Chapter 24
B y the time we returned to the Grove, the light had begun to fade. The Briar Moon was already visible in the sky, her surface darker with more thorns than she’d had before.
Nessa took one look at the mud dried to my knees, the trembling in Xandros' hands, and Bramble clinging to my shoulder, and marched all three of us into the infirmary.
She checked my palms, my eyes, my Wild, and every inch of my vines. She made Xandros sit while she examined the strain left behind by the road and ignored his repeated assurance that he was fine.
Neither of us was fine.
Though, for once, we were apparently fine enough to leave.
“Sleep,” Nessa ordered as she wrapped a shallow cut across my wrist. “Somewhere that I do not have to look at either of you.”
I nearly laughed.
Xandros managed it for me.
His shoulder brushed mine as we stepped outside, and I caught his hand before he could pull it away.
We walked to my room together.
It had always been my home away from home. When I wasn’t out on patrol, the room was where I came back to sleep and shut the rest of the Grove outside for a few hours.
I hadn’t stepped inside it in more than a month.
The room still held the shape of the life I had left behind.
My sword rack stood against one wall, one space conspicuously empty.
A second pair of boots remained shoved beneath the bench where I had kicked them off before my last patrol, and an old green cloak hung crookedly from a peg beside the door.
Bramble’s collection of stolen treasures still filled the shallow basket near the hearth: two polished stones, a strip of blue cloth, one of Rhian’s buckles, and something silver I had never managed to identify.
Nothing had changed.
Except that somehow all of it felt different with Xandros here with me.
He stopped just inside the threshold, his gaze moving slowly through the room.
A blush crept into my face.
“What?”
His mouth curved.
“Nothing.”
“You’re… just looking at everything.”
“I’ve never been here before.”
He had been beside me in nearly every place that had mattered over the past few weeks.
The infirmary.
My childhood home and the Cedarstone.
Asterra.
All the roads in between.
But he had never stood inside the small piece of the Grove that belonged only to me.
I closed the door behind him.
Bramble dropped from my shoulder and made straight for his basket. He shoved his nose beneath the blue cloth and emerged with a dried berry I had no intention of asking about.
Xandros watched him chew it with only a moderate look of disgust.
“I’m beginning to understand why none of your possessions are safe.”
“Only the valuable ones.”
Bramble looked at me and sneezed, the old berry tumbling from his mouth. He made no effort to go back for it.
I rubbed a hand over my face.
“And this is why we don’t bury our snacks.” I picked up the offensive and long-expired fruit with a cloth and tossed it into the waste basket.
Xandros' laugh was quiet.
The sound loosened something inside me.
I unbuckled the sword Caelan had given me and leaned it beside the rack. My fingers lingered around the pommel for a moment before I let go.
Xandros sat on the edge of my bed.
The mattress dipped beneath his weight.
Another ordinary thing that should not have mattered.
I had imagined him on the porch of my family home only hours ago. Now he sat in my room with damp mud on his boots and his pale hair tangled around his shoulders.
The sight hurt.
I crossed to the washbasin and pressed my thumb to the small knot of living wood above it. The root curled open, releasing a clear stream of cold water into the basin.
My hands were filthy despite Nessa’s attempts to clean the worst of them. Mud had dried beneath my nails, and a thin line of blood marked one knuckle where the stone at the road had scraped me.
Xandros came up behind me.
He reached around my side and dipped a cloth into the water.
“I can wash my own hands.”
“I’ve seen you try.”
I narrowed my eyes and glanced at him over my shoulder.
His expression remained solemn for half a heartbeat before one corner of his mouth moved.
I rolled my eyes and handed him the cloth.
He took my right hand carefully.
The water had cooled, but his fingers were warm as he worked the mud from around the bandage crossing my wrist. Neither of us spoke while the cloth darkened.
His thumb paused near the edge of my star.
The gold had faded until only a faint outline remained beneath my skin.
I watched his face.
Asterra’s stars had been reflected in those eyes less than an hour ago.
I could still see them.
Six points of light spreading across Asterra’s sky while silver branches lifted beneath them. Then disappearing one by one because Xandros had pulled his Everlight back.
My fingers tightened around his. “Do you regret closing it?”
The cloth stopped against my palm.
Xandros looked up at me, his hand still cradling mine above the basin. “No.”
My throat tightened.
He lowered his gaze again and dragged the wet cloth carefully around the edge of my bandage.
“Your stars came back.”
His thumb brushed mud from the side of my hand.
“We should have had more time,” I said. “I barely understood what I was holding before the weave started failing. If I had known where the damage was, I might have been able to shift the flow around it.”
The cloth dipped into the water again.
“The exchange worked. I felt the Deepwood getting stronger, and Asterra was healing. We were right.” My voice caught on the last word.
Xandros squeezed the water from the cloth and wiped between my fingers.
“So there has to be another way. We map the damage before we try again. Find another route through the weave. Learn what I missed.”
“What we missed, Wildflower.” His hands went still around mine. “And that is exactly what we’ll do.”
I looked at him.
Exhaustion shadowed his face, but there was no uncertainty in it.
“You could have asked me to hold it longer.”
His expression hardened. “I would never ask you to destroy your world for mine.”
“Your people are dying?—”
He cut me off, his voice sharper than it had been before. “And yours were beginning to.”
The words lodged beneath my ribs.
Xandros turned my hand over and cleaned the last streak of mud from my wrist.
“I have spent my entire life watching Asterra die, Wildflower. I would give almost anything to stop it.”
My eyes burned.
Almost.
I knew exactly what the word held.
He set the cloth aside but kept my hand between his.
“If saving Asterra requires destroying the Deepwood, then we have not found our answer yet.”
I stared at our joined hands.
His were still dirty.
He had cleaned mine first.
My forehead dropped against his chest.
His arms came around me.
“I can’t forget your face when the stars came back.”
His hand moved slowly over my hair.
I closed my eyes. “We’ll find another way.”
His hold tightened around me. “We will.”
I let myself believe him.
A knock sounded at the door not long after.
By the time I crossed the room and opened it, whoever had brought the food was already disappearing down the corridor. A covered basket sat on the floor outside with bread, cold, roasted vegetables, soft cheese and fig jam, along with a bottle of wine and two cups stacked carefully atop it.
I carried everything inside.
Neither of us had much appetite, but Nessa had made her expectations painfully clear, so we ate anyway. Bramble helped with enough enthusiasm for all three of us, circling the tray until I caught him with half a piece of cheese between his teeth.
“Absolutely not.”
He bolted beneath the table.
Xandros leaned back against the bed, watching me retrieve what remained of the cheese from a pine marten who clearly believed possession constituted ownership.
“He seems recovered from that moldy berry.”
“He has survived a very difficult day.”
Bramble swallowed the evidence, and I narrowed my eyes at him.
Then I opened the window.
“Go find Rhian.”
His ears twitched.
“You heard me, you little fiend. Go torment someone else for a while.”
He hesitated just long enough to make his displeasure clear before darting through the window and disappearing into the Grove.
I closed the window behind him.
When I turned, Xandros was watching me.
The room went very still.
The failed road, the fading stars, the fear waiting beyond these walls all remained exactly where we had left them, but for a few hours, I wanted nothing from the world except him.
I crossed the space between us.
His hands found my waist before I reached the bed, and I climbed into his lap as his mouth met mine.
There was less hesitation between us this time.
No careful discovery. No uncertainty over whether either of us would stop.
I kissed him until the hollow ache beneath my ribs gave way to heat, until his hands against my back and the weight of his body beneath mine became the only things I could feel clearly.
Then his grip tightened.
He turned us before I realized what he meant to do, guiding me onto my back and following me down to the mattress.
A startled breath escaped me.
Xandros braced himself over me, pale hair falling around his face as his mouth curved against mine. I let myself sink beneath the weight of him, answering every touch without thinking about what waited beyond the walls.
He kissed me until my fingers tightened in his hair and the last of my thoughts scattered.
Then there was only Xandros.
His mouth against mine. His hands holding me. The steady heat of him surrounding me as we lost ourselves in each other again, slower than before and somehow more desperate for it, holding on as though closeness could make the future wait outside the door.
Later, I lay with my cheek against his chest while his fingers drifted lazily through my hair. His breathing had gone slow and even, the quiet between us filled by the rise and fall of his chest and the steady beat of his heart beneath my ear.
One arm rested beneath his head. His pale hair had spread across my pillow, and the gold constellations traced along his throat and chest glimmered faintly in the low light.
He slept differently here.