Page 114 of Embers of Midnight
“Good.” I breathe around the crack in the ceiling I didn’t know I needed. “He deserves bragging rights.”
Caelum tilts his head, eyes narrowing at my wrist. “And the blade?”
I look down at the band of dried red circling the base of my palm. The shake wants to return. I invite it to take a seat and it declines—which is a nice change. “I couldn’t hold him. He had me against the wall. He cut high. I was bleeding. I was close to the floor without being on it, and I hate that place. I lifted Pyrelight to kill the next line, and the blood slid along the spine and the horn took it. The steel didn’t heat the way mine does when I call it. It hummed. Old and wrong and right. It cut his binds like they were tied with string. I didn’t think. I let it do what it wanted and put it under his sternum.”
Caelum doesn’t move for a heartbeat. When he speaks, the words are slow. “I recognized the geometry when the light crawled. Not fully. Enough to itch. War-sigils no one teaches on campus. The chord you felt in your bones—” He rubs his thumb along his lower lip, thinking. “I’ll go into the archive when the wardens clear us. I can at least find family resemblance.”
“Family,” I repeat, and my chest does a thing I don’t let it. “Not the word I want tonight.”
“Pattern family,” he corrects gently. “Not blood.”
Ronan clears his throat. “Pyrelight is on the table beside you,” he says. “I cleaned it. I didn’t take it far. Trust me.” His mouth tilts at the corner. “I also confiscated the part of your hoodie that smells like a trash fire. It had to be done.”
“Rude.”
“Necessary,” he says, deadpan, and the tiny smile that follows is years older than his face.
Taya appears at the side of the bed with Laz half a step behind her, both looking like they pushed out of a crowd and straight through fatigue. Taya’s curls have escaped their tie and turn her into a lion. Laz’s cheeks are pink from crying or running or both. A paper cup of tea appears in my field of view like a miracle.
“You’re awake,” Taya says, and her voice goes soft around it. “I told him you would be.”
“I told her you’d be stubborn,” Laz adds, and the teacup wobbles until Caelum takes it. “In a good way. In the kind of way that keeps me from being an orphan because you won’t stop breathing just to make a point.”
“I accept your compliment and your judgment.” I sip. The tea tastes like herbs and the back of my tongue stops being a desert. “Both of you okay?”
“Bruised pride,” Laz says. “No other damage. Some of the first-years will talk about tonight forever. I will pretend I didn’t help by screaming people into the right direction.”
Taya’s eyes flick to my shoulder and then to Ash, then to Ronan, then back to me, like she’s checking the web we make. “We’re here tomorrow with soup,” she announces. “No arguments. You can glare at it if you want. We’ll take turns being offended.”
“Deal,” I say. “Thank you.”
They stay for ten minutes while the men let them say all the things that people who aren’t allowed to help in a fight need to say after one. Laz tells a story about a kid who tried to pick up a dropped sword from the wrong end; Taya pretends to be scandalized; Ash snorts and says something rude about grip strength; Caelum palms the tea cup when my hand gets shaky and sets it down without comment. My shoulder throbs in a way that promises to back off soon; the line along my ribs has decided to make peace with the rest of me. The room smells like antiseptic and leather and the cinnamon on Ronan’s shirt that I’m not going to ask about.
When Taya and Laz leave, the room gets smaller and better. Ash drags the visitor chair against the bed until the leg squeals and adds a dramatic wince in case the furniture police are listening. “Arrest me,” he mutters. He climbs half into the bed sideways, careful of my shoulder. Caelum kicks off his boots, folds himself on the other side, and fits his arm around my waist above the bandage like we’ve rehearsed it. Darian takes the edge by the rail, long body curved into the space I didn’t know we could make. Ronan sits at the head, spine to the wall, my hand under his at my collarbone, pressure gentle and steady. Hospital beds are not designed for this, but we will make the design adapt.
“You’ll crush me,” I warn, letting my head drop against Ash’s chest because his heartbeat keeps better time than the monitor.
“We’ll rotate,” Darian says. “I’ll file a complaint about mattress size in the morning.”
“You’ll file six,” Ash murmurs into my hair. “And copy three departments.”
“Correct,” Darian says dryly, and the tease lands exactly where it should.
Ronan leans forward enough to kiss my forehead, heat a whisper from a man who could set the curtains alight if he let his control slip. He doesn’t. He never does. “Stay,” he says. It is almost a question. It is also a vow.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, because the part of me that always kept a bag under the bed is quiet for once.
Caelum hums under his breath, a line of music without words that holds the air together and persuades my bones to unclench. His thumb traces a slow circle at my waist; it is not a claim. It is an anchor. Ash’s palm opens over my sternum and stays there like he is making sure the rise and fall keep happening. Darian’s fingers hook over the rail near my shoulder and his other hand keeps time against my wrist. Two short in. One long out. He doesn’t have to say it. My body answers on its own.
We stack heat and weight and breath and make a shelter out of things that aren’t walls. Ronan’s hand at my collarbone keeps the world steady. Ash’s palm rides my chest until his own breath evens. Caelum’s hum drops to something I can feel more than hear. Darian’s fingers count against my pulse without turning it into an order.
I sleep.
It isn’t clean. It isn’t deep. It is enough until it isn’t. I wake with my heart pushing too fast and the room holding still like it’s waiting for permission to reassemble. The dark is honest. The machines keep their soft beeps. Ash snores into my hair once and goes quiet, which would be funny any other night. The thread under my pulse hums a warning that doesn’t bloom into panic. I breathe with it.
Air moves. Two short in. One long out.
A dark voice slides in between the two. It doesn’t need volume. It doesn’t need exits. It finds the seam and speaks in a tone that makes heat feel ornamental.
'Defy me again, little girl, and the men you love will taste my vengeance before your next dawn. You felt a beginning; I am the end of lines, the breath after the last, the stillness that does not give you back. Hold your anchors until your bones ache. I am already in the part you can't hold.'
THE END. For now…
