"Full of myself and incredibly strong," I correct. "Don't forget strong."
"I'm not forgetting because you won't let me forget." But her mouth is curving upward now, that smile breaking through despite her best efforts to maintain severity.
Victory surges through my chest, warm and addictive. I want more of that. Want to keep pulling laughter from her until it's easy instead of hard-won.
So I keep going, teasing and joking and letting my personality fill the space between us. And slowly, gradually, she responds. Sharp comments becoming actual banter. Reluctant smiles becoming genuine laughter that hits me like lightning.
Each laugh lodges beneath my ribs like a blade—painful and perfect and utterly consuming.
This is dangerous. I know it's dangerous. Zurkar's warning echoes through my mind, mixing with Dad's pressure and my own growing awareness that I'm losing control of something that should terrify me.
But when Serah laughs at some ridiculous comment I make, when she teases me back with that dry wit, when she looks at me like maybe I'm not just another threat to survive?—
I can't make myself care about danger.
Can't make myself walk away.
Can only sit beside her while moonlight turns everything silver and my magic reaches toward her like I'm drowning and she's air itself.
8
SERAH
Isleep through the night for the first time in six years.
The realization hits when I wake to early morning light filtering through the dwelling's single window, my body rested instead of wired with exhaustion. No nightmares. No jerking awake at phantom sounds. Just... sleep. Deep and dreamless and utterly foreign.
I lie there staring at the ceiling beams, cataloging the impossibility of it. My hand moves to the knife under my pillow—still there, still within reach—but for once the weapon feels more like habit than necessity.
Something has shifted. Something dangerous and terrifying that I don't know how to name.
The canyon is becoming familiar instead of hostile. The Bone Warriors are becoming people instead of threats. And I'm starting to trust in ways that could destroy me if I'm wrong about any of it.
I should be more afraid of that than I am.
Instead I just get up, braid my hair back, and head toward the healing chambers like it's routine. Like I belong hereinstead of just surviving here. The distinction feels massive and microscopic all at once.
Lola is already elbow-deep in her work when I arrive, grinding herbs with the stone mortar she claims has "better energy" than the newer ones. She glances up, greeting me with that warm smile that still catches me off guard sometimes.
"You look rested," she observes.
"Slept well." The admission feels vulnerable somehow. Like acknowledging comfort means accepting something I'm not ready to accept.
"Good. The body heals better with proper rest." She gestures toward the table where dried plants are scattered in organized chaos. "Help me sort these? The blue-petaled ones go in one pile, the white ones in another. Zurkar needs them separated for different salves."
I settle across from her, fingers moving through the work automatically. We've fallen into this pattern over the past few weeks—her teaching, me learning, both of us existing in comfortable silence broken by occasional conversation. It shouldn't feel natural. Shouldn't feel safe.
But it does.
"Kaelen says you've been spending time by the river," Lola comments casually. Too casually. "At night."
My hands still in the herbs. "So?"
"So nothing." But she's smiling, that knowing expression that makes me want to throw something at her. "Just making conversation."
"You're fishing for information."
"I'm observing that you seem less... guarded. Less ready to bolt at any moment." She pauses, selecting her words carefully. "It's good to see. That's all."
