Lina curled up by the fireplace, letting the heat seep into her bones as she slipped toward sleep. Fin and Sofia ignored her. After the all-night ride, she craved rest, if only for a moment.
"Lina," Fin called and shook her awake.
He grabbed her arm; his hand branded her skin, the heat lingering, fiercer than it should have been.
She tried not to react.
"We're heading to the festival. If you're not feeling well, you can rest."
"No, I'll go."
Lina rubbed sleep from her eyes and rose to change her dress behind the privacy screen.
A knock came at the door. Sofia opened it for Galdreth, who quickly looked away when Lina emerged from behind the privacy screen.
"Let's go."
The transition from the dim inn to the vibrant festival jarred Lina. Lanterns blazed overhead, and music and laughter threaded through the air like palpable joy. The tang of honey biscuits lingered on her breath.
Guards mingled with citizens, hands near their blades. The people of Briarwood watched for those out of place—clothes too fine or too worn, hair too bright or too dark, eyes with a stranger's edge. People raised cups of honey-mead and water alike.
Instead of unbridled happiness, Lina saw restraint. Festival goers carried suspicion rather than drinking to oblivion.
It felt rehearsed—careful.
The tug in her chest softened, now throbbing intermittently instead of the sharp pull she once knew.
"I'm getting some honey mead," Sofia said, striding toward a woman filling mugs in front of the kegs.
The group followed Sofia, weaving through the crowd to join her at the front of the mead stand.
"Two coppers each. Bring back the mugs, and I'll return one," the serving woman said.
Sofia replied, "Yes, ma'am."
"No attitude from you, or no mead," the woman said, hands firmly on her hips.
Sofia nodded.
"Outsiders or not, young folk should know respect," the woman muttered.
Fin spat his mead.
"Young?" Sofia sputtered. "I'm older than you!"
The serving woman squinted her eyes at Sofia and said, "If you say so."
Lina offered her mead to Galdreth. He shook his head, avoided eye contact, and took a measured step back toward Fin.
She shifted slightly, leaving a space between them that hadn't been there before. She felt it more than saw it.
She watched him take mead from the serving woman. As others pressed around Sofia, Fin, and Galdreth, space opened around her.
Sofia muttered, "young," under her breath, then took a spot near the bonfire, leaning on empty crates and watching the crowd.
Fin shrugged, took a sip of mead, and briskly walked back to the inn. Galdreth hesitated, glanced uncertainly at Lina, quickly dropped his eyes, and then followed Fin at a distance.
A couple quickly claimed the wooden bench near the fire. The woman straddled the man's lap and kissed him with fierce intensity.
Lina flushed and turned away from the fire. Crowds encircled the flames, but farther from the center, she breathed easier.
Resonance pulsed in her chest, persistent but no longer piercing, shifting as she moved. One direction kindled her, the other emptied her. She followed the warmth, letting it calm her after days of ache.
Chasing the feeling felt right—like a woman dying of thirst finally finding water.
Her feet stopped at a small fire that cast the forest in light and shadows. Taking a seat on the cold ground beside the fire, she held her breath and glanced at the night sky. She wondered if the unchanging stars ever laughed at the humans toiling beneath them. Lina took a sip of her mead.
Rocks crunched beneath a boot, pulling her from her thoughts. Two men appeared: one sat by the fire near her, while the other remained standing, gripping the pommel of his sword and scanning the empty camp.
The standing man watched the perimeter, features keen, hand resting on his sword. The man at the fire drew her gaze—not because he was conspicuous, but because everything nearby seemed to yield, subtly making space. Dark hair grazed his collar, and eyes mirroring the night met hers.
Lina should have felt wary. She didn't.
A woman alone with two men should have unsettled her, yet she felt calm. She took another sip and watched him beneath her lashes. Their clothes were stark, black, and sharply tailored—no insignia. Only the standing man wore a sword.
"I didn't take you for someone who drinks," he said, his voice smooth—and far too familiar.
"Raithe?" she whispered.
The name came easily—too easily.
He smiled. Something in her chest tightened. Raithe seemed to be in his late twenties, yet his eyes were deeper than they should have been, and the way he held her gaze smothered her breath.
"You're real."
She couldn't look away.
"S-orry," a man stammered, clutching his coat at the fire's edge, eyes wide.
Raithe turned his gaze on him. Lina, broken from his spell, took a deep breath.
A man at the fire's edge faltered and backed away as if he'd stepped too close to something unknown. The standing guard sighed. Raithe shook his head.
Every time a person neared their small group, they went around or found somewhere else to be. The guard watched each passerby. Raithe returned his gaze to Lina.
"How are you here?" she asked.
The thrumming in her chest settled in his presence, easing into something quieter, something steadier—like, for the first time since she woke on that cold forest floor, she could finally rest.
"We arrived with the king's guard," Raithe offered.
'A guard without a blade?' she thought.
His lips quirked.
'It really is you.'
Raithe bowed his head, eyes twinkling with mischief.
She shot to her feet and gestured with her cup, "I need to get more mead."
He stood.
Lina spun to the bonfire, rolled her foot on a stone, and the world tilted. The stars spun overhead as she fell.
Hands caught her at the waist before she could hit the ground, pulling her into a solid chest.
Midnight-dark eyes met hers.
Touching him soothed, not scorched. Her muscles eased as Raithe's hold lingered.
For the first time since waking in the forest, nothing hurt. Not her skin, her chest, or the constant pull beneath it.
"I don't think you should drink any more of this," he teased.
Lina blushed and steadied herself. Raithe's companion studied her, eyes narrowing.
She didn't recoil from his touch. His grip lingered a moment before releasing. Her blush deepened—how could she settle so easily?
"So you are a soldier," she said, studying him more closely now.
"Yes. A soldier. We're returning to the capital tonight."
"What news did you bring to Briarwood?" Lina asked.
He shook his head and said, "That's only for the lord to hear."
"I see."
Lina leaned in, drawn closer without meaning to. Raithe's gaze sharpened, appreciating her nearness.
"How did you find me?"
"A coincidence."
"You knew it was me."
"I saw your face the day you looked into the basin of water."
How much more could he see and hear through the bond than she could?
He tilted his head as thought churned in her mind.
The man who arrived with Raithe cleared his throat, tension threading through his voice as he said, "We need to leave, Raithe."
The grip on his blade tightened.
Raithe stepped back, a fraction of a second slower than he should have. The tempest in her soul calmed with his presence.
He turned to leave with the guard.
'Goodbye,' she said through their bond.
He bowed his head again in acknowledgment.
"…didn't react—" the guard said from the woods.
Raithe silenced his words with a hand on his shoulder. From here, Lina saw the man freeze until Raithe released his hand.
Lina returned to the bonfire, cup in hand and a calm heart. Would she see him again?
Did she want to?
"What did you see?" Sofia interrupted her thoughts.
Lina looked back at the woods, where two shadows slipped into the trees beneath the full moon.
The tightness in her chest eased, loosening for the first time since she had woken in the forest, and whatever had been wrong no longer felt quite so suffocating.
"Nothing," she whispered.