“Probably not.”
“Fair enough.” He tucks the cloth away. “Let me know when the next round starts. I’ll be ready.”
Finnian doesn’t touch me. Just sits close enough that I can feel his warmth, his presence, the steady pulse of the Crown beneath his temples that I’ve learned to sense.
“For what it’s worth,” he says quietly, “I don’t think you’re a domino.”
“You literally just said?—”
“I said perhaps. I’m an academic. We hedge so aggressively it’s basically lying.” His mouth quirks. “What I believe is that you made impossible choices under impossible circumstances. And you’re still here. Still fighting. Still trying to be better.” His eyes find mine. “That’s not a domino. That’s a person. A person who’s harder on herself than anyone else would ever think to be.”
“That’s not?—”
“It is.” His voice softens. “You think you’re unforgivable because you haven’t forgiven yourself. But Ash, you’re the only one still keeping score.”
I don’t have words for that.
So I lean into him instead. Let my shoulder press against his. Feel him exhale like he’s been holding his breath for hours.
Maybe he has been. Every time I spiral, he holds back. Waits. Calculates the right moment to offer something that won’t make me bolt.
That’s Finnian. Centuries of patience deployed in the service of loving someone who doesn’t know how to accept it.
The forest has gone quiet around us.
Not dangerous quiet. Waiting quiet. Like even the trees know we’re changing.
We’re still on the ground. Still tangled together in ways that would be impossible to explain to anyone who wasn’t us. Kieran’s hand still in my hair. Orion’s thigh pressed against mine. Finnian’s shoulder warm under my cheek.
Four people. One mess. No one pulling away.
“We should make camp,” Kieran says, but he doesn’t move.
“Probably,” Orion agrees, also not moving.
“The tavern’s only a few more hours,” Finnian adds. “We could push through.”
No one responds. The option hangs in the air like a question no one wants to answer.
If we stop, the tension breaks. One way or another. I can feel it building. The coil that’s been tightening between us since Orion and me in the trees, since Kieran’s almost-moment this morning, since Finnian’s shoulder under my cheek right now.
We’re a bomb with four fuses and someone’s been lighting matches all week.
I don’t know which of us will go off first. Don’t know if I’m ready to find out. Don’t know if I’m ready to not find out. All I know is that if we sit like this much longer I’m going to be moaning one of their names.
And yet, every time Orion touches me, I calculate how long until he realizes I’m not wild enough. Every time Finnian looksat me like I’m a revelation, I want to hand him a list of my failures. Every time Kieran chooses me over something else, I add it to the debt I’m terrified I can’t repay.
And still they stay. Still they reach for me. Still they drop to the forest floor when I crumble and hold me together with their hands and their presence and their stubborn fucking refusal to let me fall apart alone.
I don’t deserve this.
I don’t know how to stop wanting it anyway.
“Let’s keep moving.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “I can’t sleep anyway.”
Orion’s laugh is low, dangerous and knowing. “None of us can.”
“Then we walk.” Kieran’s hand slides from my hair. The absence of his touch is louder than his words. “We walk until we can’t think anymore.”
