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“I just wanted to do something nice for you, and maybe…say sorry for missing yesterday.”

“I really appreciate that.” Emotions swirled inside of me. “This past week probably made it into the top three worst weeks of my life.”

He frowned, offering a small nod in solidarity.

“Do you want to know what the other two weeks were?” I asked.

Rhyan sat beside me on the blanket, his own mug between his hands. He offered me a small smile and another nod.

“The others were, well, the week we,” I sighed, “the week we found out that Jules was—she was—”

“Gone?” Rhyan offered, his voice soft.

I nodded. “And then there was my week in the Shadow Stronghold. That’s second place.”

I’d left off my list the week of Jules’s Revelation Ceremony, when everything had turned sour in my relationship with Tristan, Jules’s vorakh had been exposed, Meera’s vorakh had been revealed to us, and my first blood oath had been sworn. But every week that month had felt the same. One long endless miserable week.

“I’m glad this wasn’t the worst week then,” he said.

“There’s really one big reason why it wasn’t,” I said, watching him carefully.

He stared down at his coffee, the steam rising up around his chin as he inhaled, then looked back to me. “Why is that?”

“You were in it.”

“Lyr,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He leaned toward me. His expression was so open, so vulnerable and sweet, a shy smile spreading across his lips. But he seemed to catch himself, cleared his throat, and sat back, lifting his mug to cover his mouth. “Try your coffee.”

I gestured at his mug. “I thought both mugs would be for me,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. I knew I shouldn’t have said what I had. And yet, nothing could have stopped me from telling him that. Despite his non-reaction, I knew he understood. That feeling of safety I felt with Rhyan when he treated my wounds and when I trained with him, it was growing in strength, overwhelming me with its power.

He smiled over his cup. “I actually make a pretty strong brew. Go on,” he said. “Drink up, partner.”

I brought it up to my nose again, letting the heat and scent rise before I took a slow, hot sip. I moaned. I’d been expecting a strong cup of coffee, and I’d been wanting one all day long, so I’d known this was going to be good. But I’d never dreamed it would be this good. Rhyan had sweetened it, and there seemed to be some sort of spice topping it off. I inhaled again, realizing how complicated and sweet the combination really was before taking another sip. It was the most delicious coffee I’d ever had.

“You like it?” he asked, offering me a furtive glance from behind his mug before taking a sip.

“Um.” I took another sip. “I am going to need my coffee to taste just like this every single day for the rest of my life. What’s in here?”

“Ah,” he said, grinning. “That I can never reveal.” His accent had intensified into a parody of itself. “Secrets of the north,” he said with a wink.

I laughed. “Guess you’ll just have to make it for me every day.”

“Hmm. I think this means I win.”

I narrowed my eyebrows. “Win what?”

“Win our argument. Glemarian cuisine is far superior to Bamarian.”

“Unless you had this coffee imported from Glemaria, I believe this is Bamarian coffee,” I bluffed. He had Glemarian sunleaves, so who knew what else he’d carried with him across the Empire?

“It’s my personal recipe,” he gloated. “Which is Glemarian.”

“You didn’t specify recipes. You said food, from the land. You were arguing about minerals and soil. So you still don’t win this one.”

He watched me from the corners of his eyes, a smile spreading across his face that he hid behind his mug. “Yet,” he said and took another long sip.

I followed suit, practically devouring the coffee. I didn’t need the second mug for its caffeine, but I was tempted to have a refill simply for the taste.

“If you can wake early,” he said, “before dawn, I’ll make you ‘Secrets of the North.’ Every morning until Valyati.”