FORTY
QUIET MOMENTS
I stopped by the children’s school today.
They were playing ‘battle’, pretending to ride dragons and take down shadow forces.
For a moment, I wanted to stop them, turn their imaginations toward discovery rather than conquest. I pray to the gods they only ever have to ‘play’ battle.
That their lives are spent raising homes, exploring, learning, and crafting wonders rather than counting the dead.
—VALEN’S JOURNAL
AMARA
The first thing I see when I wake is him.
Thane lies on his stomach, the sheets pooled low around his waist, his broad back bathed in the soft morning light filtering through the curtains.
Golden rays slip past the fabric, painting his skin in shifting hues of gold and umber.
The contrast is mesmerizing. Light and shadow, warmth and darkness, playing across the powerful curve of his shoulders and back.
My gaze follows the path of his Fire-Wielding tattoo. The intricate black ink curls over his left shoulder like a piece of living history, a reminder of everything he carries.
I notice his hair.
It’s grown longer. Not quite to his neck yet, but it’s getting there. The dark strands are tousled from sleep, catching faint copper highlights in the sunlight. I’ve never seen it this long. He never lets it grow like this. It softens him in a way I don’t think he realizes.
A small smile tugs at my lips.
These quiet moments might be my favorite part of the day. The moments before duty. Before meetings. Before the weight of the realm settles back onto our shoulders.
When he’s just Thane. Not the Warlord or heir to a fractured legacy.
Just the man I love.
I want to reach for him. Thread my fingers through his hair, feel the warmth of his skin beneath my palms, trace the map of his back with my lips. But for now, I stare, letting myself memorize him like this. Unburdened. Unguarded. Bathed in morning light.
I can see a future with him. A life we build together. Children racing through grassy fields. A home where I can grow things. Laughter instead of war. Peace instead of survival. A future where we are more than weapons forged in fire and war.
I have to believe there is an after. That we will make it through to the other side.
Because if I don’t believe that, if I don’t hold on to the hope of what comes next, then what is the point of the fight?
Songbirds call just beyond the opened window. I close my eyes for a breath, letting the peace of the morning wash over me.
I’ve never known a love like this. So absolute. So all-encompassing. It has settled into every corner of me, reshaping the person I thought I was. It is not gentle or tame. It is fierce. Vast. Unyielding.
Like the wind beneath Calryx’s wings.
Like the tide pulling me home.
Like a force that has woven itself so completely into my life that I can no longer remember who I was before it.
It feels otherworldly. As though some part of me always knew him, even before I understood what the bond was. Before I understood who I was.
Maybe it’s fate or the gods that put us together. Maybe it’s simply the impossible thing that happens when two people choose each other again and again until there is no version of the future that makes sense apart.
All I know is that loving him feels as natural as breathing.
My parents come to mind. Their love was so pure. So complete. It wasn’t this wild, untamed thing that Thane and I have, a force that feels bigger than the both of us. But they loved, fully and deeply. And gods, I was lucky enough to be raised inside that love.
They taught me what it looked like. A quiet partnership. A sweet devotion. Two people choosing each other every day.
I never imagined I would find that and so much more. Not with a man who makes my pulse race and my heart ache in equal measure. Not with a man who somehow feels like both my greatest adventure and my safest place.
A smile tugs at my lips.
I think my parents would have loved Thane. Not because he is a Warlord, or because of his strength, or status. But because of the way he looks at me. The way he listens. The way he gives me space to choose. To be my own person. To stand beside him as an equal.
My parents gave each other that same freedom. My father never loved my mother because she was obedient. He loved her because she was strong and challenged him. She was unapologetically herself.
And Thane loves me the same way.
Thane starts to stir, his body shifting slightly, the muscles in his back flexing as he turns toward me. His eyes remain closed, caught somewhere between sleep and wakefulness.
I send everything I’m feeling down the bond. The love, hope, and quiet happiness that has settled inside me this morning. It drifts toward him like a warm breeze on a spring day, soft and golden.
A lazy smile tugs at his lips. His eyes remain shut, but I feel him basking in it all the same.
Then his response finds me. Warmth unfurls through the bond, familiar and reassuring, like sitting beside a fire after a long day in the cold.
He blinks lazily and unhurried, as if still caught in the haze of sleep. His lids lift, revealing smoke-gray eyes softened by the last remnants of it. Dark hair falls across his brow, tousled and unruly.
He looks at me with sleepy eyes, and through the bond I feel it. The quiet affection. The contentment. The way his emotions curl around mine like embers glowing in a hearth.
Finally, his lips part, his voice rough with sleep as he murmurs, “Hi.”
Just one word, simple and quiet, but it sends a warmth through me all the same.
His eyes linger on mine, heavy-lidded, soft in a way I don’t often get to see.
I smile, unable to help it.
“Hi.”
He leans toward me and presses a lingering kiss to the tip of my nose.
Before I can say anything, he wraps an arm around me and pulls me close. He tucks me under his chin, his embrace steadfast.
I close my eyes, breathing him in. Smoke and cedar. The scent settles deep inside me, and for a moment I let myself memorize it. Brand it in my senses, holding on to it with the same desperate certainty I’ve been clinging to all morning.
We stay like this for a few moments, wrapped in warmth, neither of us in a hurry to move. The bond hums softly between us, peaceful and content.
Thane’s voice rumbles low against my hair. “What do you have to do today besides train with Valen?”
I sigh, nuzzling closer for just a moment before answering.
“I’m helping him with some research. We’re trying to figure out where the ledger might be in the Air Clan.”
I told him everything after Valen pieced it together.
The truth about General Veyne, about how he didn’t just document history, he sent evidence to his allies.
The possibility that the Fire Clan didn’t simply rewrite history, but buried it beneath centuries of carefully crafted lies.
And somewhere within the Air Clan, the proof may still exist.
The ledger.
Veyne’s final notes hinted that the Air Clan was entrusted with the truth, but they never named a person or a place. For all we know, the ledger has changed hands a dozen times over the centuries.
And that’s the real danger. We don’t know who to trust. The wrong person learning what we’re searching for could be just as dangerous as never finding it at all.
Thane’s fingers move along the inked patterns of my Elemental tattoos. He starts with the Earth Clan’s mark, his touch featherlight, as he follows the familiar path upward.
Earth, Water, Air, Fire.
He always does it in the same order as though he’s tracing the story written across my skin.
I shiver but don’t stop him. I never do.
“Can I take you somewhere after breakfast?” he asks.
“Mmm.”
I nuzzle closer, my nose brushing his skin, clinging to the stillness we’ve carved out from the chaos beyond these walls.
Thane chuckles softly. “Is that a yes?”
I smile, my lips grazing his skin.
“It’s a yes . . . but can we stay like this a little longer?”
His arms tighten around me.
“Yes, my little Zephyr,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “We can.”