Selah
The inn looks nothing like it did three days ago.
Corvin has pulled up sections of the cellar floor and connected them to the smuggling tunnels that run beneath Gullhaven.
Planks have been replaced with false panels.
Crates are repositioned to cover trapdoors.
The back corridor that leads from the kitchen to the harbor alley now has three separate exits, each one known to a different set of people.
Rennic has spent two days running messages between the fishing quarter and the farms north of town without sleeping enough to look human.
It is organized chaos, and I am in the middle of it, which is exactly where Droza does not want me.
“You should be in the room.” He says it from the doorway of the back corridor, arms crossed, wings held tight against his back in that particular way that means he is restraining himself from doing something larger.
“I’m helping Corvin route the Aldermere family through the south tunnel.
” I don’t look up from the map Corvin has spread across the kitchen table.
“The Aldermeres have two children under five. They need someone who can keep them calm when they move through the dark. I’m smaller than everyone else here, and I don’t terrify toddlers on sight. ”
A beat of silence.
“That was not directed at you personally,” I add.
“Go to the room.”
“Droza.”
“Selah.”
I finally look at him. The golden glow of his eyes is steady, which I have learned means he is working very hard to stay level.
“I am not property,” I say quietly. “I’m not going to become something you store somewhere safe while the actual work happens without me. These families are being moved because of what I brought to Gullhaven. The least I can do is make myself useful.”
He doesn’t answer. He holds the doorway and watches me go back to the map.
By midday, I helped coordinate routes for three families and talked Rennic through a near-panic when one of his dock contacts stopped responding to messages. Droza has not left the inn’s perimeter.
We don’t fight about it again, but we don’t speak much either.
The tension between us has a different texture now than it did before the watchtower.
Before, it was friction. Now it is something that has been pulled toward tenderness and then yanked back by circumstances, and neither of us quite knows what to do with the leftover weight of it.
I step outside before the afternoon light starts to fade. The harbor stinks of brine and rain, and the wind is cold enough to cut through my coat. I want five minutes of air that doesn’t smell like sawdust and anxiety.
The docks are quieter than usual. Most of the fishing boats have been pulled from the water. The few sailors still working move quickly, heads down, the way people move when they’ve heard something they don’t like.
I’m watching the horizon when the man steps into my path.
He is large, not Droza large, but large enough to block the narrow stretch between two tied-off fishing vessels. He has dark hair, sun-weathered skin, and a lazy confidence.
“Haven’t seen you before,” he says. “You staying at the inn?”
“Passing through.” I keep my voice flat and start to move around him.
“No need to rush.” His eyes move over me and my skin crawls. “I’ve got nowhere to be.”
The sailor steps forward, and his hand grips my shoulder hard enough to bruise. My hand finds the small blade at my hip out of reflex, and then everything happens very fast.
The air pressure changes, and the light shifts. The shadow that falls over both of us is enormous.
The man looks up.
Whatever he sees in Droza’s face drains the color from his completely.
Droza steps forward until he is between me and the sailor.
His large hands shoots out, grabbing the sailor by the throat and lifting him into the air.
The sailor chokes and gasps, his legs flailing.
Droza stays there, perfectly still, and the stillness is somehow worse than movement would have been.
His wings have opened at the edges. His eyes are burning gold.
“What are you doing?” I ask, almost ready to panic. The sailor’s lips turn blue and his cheeks grow pale as Droza fingers squeeze even tighter.
“Stop it!” I shout. Droza growls, but he drops the sailor.
“Walk away,” Droza says. His voice is flat and final.
The sailor bolts without another word and without looking back.
The dock goes quiet except for the water.
I turn on Droza before the silence can settle.
The fury is already up my throat before I have consciously decided to feel it.
I’m not mad at him, not exactly, but at what happened.
I’m angry at the fact that my fear read as a signal, and he responded like an alarm.
It’s like he doesn’t trust me to handle myself.
“You felt it,” I say. “You felt me get uncomfortable, and you came running.”
“I felt you become afraid.” His voice is even. His jaw is not.
“I was startled. There’s a difference. I had my hand on my blade. But you almost killed him.”
“He was twice your size.”
“I am aware of that.” I step closer, which I know is somewhat illogical given that I am furious at him for protecting me, but the anger needs somewhere to go.
“I have survived on my own for months. I have been cornered by things significantly more dangerous than a dockhand who doesn’t know how to take a hint.
You cannot feel every spike of my adrenaline and treat it like permission to become something that will terrify an entire harbor. ”
Droza remains quiet. The wings settle.
“I cannot help it. Every time the tether gives me your fear, something in me stops thinking. It does not ask whether you have a blade. It does not calculate whether you are capable of managing the situation.” He stops. His jaw works. “I cannot lose you.”
The words land simply, without performance.
“I spent decades feeling nothing.” He does not look away.
“Not grief. Not fear. Not the cold. Nothing. The stone was quiet, and I was quiet inside it, and I had decided that was acceptable. It is not acceptable anymore. And I do not know what to do with that except stand between you and anything that comes too close.”
“That’s not the same as keeping me safe,” I say, but my voice has lost its edge.
“No,” he agrees. “It is not.”
We stand there in the fading light, the tether warm and aching between us, and I understand that this is not a problem either of us is going to solve tonight.