Page 23 of Embers of Midnight
The night folds in a way that lets the camp feel smaller without feeling trapped. We trade the kind of banter that stops hands from shaking later. Ash with five different terrible names for ptarmigan. Caelum countering with quiet, mean jokes about Ash’s boots. Darian asking whether Vex is more useful than the rest of us or exactly as useful and pretending the answer matters. It breaks the tension like a splint—keeps the limb straight so it can heal.
When the pot is cooled and stacked and my hands have nothing left to fix, I go back into the tent. Ash starts to follow, then sees my face and sits down again. Darian settles into a lean against the sled. Caelum checks the hush ward and hums under his breath, a line I recognize as the one that keeps sleep from dropping too heavy.
Inside, I kneel and check her again. Pulse steady. Skin warm. A fine salt on her hairline where the heat under the jacket did its job. I move fabric at her shoulder, look for any weeping from the cleaned wound. Nothing I don’t expect. I pull the jacket up and her mouth tips at the corner like her body recognizes the smell. That does something to me I will name later, in private.
I sit with my back to the pole and let the memories I usually keep boxed get a breath. First shift. Cliff wind cutting my face. Heat backed up under my ribs like I’d swallowed a bonfire. My father’s hand on my shoulder, too heavy, too proud. My mother’s mouth trying not to smile. My sister down the slope, ready with a bucket of water and a laugh she used as a shield. I remember the jump more than the landing. The moment where feet left ground and the body decided it was going to build new rules on the way down. Wings where there had only been shoulder. Throatturning into furnace and not burning me alive. The first time fire left my mouth and stayed in the air long enough to change it. The day after, I woke craving raw meat and the feel of stone under my spine. I also woke whole.
Three years later, the house was ash and bone under a sky that didn’t care. I don’t like telling that part. I don’t like remembering gun oil in my nose and the wrong kind of silence after. People who talk like me tend to end their lists early and pretend that is strength. It isn’t. It’s survival. It’s also what taught me to keep my heart under lock where it couldn’t get used as leverage.
And then we pulled a girl out of a river whose breath counted the same way mine does when I am about to decide something that matters. Now I’m sitting in a tent with my jacket over her and a promise in my chest I didn’t plan to make.
I do it anyway.
If the world wants her, it can go through me. If it tries, I will reduce the path to ash.
The canvas shifts with a small sound. I look up and her lashes lift half a finger’s width, then settle. Not now. Not yet. Good. She needs the kind of sleep you earn by bleeding and living. I adjust the vent one notch and tuck a corner back in at her hip because drafts play tricks you don’t feel until morning.
Outside, Ash tells Vex he can have exactly one more bite if he stops stealing from the pot. Vex ignores the words and steals the bite. Darian pretends to be offended and then offers the birda bigger piece to keep the peace. Caelum hums until the sound smooths the edges of the night. It’s routine. It’s also what the word family looks like when you refuse to romanticize it.
I ease down along the inside wall, boots still on, hand slid under the bedroll where I can feel the heat of her through canvas. I don’t press. I don’t grab. I anchor myself to the proof that she is here and alive and not a problem I have to solve alone.
“Wake me in two hours,” I call, and Darian answers with a quiet affirmative through the canvas.
Ash’s voice follows, lower. “Sleep, big man. I’ll keep first watch.”
“You’ll keep second,” Darian corrects, and his patience has the kind of edge Ash respects.
Caelum’s hum trails off. The ward flexes once under his palm and settles.
I let my eyes close because I can. Breath in. Breath out. Nothing fancy. No speeches. The girl under my jacket breathes with me without knowing it. That is enough for now.
When the dream tries to bring back a cliff and a fire I couldn’t put out, I think about a mouth tipping at the corner at the smell of my jacket and a crow stealing stew and a wolf who will be offended about being left behind. The images pull into a line I can stand on.
I sleep.
Not a Cult, Apparently
Seraphina
I wake to heat and leather and the kind of silence that makes your heartbeat sound rude.
The fabric against my skin is heavy and soft from wear. It smells like smoke and pine and something that settles a stupid calm over my spine. I’m on a bedroll, not my bed. My cheek sticks to a rough pillow. Outside, something pops like a wet log giving up in a fire, and the air tastes faintly of broth. I’m not cold. That’s new.
I shift and everything shifts with me, which is how I realize I’m naked under the coat.
Okay. Good morning, humiliation. We’re doing this.
I pull the lapels in tight and prop myself up on my elbows. My body runs a systems check—achey, thirsty, but functional. No stab wound. No blood. No hooves. My throat scratches when Iswallow. My mouth is dry enough to qualify as a desert with trust issues.
Memories file in without asking permission: alley, hands, breath that stank of old coffee and threat; the flash of a blade; the white-hot rupture inside me; the river; the cold that wasn’t cold because I was burning; a voice telling me to breathe; rough hands that didn’t hurt; darkness. Not a blackout. Just… down.
I cinch the coat tighter. It’s huge on me, drapes to mid-thigh, sleeves swallowing my fingers. The tent is simple—canvas, a lantern hooked near the peak, my boots lined up by the flap, probably someone else’s idea of order because I don’t remember being that considerate before passing out. My pulse starts to race at the edges of my ribs, which, rude, but fair.
If I just woke up in a murder cult, I at least want breakfast first.
A shadow crosses the tent door. Knuckles rap twice. Calm. Intentional.
“May I?” a voice—low, even.
