Chapter 2 #2
“You need to eat,” he murmured, and with that, he was gone—stepping beyond the ring of soot-streaked soil, his broad shoulders slipping between the trees without another word.
Elara exhaled, long and thin, turning her face to the sky as her body sank into the earth.
Above her, clouds drifted, the blue so bright it almost looked cruel.
She reached for the bloodstone at her throat and closed her fingers around it until it bit into her skin.
Pressing it to her chest, she wished—foolishly—that it might remember what she could not, that it might coax her heartbeat into something resembling rhythm, or fill the gaping hole where faith used to live.
It held one final oath.
Ivan’s last unresolved promise lingered like a prayer that had never found its god—a vow caught between worlds, to take her to see Godfrey. Her chest tightened, each beat a dull, hammering throb against her ribs. A phantom pain she couldn’t shake. If he were dead, she would know. Wouldn’t she?
His oath still burned inside the stone.
Which meant the promise still lived.
Which meant he still lived.
It had to.
Elara found Reynnar by the stream, half-kneeling in the mud, sleeves rolled to his elbows, hands sunk deep in the earth. Dirt streaked his forearms; veins stood taut beneath skin like carved riverstone.
She sank to her knees beside him, soil clinging to her fingers as she mirrored his movements.
The earth was soft here, rich with decay and waterlogged leaves.
Pale arrowroot peeked from the dark soil, watercress swayed at the stream’s edge, and from beneath a quilt of lichen, Reynnar unearthed a tangled clutch of wild sunchokes, their knobby skins caked in mud.
Without a word, he rose and stepped into the shallows of the stream, crouched again to wash the roots clean, using the coarse edge of a rock to scrape the dirt away.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “About the fire.”
He didn’t glance up, just kept working, knuckles flexing as he scraped earth from the pale sunchoke. His mouth tightened—the only sign he’d heard her.
“For the record,” he said at last, “I’ve taken lightning to the chest and a sword through the gut—” his eyes flicked up then, “—but waking up to you half-shrieking in flames might be my new favorite.”
Heat clawed up her neck, curling in her ears. “I didn’t mean to. It just—”
He nodded toward the riverbank. “You singed my boots.”
They sat half-submerged, one listing sideways, leather warped and blistered by heat. Wisps of steam still curled as the current lapped over the damage and carried flecks of soot downstream.
She folded her arms. “Your boots were ugly.”
A low, rough laugh scraped from his chest, and it lit her from the inside. He shook his head and reached for another root. “Sunchokes do that too,” he murmured, brushing soil from their skins with his thumb.
“Set people on fire?”
The corner of his mouth tugged. “No,” he said, “but they take over when you’re not paying attention. Grow fast. If you don’t harvest them in time, they’ll choke out everything around them. Doesn’t matter what else was planted—these win. Every time.”
He passed her the root. “Aoife and I used to come down to the banks and dig these up for my mother. We hated it. They’d fight us the whole way out of the ground.
We’d come back covered head to toe in mud and curse their name every time.
But they were her favorite. Said they were stubborn and strange and still good—if you knew what to do with them.
” He rinsed another. “They’re a mess, but they feed people through the cold months. Keep well in the dark. Hard to kill.”
His eyes flicked to her.
“I think she liked them because they reminded her of us.”
Reynnar sat back on his heels, wiping his hands on his tunic. “Draoth’s the same. Wild. Ugly when it wants to be. But if you learn how to harvest it—if you stop being afraid of it—maybe it’ll stop trying to burn the world down just to get your attention.”
Her throat tightened. “I’m not afraid.”
“I think you are,” he said. “And that’s all right.”
For a moment, she thought he’d pull away—that the conversation had ended like all the others. With silence and distance. Instead, he shifted closer, close enough for her to see the flecks of gold in his eyes, the scar through his brow like a blade had once kissed him and nearly stayed.
“But I need you to know, you don’t scare me.”
“I could’ve hurt you.”
“But you didn’t,” he said, calm as the stream. “I’ve seen what power looks like when it breaks someone. That’s not what this is. You’re not broken, Eilíara. You’re just waking up.”
She swallowed hard and stood, brushing soil from her hands. Reynnar rose with her and pressed a bundle of washed roots into her palms, his skin cold from the stream.
“Thank you,” she said, slipping them into her pocket. “For the food. And the barrier. And for…you know, not letting me roast us alive.”
A faint curve touched the corner of his mouth. He brushed a smear of dirt from her cheek with a knuckle, the gesture absurdly tender from hands that had so recently shattered bone, drawn blades, killed.
“If you lose control again,” he said, “I’ll be here. Burn if you need to. I can take the heat.”