Page 16 of The Serpent and the Silver Wolf

“Before you arrived, I had to bribe Shinka with honey cakes just to get him to show up. Now?” Mira shook her head, half disbelief, half pride. “He’s up at dawn, hauling me out of bed so I’ll test his footwork.”

Aimee answered before thinking. “It’s my pleasure.”

The words felt strange coming out. Stranger, though, was realizing that she meant them.

Mira’s son, a dark-haired, sullen thing, had found her one morning mid-form, moving through the practiced rhythm of strikes and pivots.

Anything to quiet her thoughts after another night sharing too-close space with Kazuma. Anything to stay busy in a place where she had no idea what the hell she was supposed to be doing.

He hadn’t said a word. Just started copying her.

The next morning, there were two more. Then five. By the third day, she couldn’t ignore them. Not when one nearly dislocated his shoulder mimicking a block with his feet backwards. She broke form, adjusted his stance, corrected his grip, and from that point forward, it became a lesson.

“Well.” Mira’s hand landed firmly on Aimee’s shoulder. “We all appreciate it.”

There was something unreadable in her face. A pinch between the brows. Gone before it settled.

“More than you know.” The other woman inhaled, her smile returning fast and full. “Besides! You’ll need something to trade with Nari if you’re going to get that man of yours those dumplings.”

Aimee choked. “He’s not my—”

But Mira was already striding away, waving a hand in dismissal.

“And don’t forget to check in with Granny Hina for your daily Mana test!”

“You’ll be lucky if I don’t throw your son off the mountain, Mira!”

Aimee wiped both hands down the front of her tunic, exhaling through gritted teeth.

He’s not mine.

Mira spun as she walked, arms spread wide, the faint shimmer of heat coiling around her skin as flames danced at her elbows.

“Any son of mine would fly.”

Then she was gone.

“Yeah, yeah.” Aimee exhaled. “More damn village secrets.”

She looked up.

Clouds slipped between the peaks, pale and slow-moving, wrapped in light. The breeze tugged at the hem of her tunic, cool against the sweat at her nape.

“I’m in the right place, aren’t I?”

It felt…too easy. Too much like belonging. And that—that—was the danger.

She shook it off.

The training grounds weren’t far. Today, she’d show them how to draw a bowstring without tearing through the skin between thumb and forefinger.

And get Kazuma his fucking dumplings.

Chapter five

“Youcan’tpossiblybegoing out looking like that.”

Kazuma didn’t even glance up at first, his focus on the small clay pots spread across the wooden table. His sleeves were rolled back to the elbows, fingers smudged with crushed herbs and resin as he stirred something thick and dark in one of the bowls.