hello, it's me

Scene 4

Fenrys adjusted the lapel on his jacket as he headed down to dinner. Kestra had managed to avoid him all day, had jumped off her balcony to do so, taking Aelin and Lysandra with her. Rowan had returned from the city after lunch to report that they had gone into a dress shop and, knowing Aelin, wouldn’t be back until dinner. Then he and Aedion had pulled him into the training ring and let him work off his frustration.

He had spent the evening in the Queen’s suite with Aedion and Rowan, explaining his history with Kestra and trying to wrap his head around the fact that she was now his mate. His mate. His mate. She didn’t deserve to be shackled to someone like him. Had said as much to his brothers-in-arms last night. And they had quietly shredded through every reason he could come up with to support what they called bullshit. Friends, indeed.

Late in the night he had finally asked what the hell he was supposed to do with a mate he thought of as a sister.

Aedion had pointed out that maybe he should get to know her before worrying about that, and Fenrys had realized he didn’t know her. Didn’t know anything about her life after she had left Doranelle. He didn’t even know where she had learned to fight. His mother had been training her in self-defense when he and Connall had left, but that wouldn’t have allowed her to get the jump on him so easily yesterday. Or to fight with the Bane. Gods, she had spent the last ten years fighting against Morath. Had been in the thick of it on the city walls during the siege last winter.

It stopped his heart every time he thought about all the ways things could have gone so terribly wrong. Made him want to roar in fury when he thought of her getting cut down during the battle.

He was fighting against that urge, approaching the staircase leading down to the great hall, when he saw her at the bottom. She was no longer in those leather pants she’d had on yesterday. No, tonight she was in a simple teal dress, the color of Skulls Bay under a cloudy sky. Matching lace wrapped around her upper arms and chest, leaving her collar bones and shoulders bare. Details on the bodice were picked out in beads that glinted and sparkled in the torchlight.

He pulled on his magic and jumped, disappearing from the top of the stairs and stepping out of thin air next to her. “Good evening.”

He watched her eyes slide to him, then dip, surveying him from head to toe. He could almost feel that look, like early morning dew drifting against him. Her scent reached him as her gaze travelled back up to his: moonflowers and mist and a hint of freshly oiled leather. Something dark and tight inside him loosened and as she finally met his gaze again, he blurted, “I’m sorry.”

She blinked.

“For yesterday. What I should have said was I missed you, and I worried about you every day. But I was so relieved to see you alive that I lost my fucking mind.”

A small smile tugged at her lips, and he found himself looking at her mouth. Her teeth tugged on her bottom lip, and she hummed softly. “I suppose,” his eyes snapped back to hers, “you can escort me to dinner then.”

Relief flooded him so thoroughly as he offered her his arm that he didn’t noticed the faintly amused triumph flicker in her eyes. “Did you have a good day?”

“Mmhmm,” she hummed again. “We went shopping.”

“Your dress is lovely,” he murmured. “Did you buy it today?”

“Thank you.” His eyes snagged on her hand as she ran it down her bodice. “No. We were looking for lingerie.” She turned her head to greet someone and he took the opportunity to closely study the lines of her dress. He knew what kind of lingerie Aelin liked to wear.

He was almost afraid to ask, “Did you find anything you liked?”

“No.” Something like disappointment bloomed in his gut. Then died of shock as she added, “I prefer not to wear any.”

Every thought drained from his head. She stepped up onto the dais and he numbly followed, pulling a chair out for her on instinct. Fenrys took the seat to her left, Aelin on his other side, and reached for his already full wine glass. He emptied it in one gulp. Two very different parts of him were roaring about her being bare under her gown. When he set his glass back on the table Kestra was greeting Lord Darrow as he slipped into his chair.

“Good evening, Lord Darrow.”

“Kestra,” he nodded to her. “I’m glad you’re here. I have documents that need to go to Perranth tomorrow.”

Fenrys bristled at the order. He was about to tell him to find another messenger, when Aelin leaned across him to address the Lord. “Lady Kestra is currently unavailable as a runner. I need her here,” she said simply.

Darrow’s brows furrowed as he glanced at the Queen. “Handing out titles again, Your Majesty?”

“Actually,” Kestra interjected smoothly, before Aelin could retort, “my title comes from Doranelle. Where my family have been nobles for millennia.” Fenrys pressed his lips together to keep from laughing at the look on the Lord’s face. “Apologies for any inconvenience, Lord Darrow, but as a loyal citizen of Terrasen I am at Her Majesty’s disposal.” She turned and bowed her head to Aelin.

“Of course,” Darrow practically grumbled, turning away himself.

She and Aelin smiled conspiratorially at each other across him. “You’re training with us, starting tomorrow morning,” Aelin said to Kestra.

Kestra shrugged. “I could use a good work out.”

Fenrys pounced. “Where did you originally learn to fight? After you left Doranelle?” he clarified.

Kestra eyed him for a moment, and he wondered if she wouldn’t tell him. “Varesh. I trained in the temple for fifteen years before I started travelling.”

The food was served and any questions he had were set aside while they ate. The Vareshi Warrior Priestesses were legendary among humans. He had heard their training was lifelong and brutal, but he’d never had the opportunity to test himself against them. Life in the temple would not have been luxurious for her, nor easy. What other hardships had she suffered while she was gone? And why, he wondered, had she considered that better than returning to Doranelle?

“Tell me one story of your time away,” he requested when she pushed her plate away.

She pursed her lips, considering, and he found himself watching her mouth again. When he looked back at her eyes, he could have sworn she was laughing at him, but she just asked, “Have you ever been to Meersk?”

A tiny kingdom on the other side of the world. “Once,” he answered. “They make this liquor there that is truly awful.”

“Oh, it’s disgusting,” she agreed.

“You’ve had it?”

“I drank the King of Meersk under the table once. We went through three bottles before he passed out.”

“What?” he goggled at her. Her eyes were twinkling, and she was smirking at him. “Why?”

She shrugged a single bare shoulder and leaned back into her chair. “He proposed and I wasn’t interested.”

A small part of his mind reminded him that in Meersk women weren’t allowed to deny a proposal. Their fathers and brothers could deny it for them, but if they had no one to speak for them they were bound, by law, to accept the proposal. There was a loophole to that law, but he couldn’t remember what it was. Something about a blood rite, to declare themselves men so they could make their own decisions. Kestra, travelling alone, would have had no one to speak for her.

“The King of Meersk wanted you to marry him?” he asked slowly. She plucked a tart off a platter on the table and licked the cream out of the center, setting the pastry on her plate.

“He was a horrible kisser,” she muttered.

Fenrys needed to hit something. Badly. He clenched his jaw.

She glanced up at him, that tiny smile tugging on her mouth again as she watched the muscles of his jaw feather. “I made him pay for it.”

“Explain,” he said through his teeth. She was baiting him he realized. And if he un-clenched his jaw, he might bite her for it. She selected another tart, her tongue flicking out to scoop the cream from the center.

“I drank him under the table to prove myself more of a man than he was, so that I could turn him down. And once he passed out, I looted his bedroom, took his crown and walked out the front door. I went back to the palace the next day and let him buy his crown back from me. For a king’s ransom.” Her lips curved up in a wicked grin. He had seen that same grin on Aelin’s face. A thrill shot through his blood like lightning. A fizzing sound came from his other side, but he just stared at Kestra.

“You stole his crown and then made him buy it back from you?”

“Like I said, he was a horrible kisser,” she said, as if that explained it.

“Good thing I’m not.” The words popped out of his mouth before he knew he was thinking them. More fizzing sounded from where Aelin was sitting.

Scene 3

Kestra woke, blinking in the sunlight coming in through the balcony doors, and stretched. Her hand brushed against someone beside her and she turned to see Aelin face down in her pillow. On her other side, Lysandra was curled up facing the sunshine. Kestra stretched again, carefully so she wouldn’t wake them.

She had always wanted friends to have sleepovers with. Fenrys and Connall were so much older than she was that sleepovers meant something different for them. Though Fenrys had built forts for her throughout their house, and then staging battles with her against Connall and their mother.

Her heart squeezed at the same time her bladder did, and she scrambled out of the bed and into the bathing chamber. They had finished the whiskey, then all three bottles of wine and all of the cake before crawling into her bed and passing out. Kestra hoped Lysandra wasn’t hungover, she didn’t know how quickly shifters healed.

“What time is it?” the shifter mumbled from the bed as Kestra exited the bathing chamber, and Aelin took her place. Kestra squinted out the glass doors.

“Not quite lunch.”

“Rowan says Fenrys is waiting for you in the hall,” Aelin relayed coming back into the bedroom.  Kestra groaned and flopped onto the bed. “What do you want to do?”

“I’m not mad at him anymore,” she grumbled, “but I also just woke up and don’t want to have that conversation right now.” She lifted her head to look at Aelin. “Will you think less of me if I suggest we jump the balcony and go shopping?”

“Not if you let us raid your closet,” Lysandra said behind her.

They rummaged through her clothes, all of them pulling on identical pairs of Kestra’s signature leather pants laced up the outside of the legs, and various shirts. Once dressed, they slipped outside and dropped from the second-floor balcony to the ground. Kestra led them through the gardens to the eastern wall separating the castle from the city. Minutes later they were strolling down a street.

“Remind me to increase the guard on the wall when we get back,” Aelin commented. “That was way too easy.”

“Who would be dumb enough to infiltrate a castle full of Fae?” Lysandra asked.

“I would,” Kestra and Aelin answered at the same time. They turned a corner into a busy street lined with shops and stopped.

“Lunch first? Or shopping first?” Kestra asked.

“Lunch first,” Aelin said. Her stomach grumbled. As Kestra led them toward a tavern overlooking the canal that housed the river, she asked, “You said the Ashryvers hired you to bring Aedion over?”

“Yes, I was working as a mercenary,” she answered.

“How did you go from warrior priestess to mercenary?”

They found a table in the sun by the edge of the canal. Someone came over to take their order. Kestra waited for the girl to leave before she answered. “Has Fenrys ever told you about the revolt in Khirlane eighty years ago?”

Aelin shook her head. “He doesn’t really talk about his time with Maeve.”

Kestra was silent a long moment. “Khirlane was one of Maeves… allies. One of her armies had conquered the city during a war twenty years before. They killed the ruling family and left a small unit of warriors in the city, to control it. The revolt started when one of the soldiers raped a wealthy man’s wife, and the remaining nobles retaliated against the warriors. I don’t know how they did it, but they managed to kill most of them.”

Their server dropped off their drinks and food and moved away again. Kestra took a long drink of ale before continuing. “One of the warriors got a message to Maeve, telling her what had happened. She dispatched Fenrys and Lorcan, and another unit of soldiers to put a stop to it and… make sure it never happened again.”

Aelin looked sick. “How?”

“She had them give the order to kill all of the noble’s children,” Kestra said softly.

“Fenrys wouldn’t…” Lysandra started.

“No. Not on his own,” Kestra agreed.

“She used the oath to force them,” Aelin said.

Kestra nodded. “I was in a nearby city when I heard what had happened, and I… I snapped. I had been hiding for twenty-five years at that point, and when I heard what she made him do… it enraged me.”

“What did you do?” Aelin asked quietly.

“I waited a month, to make sure he was back in Doranelle. So, she couldn’t blame him.” Kestra swallowed. “And then I walked into Khirlane and killed every soldier they had left in the city.”

Aelin studied her for a long moment before saying, “Good.” There was no judgement on her face, or in her eyes. Just icy rage at what had been done to those that were now hers.

“How many?” asked Lysandra. No judgement on her face either.

“Fifty. It took me four days. Before I left the city, I circulated a rumor that I had been hired to do it. After that, the jobs started pouring in.”

Kestra dug into her food, letting them mull over what she had said. When they had finished eating, she left a few coins on the table and led them down a side street to Jerrika’s shop. A bell hanging from the door rang softly as they entered and a voice rang out from the back, “Be right there!” The room they were standing in was filled with mannequins wearing various styles of gowns, all expertly made. Her friends started wandering among them, fingering fabrics and oohing over designs.

“Hello, ladies,” Jerrika said hurrying out of the back room, wiping her hand on her apron. “What can I do for you today?”

“Hello Jerrika,” Kestra smiled.

“Kestra!” The dressmaker gave her a quick hug. “Where have you been?”

“Running errands for General Ashryver. But I brought I but you new clients.” she turned to the other two, “This is Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius, and Lysandra Ashryver.”

Jerrika bowed. “Your Majesty, Lady, welcome to my shop.”

“This is Jerrika, Orynth’s best designer,” Kestra introduced her.

“These dresses are gorgeous,” Lysandra said.

“Thank you. Are you looking for anything specific?”

Kestra let Aelin and Lysandra order dresses as she wandered through the shop. Near the back she found a mannequin wearing a dress made of a pewter-grey fabric that shimmered like water. It had long fitted sleeves and a high neckline. The skirt was fitted to mid-thigh, then flared enough to make walking possible. The front of the skirt was split with black lace that curled around the hip just above the flare and around the back. Kestra walked around to the back of the mannequin. The lace framed  the open back, a thin strip of it running across the shoulders at the top.

“Jerrika,” she called.

“Yes?”

“Please tell me I can buy this.”

“If you’re talking about the pewter and black lace, yes. I made it for you,” she answered.

Aelin wound her way through the other mannequins to see what they were talking about. Her brows rose when she saw the dress, then she whistled as she moved to Kestra’s side to look at the back.

“Where will you wear that?”

“I was thinking the state dinner for the Ambassador would be good,” Kestra said. “Imagine Fenrys trying to be courtly while I parade around in that.”

Aelin’s eyes twinkled and she grinned wickedly. “You have a plan.”

Based on my math, Doranelle is about 7 hours ahead of Terrasen. 

Scene 2

Kestra managed to make it to her room before the shaking started. She could barely peel her weapons and clothes off; her hands were moving so much. Tears were starting to slip down her face as she climbed into the tub. She curled around herself in the hot water and cried, letting the tension out of her muscles. That had not gone well.

During the past century she hadn’t let herself think about what it would be like to finally see him again. Those daydreams would have made the reality of her life harder to deal with, so she had strangled every single one. After the Queen had killed Maeve during the war last winter though, she had allowed herself to dream. None of those dreams had started with him yelling at her or ended in a fight.

She scrubbed her hands over her face. Maybe they should have. She had run away in the middle of the night after all. Had not left a note. Still, that didn’t excuse his snarling at her. He never snarled at her.

She sat in the bath until the water was cold, then got out and pulled on an oversized mans shirt and undershorts that she had bought specifically for lounging and sleeping. She wandered into her sitting room to pick at the food someone had laid out for her and paused. People were whispering in the hall.

Kestra pulled the door open to find Aedion and the Queen in the hall arguing. The Queen was holding a platter with a silver lid over it. It smelled like chocolate.

“What do you want Aedion?” Her voice was tired.

Aedion winced. “The Queen of Nosy Busybodies here wanted to make sure you were alright. And now that we can see you are, we’ll…“

Aelin rolled her eyes and cut him off, “She is not alright. She clearly just spent an hour crying in the tub.”

Kestra glanced at her, as Aedion ran a sharp eye across her own face. Then she looked pointedly at the platter, “Is that chocolate?”

“And wine,” said a pretty brunette coming down the hall with three bottles in her arms.

“I prefer whiskey,” Kestra said. The brunette held up her other hand, which held another bottle.

“I have that too,” she smiled.

Aedion gaped at her, “That’s from my private store!”

Kestra stepped out of the doorway to let the women inside, trying to not smile as the brunette kissed Aedion and said to him, “Go make sure Fenrys doesn’t bleed all over the carpet.” Then she breezed through the door, Kestra shutting it behind her. 

*** 

Aedion found Rowan and Fenrys in the sitting room of the Queen’s suite. Fenrys’s nose was already healed, and they were sipping something from one of the decanters. He poured himself a glass and slumped into a chair.

“You, my friend,” he saluted Fenrys, “are screwed.”

“Why?”

“Because Aelin and Lysandra just barricaded themselves in Kestra’s room, armed with chocolate and wine.” He took a drink. “They’ll be best friends by morning.”

“She’ll bite me if I bother her, but those two are fine?” Fenrys grumbled.

“One,” Rowan said, “they didn’t say hello by snarling in her face. Two, when did she threaten to bite you?”

“On her way out the door.”

Rowan and Aedion shared a confused look. “She didn’t say anything as she walked out the door,” Aedion said carefully.

“She told me she would bite me if I bothered her before she was ready,” Fenrys said.

“She said something to you,” Rowan said slowly, “that no one else heard?”

Fenrys looked back and forth between Aedion and Rowan. “What are you getting at?”

“Who else do we know,” Aedion said wryly, “that can communicate silently?”

Fenrys looked at Rowan, and then realization dawned in his eyes. He stared for a long moment, then drained his glass. “Fuck me,” he groaned.

 *** 

“No titles for the weepy,” Aelin announced, setting the platter on a table. “I’m Aelin, this is Lysandra. She had the unfortunate luck of marrying my cousin, whom you know.”

Kestra smiled slightly as she pulled glasses out of a cabinet, “Congratulations.”

“He said you knew him when he was a kid,” Lysandra said. “What was he like?”

“Shorter.” Kestra took the glass Aelin handed her and curled up in a chair, the other two tucking themselves into the sofa. “The Ashryvers hired me to escort him here after his mother died. He was this sweet, sad, wild little boy with a wicked sense of humor.” She took a drink. “He reminded me of Fenrys, and though the job ended when we arrived in Terrasen, I couldn’t walk away.”

“How did you evade capture during the occupation?” Aelin asked.

Kestra got up and went into her bedroom, bringing out a pair of steel gauntlets. “When I left Doranelle I went to Varesh first and trained with the Warrior Priestesses there. The High Priestess had these made for me and spelled them using my blood.” She slipped them on her arms, “They create a glamour that makes me look human. They even lessen my scent.”

Aelin stared at her, her eyes darting to where Kestra knew her ears had rounded, to her shorter canines, softer features. “She used your blood?”

Kestra nodded. She took the gauntlets off and handed them to her. “She coated the stamp she used to make the markings with it.”

Aelin studied the marks stamped into the steel. “These are wyrdmarks.”

“Only the High Priestess knows them,” Kestra said. “And she only teaches them to her personal acolyte.”

“Why did you need to stay hidden when you left Doranelle?’ Lysandra asked.

“Because I was running from Maeve.” Kestra drained her glass and poured another, then reached for the chocolate cake and cut herself a slice.

“Not that anyone needed a reason to run from Maeve,” Aelin set aside the gauntlets and picked up her glass, “but why?”

Kestra took a bite of cake, savoring the flavor as she decided how much to say. If she told them everything, and Fenrys hadn’t yet figured it out… she sighed. She had kept this secret for a hundred years and it had been slowly killing her with loneliness. Aedion was her closest friend and even he did not know. Fuck it, she decided.

“I’m a seer. When I was eighteen, I saw what would happen if Maeve ever found out I was mated to Fenrys.” She took another bite, “Death would have been better.”

“For you or for him?”

“Either.” Kestra washed the cake down with whiskey. “Both.”

“You’ve known he was your mate,” Lysandra said slowly, “for a hundred years… and you stayed hidden to protect him?”

Kestra nodded, pouring herself another drink. Getting drunk sounded like a good idea. She heard Aelin blow out a long breath. When she glanced up the Queen was draining her own glass.

She reached for the bottle saying, “He doesn’t know does he?”

Scene 1

Fenrys slouched in his chair at the head table and sipped his wine, watching as dinner was served. He had been back in Orynth for two days, and he was already sick of council meetings and trade negotiations. At least while he had been traveling there had been new kingdoms to see and explore in between all the meetings. He was glad to be home, even with the meetings. As much as he had enjoyed the trip, he had missed his friends.

And wasn’t that a surprise. Friends.

On his left, the person he had missed most frowned down at a letter in her hand. “Who the hell is Kestra Nightshade?” Aelin asked no one in particular.

Fenrys started, and his heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t heard that name in almost a hundred years. He was so shocked to hear it come out of Aelin’s mouth, that he almost missed Aedion’s response from down the table.

“One of my messengers,” he leaned forward to look at her across Rowan. “Why?”

Kestra worked for Aedion? he thought.

“Why is a Doranelle noble running messages for you?”

Aedion blinked. “She’s Fae, so she’s fast. She never said anything about being a noble.”

“I thought the Nightshade family died out,” Rowan looked over at Fenrys, for confirmation.

“Her parents did. Kestra was the last of the bloodline, but she disappeared from Doranelle around the time I swore the oath to Maeve.” He looked to Aedion, “How long has she been in Terrasen?”

“Twenty years. She escorted me over from Varese when I was five.”

“According to Sellene,” Aelin said, looking at the letter again, “she requested her inheritance. It’s being sent over with Sellene’s new Ambassador, along with a formal recognition of her title as Lady.”

Fenrys’s mind was reeling. He looked out across the great hall, scanning faces, trying to find her. She had been in Terrasen for twenty years, but where had she been before that? Why had she left?

Aedion must have noticed him looking for her because he said, “She’s not here. I sent her to Suria last week. She should be…“

But Fenrys stopped hearing him when he saw motion near the door. A Fae female had walked into the great hall, and started wandering the tables, greeting people she knew. She was wearing traveling clothes, her cloak thrown over a shoulder and a sword strapped across her back. Her black hair was cut asymmetrically, shorn on the left, chin length on the right, a single lock of amethyst glinting under the chandelier. As she turned to greet someone light slid across her eyes. Charcoal flecked with silver. She seemed to shimmer, like a mirage.

Fenrys swore. He jumped, disappearing from his seat and reappearing at her side. He grabbed her arm and jumped again, landing in the private dining room behind the dais.

Still seated at the head table, the court blinked and Fenrys was gone. A moment later there was a muffled shout of outrage behind them, and they all scrambled from their seats. 

****************

“What the hell?!” Kestra yanked her arm out of Fenrys’s grip and spun on him, but he was already in her face, snarling.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Behind him the door to the great hall opened and she saw court tumble in. She ignored them, focusing solely on the furious male before her, and snarled back, “Calm the fuck down.”

“Watch your mouth,” he snapped.

Her jaw nearly dropped in shock. She had all of a heartbeat to decide her response. And a very large part of her didn’t want to back down. So she crossed her arms, cocked a hip, and let loose a string of the filthiest curses she could come up with. Something in her chest preened as his eyes bulged. Behind him someone snickered.

“I should wash your mouth out with soap,” he growled.

The utter dominance in his voice made her see red. She bared her teeth in challenge, “I’d like to see you try.”

He lunged for her, quick as a snake, but she was already side-stepping and feinting like she was going to throw him. He disappeared, reappearing on her left, right into the path of her kick. She snapped her foot into his ribs and followed it with a one-two punch to the face. His head flew back, and blood gushed from his nose.

Kestra backed up a step, fisting her hands at her sides to keep them from shaking, and snarled softly, “I’m not twelve. Don’t treat me like a child.”

Fenrys glared at her, holding his nose. “Answer the question.”

“No.”

“Answer the gods-damned question,” he growled.

“I haven’t seen you in a hundred years and the first thing you did was snarl at me, so no. I will not be answering your gods-damned question,” she mockingly emphasized the last three words. She pulled a leather message tube out of her cloak and tossed it in Aedion’s general direction. “I am going to my rooms to bathe, and eat, and sleep.” She stalked toward the hall door.

“Kestra,” Fenrys commanded.

Author’s Note: I think I finally got this started going the way I want it. It’s not split into chapters, just scenes as I write them. I’ll try to keep every post contained to one scene, so they flow well.

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Prologue

Twelve-year-old Kestra Nightshade blinked as the early morning sun set the quartz-gravel of the courtyard sparkling, watching her brother’s horses flick their tails at flies. She tightly hugged herself against the cold curl of dread sitting low in her stomach and tried, again and again, to see where it was coming from. But the window inside her mind, the one where her magic usually showed her glimpses of past and present and future, was dark. Had been dark for days.

No, she admitted to herself, that wasn’t quite right. The window might refuse to answer her regarding the dread she had been feeling since her brothers had announced, a fortnight ago, their intention to go to the City of Rivers, but it still showed her other things. Two days ago, she had looked for an ancient sword she’d read about in the library, as a test, and an image of a mountain cave, filled with a large lake, had swirled into view inside that window. The sunlight filtering through the cave’s entrance had only lit it enough to see a pile of bones near the wall, something glinting ruby beneath them, and a shadow moving under the water. Kestra had let the image go, relieved there wasn’t something wrong with her magic, and frustrated that she still couldn’t see what was bothering her.

Yesterday, she had found Connall, alone in the library, studying a map of Doranelle. In the silence and sunlight, surrounded by books and leather and parchment, she had voiced her worry. He had listened, like he always did, letting her find the words to describe what she felt or saw or thought. Connall was the quieter of her two brothers, slower and calmer in spirit than Fenrys, and she liked talking things out with him because he never rushed her. Sometimes, if she looked into that window inside of her, and asked about a specific person, it would show her their essence. Their soul. She always saw Connall as a lake, the surface still as glass, reflecting the sky above; Fenrys, though, was a rushing river, tumbling over rocks and around bends.

Kestra had sought Connall out to tell him about the dream she had awoken from. She’d been unable to remember anything but darkness and pain and rage and despair and shame. But, while he had gravely listened as she voiced her dread about him and Fenrys leaving, she had realized he was too excited to take her seriously when he responded by pulling her into his lap to show her the map. When he had assured her that the City was only a few days from the estate, had reminded her that Narene, his mother, was an accomplished warrior, capable of protecting both the house and Kestra. Instead of insisting she wasn’t worried for her own safety, she had allowed herself to be comforted by his chest pressing into her back, his scent and arms wrapping around her as he leaned his head over her shoulder. They had stayed like that for an hour.

Footsteps crunched across the gravel, and her view of the horses was blocked by Fenrys as he crouched in front of her, his eyes twinkling above his smile. “How much are you going to miss me?” he asked, with a laugh in his voice.

Silently Kestra stepped forward, wrapping her arms around his neck. She pressed her face into the skin just below his ear, her throat tightening with the tears she’d been holding back as she breathed him in. Moss, and sun-warmed earth, and crispy vanilla. He squeezed back, a hand rubbing the spot between her shoulder blades and whispered into her night black hair, “I’ll miss you too, Kes.”

She didn’t know why, but she tilted her head so her mouth was right over his ear and, low enough that only he could make out, said, “Whatever happens, remember that I am the only one who can break you.”

He pulled back to look at her in question, but she just said, “Promise me that you’ll remember.”

He studied her for a moment, his brows wrinkling a bit, then kissed her on the forehead. “I promise.”