around us. It lightens the grove. The feeling of being lost in a world I’ve called home for far too long finally, finally loosening its grip.
My hands don’t leave her waist. Not yet. She’s still catching her breath, still smiling, and her hair?—
Did it just shimmer? Silver at the edges, like moonlight caught in the strands?
I blink. It’s brown again. Normal. Human.
But my hands felt a shift beneath her skin. The thorns, maybe. No, this is more like the glamour finally falling away.
She doesn’t notice. Too busy laughing, too busy being present, too busy forgetting to hold herself like she’s bracing for a hit.
I notice. The shimmer. The shift. The woman underneath finally surfacing.
A tall wildling sets Tiana down gently, her smile stretching across her face. “What an absurd game.”
Ash wiggles out of my grip.
I don’t want her to, so maybe I hold onto the seam of her pants a little longer.
Sue me.
“Catch the queen.” Ash shakes her head as she struggles to catch her breath, hands on her hips, a twinkle in her eyes. Once, twice I swear they flash green again and her hair turns a shade of silver, or pink. I’m not completely sure.
Then it’s gone and she’s tilting her head in question.
How do I tell her that for a second, a very brief second, I saw her? The true Fae version beneath the human mask. That she’s blinking in and out of existence. The queen she’s becoming, whether she’s ready for it or not.
“Well,” Kestra heaves, Jadeve setting her down gently. “I for one find it—” She clears her throat when Jadeve steps too close. Again. He’s been doing that a lot lately.
“Come now,” Jadeve grabs her by the waist, leaning down to whisper against her hair.
Their intimacy carves a hole in my chest so sharp I have to look away.
Ash and I had that. Once. For a handful of weeks that felt like a lifetime.
Before Moros stole her. Before I spent a month bleeding through the borderlands trying to reach her. Before the Cauldron was ripped from my chest and I realized I’d been guarding her so hard I forgot to guard anyone else.
The scouts in the eastern quadrant. I still don’t know their names.
But I know hers. I know the exact pitch of her laugh. I know which shoulder she favors when she’s tired and the specific way her breathing changes when she’s about to cry but won’t let herself.
I know her. And I want her back so badly it’s eating me alive.
I turn to Ash.
