TAVRIN
Iwoke with her warmth against my chest.
The nest held us both, furs and cushions and the wall of books I had built without understanding why. Now I understood. I had been making a place for her. A place where she could be safe and warm and mine.
She was still asleep. Her breath came slow and even, her body curled against my side, one hand resting over my heart like she had been counting beats while she dreamed. I watched her fingers. Even in sleep they moved slightly, twitching against my skin.
I memorized that. The way her mind never rested. I wanted to remember everything about this morning in case it was our last.
The fever was worse. I could feel it in my bones, in the ache behind my eyes, in the way my skin felt too tight for my body. The transformation was accelerating. I had days left, maybe less, before I lost the ability to think in words at all.
Without a completed bond to anchor me, the transformation would take everything. Not just words. Me. But I would not make Wren make such a choice. She should have everything I could give her, including freedom.
I had tonight. I had enough left for tonight.
That would have to be enough.
She woke slowly. Stretched against me. Then went still as she remembered.
“Today,” she said.
“Today.”
She sat up. I watched her face shift into something sharper, more focused. The scribe taking over. Her eyes went distant and her fingers began to move, sketching invisible notes against the blanket.
“We should go over the plan again,” she said.
I listened. Let her voice wash over me. The words mattered less than the sound of her.
She kept talking. Floor plans. Timing. Contingencies. I watched her hands sketch invisible maps.
Underneath the calm, she smelled like fear. Not the sharp bright scent of panic. Something deeper. The muted tang of prey that knows the hunter is coming. She was terrified of what tonight might cost.
Not for herself. For me.
“Fifteen minutes,” she said. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, you come. Not before. Promise me.”
I reached for her hand. Pressed it flat against my chest, over my heart.
“Promise.”
The day was endless.
She gathered supplies while I watched from the nest. Rope. A small blade. Dark clothing. Every movement precise and purposeful.
I could not help. Could barely stand without swaying. So I watched her, and she let me watch, and sometimes she would look up and catch my eyes and neither of us would speak. We just looked. Held the moment. Let it stretch.
There was nothing left to say. We both knew what tonight might cost. We were going anyway.
The sun crawled across the sky. I dozed and woke and dozed again, each time checking that she was still there. Still real. Still mine.
I thought about finding her in the entrance hall. The cloak pooled at her feet. The desperate hope in her face when she asked if it would carry her.
She had been willing to try anything to save her sister. Would have flown down the mountain alone if she could.
And then I had offered her a different choice. Both. She could have both.
If it killed me, she would have both.
