Chapter 4 Brynn #2
The casual way she adjusts to accommodate Nya's needs without making a fuss about it sends another pang through my chest. My daughter has learned empathy through her own experiences of being different, and watching her extend that understanding to someone else is both heartwarming and heartbreaking.
"Why don't you come back to the shop?" The invitation slips out before I can stop it, surprising me as much as anyone. "I have a flower press Rhea could show Nya how to use. And it's warmer there."
Ciaran's eyebrows rise slightly, and I realize how the offer must sound—like I'm actively seeking their company when everything in my demeanor should be suggesting polite distance.
"We wouldn't want to impose," he says, though there's something in his eyes that suggests he wants to accept.
"It's no imposition." The lie comes easily, though I'm not entirely sure it is a lie. "Besides, Rhea will be impossible to live with if she doesn't get to demonstrate proper flower pressing technique."
"Please, Dad?" Nya looks up at him with those striking violet eyes, and I see the exact moment his resolve crumbles.
"Very well," he says, then glances at me with an expression I can't quite read. "But only for a short while."
As we walk back toward the shop, Rhea and Nya chattering about the relative merits of different pressing methods, I find myself falling into step beside Ciaran.
He moves with the kind of unconscious confidence that comes from good breeding and education, but there's something more deliberate about the way he positions himself—always within easy reach of his daughter, always aware of her energy levels and limitations.
"You're very protective of her," I observe, keeping my voice low enough that the girls won't overhear.
"She's all I have." The words are simple, but they carry a weight that suggests a story I probably don't want to hear. "And she's... fragile in ways that aren't always obvious."
There's pain in his voice, carefully controlled but unmistakable. Whatever circumstances brought them to Eryndral, whatever drove them from their previous life, it wasn't by choice.
"Children are more resilient than we think," I tell him, though I'm not sure if I'm trying to comfort him or convince myself. "Rhea's taught me that."
He glances at me sideways, and for a moment I'm struck by how the winter light brings out the silver flecks in his eyes. "You raise her alone."
It's not quite a question, but I nod anyway. "Her father..." I let the sentence trail off, realizing I don't want to explain about the sculptor who charmed me with promises and passion before disappearing like morning mist. "He wasn't interested in staying."
"His loss," Ciaran says simply, and there's something in his tone that makes heat bloom in my chest despite the cold air.
I tell myself it's just sympathy, one single parent recognizing another's struggles. But the way he looks at me when he says it—direct, unflinching, with an intensity that makes my pulse quicken—suggests something more complicated.
We reach the shop just as the first fat snowflakes begin to fall again, and I fumble with the key while trying to ignore the way Ciaran's presence seems to fill the space behind me.
He's standing close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating from his body, and when I finally get the door open and turn to usher everyone inside, our eyes meet for a moment that stretches longer than it should.
"After you," he says, his voice carrying a formality that doesn't quite mask whatever current is running between us.
I step inside quickly, grateful for the familiar scent of parchment and ink that grounds me in my own space.
But even as I busy myself with lighting the lamps and stirring the banked coals in the hearth, I'm acutely aware of Ciaran moving through my shop, taking in the carefully organized shelves and the small personal touches that make this place mine.
"This is lovely work," he says, pausing beside a display of hand-illuminated manuscripts. His fingers hover just above the gold leaf detailing, careful not to touch. "Local artisans?"
"Some. Others are pieces I've collected over the years." I don't mention that several of them were created during my brief, foolish foray into believing I could have a life that included beauty and impracticality. "I've always had a weakness for illuminated texts."
"Beauty in the marriage of word and image," he says, still studying the manuscripts. "It's the kind of art that feeds the soul even when it serves no practical purpose."
I pause as he says it, the words so familiar that for a moment I can't breathe. The kind of art that feeds the soul. I've heard those exact words before, spoken in the same cultured tones by another dark elf who filled my head with dreams and left me holding the pieces of a shattered heart.
But when I look at Ciaran, he's already moved on to examine a collection of pressed flowers Rhea created last summer, his attention focused entirely on our daughters as they spread their winter treasures across the counter. If he notices my reaction, he gives no sign.
I shake my head sharply, forcing the memory back into the locked box where it belongs. Different words, different person. Just because he's a dark elf with artistic sensibilities doesn't mean... anything.
But even as I tell myself this, I can't shake the feeling that I'm standing on the edge of something that could change everything.