Page 34

And yet, somehow, it’s like a weight has lifted, like speaking it aloud bled some of the poison from our wounds.

Roan sits with her legs stretched out in front of her, back against a mossy boulder, her grip on her blade loose instead of tense. When she glances up from sharpening it, her crooked half-smile is easy, effortless.

“Plotting something, Mouse?” she teases, voice low and rough with amusement.

I roll my eyes and poke a stick into the fire. Sparks leap and curl into the air. “Hardly. I’m too busy trying to figure out why you insist on treating your sword like a delicate lover.”

Roan chuckles, the sound rich and deep. “Better to baby the blade now than die because I neglected it later.”

“Practical as always,” I say with a smirk.

Roan snorts. ““Steel doesn’t forgive neglect.”

“Neither do people,” I say before I can stop myself.

Roan glances at me, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. She doesn’t argue, just goes back to her blade, her motions slower now. More thoughtful.

“People don’t,” she agrees. “They remember what was done and what wasn’t. What should’ve been said. Who didn’t show up.”

Her eyes lift to mine.

There’s no challenge in her gaze, no pity either—just quiet understanding. The kind that comes from experience. From wounds still tender beneath the surface.

“I know what it’s like,” she says. “To keep offering more of yourself and getting less back. To be told you owe someone something just because you’re still breathing.”

I swallow, the fire crackling between us. I want to ask her who neglected her, what she gave up to end up out here, alone with her sword and her scars—but I don’t. We don’t push each other that way.

Instead, I say, “My mother used to say loyalty was everything. That if someone hurt you, they deserved it right back. Twice as hard.”

Roan’s mouth pulls into a grim line. “That sounds like someone who never earned loyalty in the first place.”

I look at her, and for a long moment, neither of us speaks.

Her hands still. “You don't have to prove you’re worth something, Aria. Not here. Not to me.”

The words settle between us like dust in the firelight—soft, but unshakable. I stare at the flickering flames, unsure how to respond, feeling the heat on my face and not knowing if it’s from the fire or from her gaze still resting quietly on me.

Eventually, she clears her throat, like she’s breaking her own spell. “Besides,” she adds, that familiar dry tone sliding back into her voice, “if I let you mope too long, you might start composing sad poetry.”

I blink. “I don’t write poetry.”

Roan lifts a brow. “Not yet. But give it a few more dramatic stares into the fire and a rainy day—you’ll be halfway to tragic ballads.”

A laugh escapes me. “Well, if I do, I’ll make sure to rhyme something with ‘mercenary.’”

She smirks. “Good luck. That’s a tough one.”

I glance at her, lips twitching. “Oh, I think I could manage. ‘Legendary,’ ‘visionary,’ maybe even ‘unnecessarily sarcastic.’”

Roan chuckles, the sound low and warm. “I’ll allow it.”

I shake my head, but I’m smiling now. And I catch her smirking too, just faintly.

I should look away. But I don’t.

Instead, I let myself drink it in—the glint of firelight in her dark eyes, the way it traces the curve of her jaw, the slow ease in her posture now that the edge of the day has worn down.

She looks at home in the half-light, at home in the hush between us.