8. Malrec #2
I take my leave, declining Damiros's offer to have a servant prepare refreshments. I need to be back at the stables, need to be in my own environment instead of this polished observatory where my brother watches everything with patient calculation.
The walk back feels longer than it should.
My mind keeps circling back to Damiros's suggestion about rotating staff, and the resistance I feel toward it that I can't adequately explain.
Lenna is competent with the beasts. Losing that competence would be inefficient. That's the logical justification.
But logic doesn't account for the way my chest tightens at the thought of her being reassigned. Doesn't explain the possessive edge that crept into my voice when Damiros said her name.
Doesn't explain the dreams that feel like memories of a life I never lived.
The stable entrance comes into view, and I force myself to compartmentalize. Whatever is happening with my subconscious—whatever confusion my mind is constructing around Lenna—can be dealt with later. Right now I have work to do.
I step through the entrance, and immediately hear Azhrael.
The sound is low and distressed, resonating through the lower levels in a pattern I recognize as agitation rather than aggression. Not a threat display. Something closer to... frustration.
I move quickly down the main walkway, following the sound to his enclosure.
Lenna stands outside the containment barrier, one hand hovering in front of the ward. Azhrael is on the other side, close enough that his breath would fog the barrier if it were physical glass instead of magic. His massive form shifts restlessly, and those luminous eyes are fixed entirely on her.
She's talking to him. Voice low and soothing, words I can't quite make out from this distance. Her posture is open despite the obvious tension in her shoulders, and there's something almost pleading in the way she's leaning toward him.
"Everything alright?"
My voice makes her turn, and I catch the full progression of her reaction before she can control it.
Her eyes drop—tracking down my body in a sweep that feels instinctive rather than deliberate—before snapping back up to meet my gaze.
Something flashes across her face too quickly to identify, immediately replaced by careful neutrality.
That look. The way her eyes traveled over me like her body was checking for something her mind couldn't articulate.
It mirrors the physical awareness I feel when she's nearby. The way my attention fragments toward her even when I'm focused elsewhere.
"He's upset," she says, her voice carrying that same careful distance she's maintained for two days now. "I can't get to him."
I approach the containment barrier, noting the way Azhrael's attention splits between her and me. His agitation doesn't diminish with my presence, which is concerning. Usually my proximity either escalates threat response or enforces submission. This restless distress is different.
"What triggered it?"
"I don't know." Lenna pulls her hand back from the barrier, wrapping her arms around herself. "He was fine an hour ago during feeding. I came back to check on him and found him like this."
The beast makes another low sound, and I see what she means. This isn't aggression or dominance. This is distress. He wants something he can't have, and the barrier is preventing resolution.
"He doesn't like that I can't reach him," Lenna continues quietly. "But I can't pass through the containment field."
The solution is obvious. I could lower the barrier myself, stay present while she enters to settle him. It's the safe option. The controlled option.
But Damiros's words echo in my mind: Maybe we should rotate staff again.
If I'm going to keep Lenna here—and apparently I've decided that I am, despite every logical argument against it—then she needs to be able to function independently with the beasts.
She's proven she can handle them. Azhrael responds to her better than anyone else.
Restricting her access when the beasts clearly want her proximity is inefficient.
And it's not like they could escape. The containment barriers prevent exit, not entry. Tying her signature to the ward would simply allow her to pass through when needed.
"I could tie your signature to the containment barrier," I hear myself say. "It would let you pass through without needing me to lower it every time."
Lenna's eyes widen slightly. "You can do that?"
"It's standard protocol for primary handlers." Which is true, though I've never extended that access to temporary laborers before. "It wouldn't give you control over the barriers, just permission to pass through them."
She glances at Azhrael, who has gone very still watching our exchange. Then back at me. "Yes. If it helps him, yes."
The agreement comes too quickly. Like she doesn't fully understand what she's accepting, or doesn't care about potential complications because Azhrael is distressed.
That protective instinct toward the beasts. The way she prioritizes their wellbeing over her own safety or status.
It does something to my composure that I refuse to examine.
"It requires physical contact," I say, moving closer to her. "The binding ritual needs to read your magical signature and tie it to the existing ward structure."
"Alright." She turns to face me fully, and I notice the way her breathing has changed. Shallow. Faster than it should be for a conversation this mundane.
I raise my hand, palm up. "Your wrist."
Lenna extends her arm, and I wrap my fingers around her wrist. Her skin is warm beneath my touch, pulse point fluttering against my fingertips in a rapid rhythm that matches the sudden acceleration of my own heartbeat.
The moment full contact establishes, something rushes through me.
It's immediate and overwhelming—a surge of warmth that has nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with recognition.
My body knows this. Knows her. Every nerve ending lights up with visceral certainty that this contact is right, that I should pull her closer, that the space between us is an error requiring immediate correction.
The urge to wrap my other arm around her waist, to drag her against me, to bury my face in her hair and just feel her is so intense it takes active effort to resist.
It reminds me of my dream, of her pressed against me, of holding her close. My body is longing for it in a way that feels like I've been deprived air.
Which doesn't make sense when I've never touched her before.
My breathing hitches. My grip on her wrist tightens involuntarily before I force myself to ease the pressure.
Focus.
I pull magic to the surface, channeling it through the point of contact to read her signature. The process should be simple—a basic magical scan that takes seconds, followed by the binding spell that ties her essence to the ward permissions.
But the magic responds to her like it recognizes her.
It shouldn't do that. Magical signatures are unique identifiers, but they don't carry memory. They're neutral markers, like fingerprints. The ward system shouldn't respond to her with anything beyond basic registration.
Instead, it practically welcomes her. The binding spell completes with unusual ease, the ward structure accepting her signature as though it's been waiting for it. As though she's not a stranger to this system but someone returning to a place she already belongs.
That's impossible.
I finish the binding and step back immediately, dropping contact before I do something I can't explain. The warmth lingers in my palm where I touched her, and I have to consciously resist the urge to reach for her again.
I can't look at her. Can't risk seeing whatever expression might be on her face right now because I'm barely holding my own composure together.
"It's done," I manage, my voice rougher than it should be. "You can pass through the containment barriers in this section now. The permission is limited to Azhrael's enclosure and the connecting walkways."
"Thank you."
Her voice is quiet. Unsteady in ways that match the chaos in my system.
I turn away, needing distance, needing to not be this close to her when my body is screaming recognition that my mind insists is impossible. None of this makes sense…
And I don't know what to do about it.