Chapter 5
CLARA
The problem with leading a small-town rebellion is that no one tells you how damn unreliable volunteers can be when the temperature drops below freezing.
I’m out here on Main, four hours into lantern prep, with twelve poles, five cracked ladders, a tangled knot of half-lit string lights, and exactly three people who showed up.
Two of them are over sixty, and the third is seventeen with a phone in his hand and earbuds in both ears.
I don’t have the energy to chase him into participation. I don’t have the time.
The sky is already going that bruised purple color it does right before it dumps snow, and my gloved fingers are stiff from tying fishing line to hooks that won’t stay level.
My boots are soaked again. My patience’s running thin.
And every time I step back to squint at the lineup of crooked lanterns sagging across the street, I can feel my grandmother’s voice somewhere in the back of my head muttering about posture and pride and presentation.
“Clara,” Dee says gently from where she’s balancing a thermos on the hood of her truck, “you’re bleeding morale all over the sidewalk.”
“I’m bleeding exhaustion and disappointment,” I say, tugging on one of the lantern strings to try and force it into position. “Big difference.”
She watches me fuss for a second, then clicks her tongue and gestures toward the approaching shape walking up the road.
“Well, speak of the devil and look who brought his own shoulders.”
I freeze, mid-knot, when I see him.
Dralgor Veyr is not wearing a scarf. That’s the first thing my brain registers, which is stupid, because what matters is that he’s walking toward us with his sleeves rolled back, his coat open, and a face like stone under frost. He doesn’t slow when he reaches us.
He just stops in front of the lamppost nearest me and looks up at the half-hung string of lanterns like he’s judging every angle of my failure.
“I thought you’d be supervising from a leather armchair,” I say, too tired to pretend civility.
“I offered manpower,” he replies, tone flat. “Your committee accepted.”
I whip around to glare at Dee, who shrugs unapologetically. “You said we needed help. He said he had time. I decided to live dangerously.”
“You decided to live with consequences,” I mutter, then turn back to Dralgor, who’s already sizing up the ladder with a kind of focused disdain.
“You know how to climb one of those?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“I build skyscrapers.”
“That’s a no, then.”
He grabs the ladder without another word and positions it under the nearest pole. The metal groans under his weight, but it holds, and then he’s up there, boots braced, arms reaching with an ease that would annoy me even if I wasn’t the one who tied the line too low in the first place.
“Left a little,” I call. “No, your left. My—what are you doing?”
“Fixing it.”
“That’s not fixing it, that’s manhandling it. You’re going to pull the post out of the ground.”
“Your knots are weak.”
“My knots are perfect.”
“They’re uneven.”
“They are artistically staggered,” I snap. “There’s a theme.”
He glances down. “The theme is collapse.”
I grit my teeth so hard I think I might crack a molar. Dee’s snickering into her thermos behind me like this is the best entertainment she’s had all month.
“Can we try not to destroy the town square before the festival starts?” I ask, walking over to adjust one of the ground-level lantern bases. “Some of us actually want to preserve this place.”
“Some of us understand that presentation requires structural integrity.”
“You’re one stray smirk away from losing your tusks, Veyr.”
“Threats of violence,” he muses, stepping down from the ladder, “an interesting negotiation strategy.”
I ignore him and move to the next post, struggling with the knot again because the wind’s picked up and keeps slapping the ribbon back into my face.
I finally manage to tie it, fingers aching through the gloves, and when I look up, he’s already on the other ladder.
No invitation. No warning. Just moving like this is his town and I’m the one encroaching.
“Careful,” I mutter as I steady the base of the ladder. “You fall, I’m not dragging your orc-sized carcass to the clinic.”
“I heal fast.”
“Not from idiocy.”
The lantern he’s hanging glows gold and flickers with the reflection of the snow already falling in a fine mist around us.
It’s beautiful, and I hate that I notice.
Hate even more the way his coat shifts with the wind, just enough for me to catch the scent of something dark and grounding: cedarwood, steel, and something distinctly him that I want to pretend doesn’t make my heart kick like a deer.
“Clara.”
His voice is quieter now. Still deep, still that strange blend of command and restraint, but not cutting.
“What?”
“Your knot held.”
I glance up. He’s not smiling, not really, but his eyes look warmer than they did a moment ago.
“Of course it did,” I say. “I’m competent, not cute.”
“You’re both.”
I freeze.
He doesn’t look away. Doesn’t blink. Just waits.
I stare at him a second too long before I turn back to the next post, trying to swallow the heat crawling up my neck. The wind chooses that moment to gust, hard enough to rattle the lanterns and knock the ladder out of alignment. I reach for it instinctively, but I’m too late.
The ladder slips.
He doesn’t fall far. Just a sharp thud and a grunt, boots hitting the snow in a crouch. I rush over anyway, heart hammering.
“You alright?” I ask before I can help myself.
He stands, brushing the snow off his coat, and nods. “Fine.”
“Could’ve broken something.”
“Only pride.”
I frown at him, but he’s already picking the ladder back up like it didn’t just try to eat him. That’s when I snap.
“You don’t get to waltz in here like some oversized solution and act like you care.”
His head tilts, slow and dangerous.
“I don’t care,” he says, voice low. “But I respect effort. You’re fighting something you don’t have to. That means something.”
I step forward, the snow crunching under my boots. “I’m not fighting. I’m surviving. There’s a difference.”
His eyes drop to my mouth, just for a heartbeat.
“I know.”
I can feel the air between us shift. It’s not just cold anymore. It’s electric, charged, the kind of silence that wants to bend into something else. I take a breath that hurts on the way down.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I whisper.
“Like what?”
“Like you think this is inevitable.”
His jaw tightens. “It might be.”
I want to slap him. Or kiss him. Or scream into the wind until this pressure in my chest breaks into something I can understand.
Instead, I grab the string of lanterns from his hand, loop it onto the hook myself, and turn away before I do something irreparable.
“We’re done here,” I say, trying to sound steady. “Thanks for the help. I don’t need more.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he replies.
“No, you won’t.”
He doesn’t argue. Just leaves, boots crunching in rhythm until I can’t hear them anymore.
I stand alone in the square for a while after that, watching the lanterns sway in the snow, glowing like tiny suns against the storm that hasn’t quite begun.
My heart’s still racing, and I don’t know if it’s from anger or something worse.