Kieran
I wake before the others.
This is not unusual. Years of conditioning don’t fade away because you had one good night of sleep. My eyes open slowly, crust at the edges. I can’t recall the last time that happened either.
Then I remember where I am.
The hot spring.
Orion lies half in the water, one arm thrown over a mossy rock, snoring with the complete lack of dignity of a man who has no enemies left standing in immediate proximity. The tattoos across his chest have spread again overnight. New lines mapping toward his collarbone in the dark.
I look at them longer than I should.
I don’t know what they mean yet. But I know I’m not going to like it when I find out.
Finnian is on his back in the grass, one arm folded behind his head, one hand still loosely threaded through Ash’s hair like he reached for her in his sleep and she didn’t move away. His expression in sleep is the version of him that exists before he remembers to look composed. Younger. Less careful. Theversion of Finnian that Amarantha spent years trying to make sure no one ever saw.
He looks like himself.
And Ash.
Asleep on her side against my chest, one hand curled loosely under her chin. The thorn patterns across her arms have gone still and dark in sleep, like banked embers. Her hair has shifted further overnight. More silver at the ends. More green at the roots. The pink is still in the middle. She looks like something that grew from the earth and decided to be a person.
Which is, technically, accurate.
The bond on my wrist is warm. Not pulling. Just present. The way it gets when she’s deeply asleep and not fighting anything.
I don’t move.
Outside our vine-covered sanctuary the forest makes its morning sounds. Birds that are probably not birds. Water moving through stone. The distant sound of Dagda doing something that involves a great deal of clattering, which means breakfast is either happening or a minor structural catastrophe is underway.
Both equally possible. Equally likely to involve fire.
I find I don’t mind.
That’s new.
I should wake them. We have a timeline. Nightfall is not a suggestion and there are three courts worth of problems waiting on the other side of these trees.
I still don’t move.
Orion opens one eye.
He looks at the spring. Looks at the three of us on the bank. Looks back at the spring with the specific expression of a man whose worst idea has already fully formed.
“Don’t,” I say.
He grins.
He cups both hands and launches a wall of water directly at us.
Ash comes up swinging, magic spiraling outward before she’s fully conscious, thorns erupting from the ground in a three-foot radius. One of them catches Orion’s retreating ankle. He yelps.
“Morning.” He doesn’t sound remotely sorry.
“I will end you.” Ash pushes wet hair out of her face. “I will end you and feel nothing.”
“You felt plenty last night.”
