The fire crackled low between them. Pale smoke rose in thin spirals, curling through the morning chill. Veyra stood with her arms crossed, shoulder braced against the ache that hadn't let up overnight.
Kellen didn't look up from his blade.
"Didn't sleep, did you."
Veyra didn't answer. Not right away. She watched the treeline, jaw tight.
"Didn't think so," Kellen murmured. The dagger caught a strip of light, gleamed, turned again. "You're favoring your right. That shoulder's worse than you're letting on."
"It's fine."
"You say that about everything," he said, calm. "Doesn't make it true."
Veyra didn't bite. Just shifted her weight slightly, eyes narrowing at nothing in particular.
After a moment, Kellen said, "You're not thinking about the council yet, are you."
She gave him a sideways glance. "I'm always thinking about the council."
"No. You're watching her."
That landed.
Veyra's gaze flicked to the edge of the camp where Liora still lay, half-curled beneath the blanket, her hair tousled and catching faint morning light.
Then back to the fire.
Kellen wiped the blade clean. Waited.
Veyra exhaled through her nose. Quiet. Controlled.
"It wasn't supposed to be her," she said at last, her voice low. "Not the one who got caught in it."
Kellen didn't interrupt.
"I keep replaying it," she added. "The moment she went down. The sound she made. The look in her eyes. And then nothing but noise until I got to her."
Her fingers flexed at her sides.
"I've fought battles. Led campaigns. Buried friends. But I've never—" She stopped. Recoiled from the weight of her own words.
Kellen's voice broke the silence gently. "Never panicked?"
Veyra shook her head. "No. I knew what I was doing. But I didn't care if I made it out. Not until I had her in my hands again."
Kellen looked up at her then. Not with judgment. Just that calm, unreadable steadiness he always carried.
"You weren't thinking like a commander."
"No," she said. "I wasn't."
He watched her for a long moment, then asked, "Does that scare you?"
She didn't answer right away. Her eyes went to Liora again.
And stayed there.
"No," Veyra said softly. "It should. But it doesn't."
Kellen was silent for a moment.
Then he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, dagger set aside now.
"I get that you owe her," he said. "She kept you alive. Kept her head when most would've run. But this..." He glanced at her, brows drawn. "This isn't about survival. Or respect."
Veyra said nothing.
"You've never brought someone with you like this," he continued. "Never let anyone this close. Not even when it would've helped. Not even when we were younger and half the Omega houses tried to throw candidates at your father's door."
"That was politics," Veyra muttered. "Breeding contracts. Power games."
"And this isn't?"
He said it gently, but it struck hard.
Veyra's eyes narrowed. Not in anger—more like cornered thought.
"She's not... like them."
"No," Kellen agreed. "She's not."
Veyra looked back toward Liora without meaning to. Still sleeping. Still curled under the weight of healing. So small, still. But never weak.
Kellen didn't speak for a moment. He just watched her.
Then, with the same calm he used when pointing out an enemy weakness on a map, he said,
"You're drawn to her."
Veyra's jaw tensed.
"I mean it," he went on, tone even. "It's not just loyalty or guilt. It's not even awe. You want her."
Veyra didn't look at him.
She kept her eyes on the fire, lips set in a thin line.
Kellen leaned back slightly, resting against the log. "Never thought I'd see it. You always said you weren't interested in that kind of bond. Never saw the point. Never trusted it."
"I haven't changed," she said flatly.
"Haven't you?" Kellen asked. "Because you looked at her last night like you'd kill anyone who touched her, but also like you didn't know what to do with your own hands."
Veyra swallowed.
Hard.
Still, she didn't answer. Her throat worked, but no words came.
Because he was right.
And she hated it.
So she did what she always did when the questions got too close.
She stood.
Straightened her cloak.
And said, "Pack up camp. We leave within the hour."
Kellen just watched her rise. "You'll have to face it sooner or later."
"I'm facing Fort Dalen," she said. "That's all I can handle for now."
And she turned before he could say anything else, walking toward the edge of camp—toward the horses, toward the duty, toward anything but the fire still warming the air behind her.
Anything but the truth.
—
The weight of the cloak still clung to her.
Liora blinked blearily up at the canopy of trees, breath caught in the hollow of her chest as the wind passed through the branches above. Light filtered in slow, broken shafts—dull and pale with morning, not yet warmed by full sun. The cloak smelled like pine and ash and something deeper beneath it. A steadiness she couldn't name. Something that belonged entirely to Veyra.
She exhaled slowly and let her hand tighten around the edge of the fabric.
She hadn't meant to sleep so deeply. Not with her side still aching. Not with the memory of the firelit moment in her blood—Veyra's fingers on the bandage, the brush of her knuckles against skin, that impossibly still silence after her breath had caught.
The look on her face. Like reverence. Like ruin.
Liora shifted to sit up, biting back a small gasp as her ribs pulled tight beneath the wrap. The pain lanced sharp and brief. She pressed her palm against it, jaw clenched until it passed. It was better than the night before. But only barely.
She let the cloak slip from her shoulders and folded it with more care than she expected to.
Across the camp, Malen moved quietly, checking packs. Kellen stood a few strides off, his shoulder leaned against a tree, knife in hand, already scraping it against whetstone. The rhythm of it was soft, clean. Practiced. He looked relaxed—but not unwatching.
And Veyra—
Liora's eyes found her without meaning to.
Horse already saddled. The commander was standing tall in the rising wind, back turned as she secured her sword and cloak into place. Her hair was pulled back tight again, high at the crown, falling in an unruly river across the dark leather at her collar. She hadn't spoken a word since the last log had cracked in the fire hours before.
Something about her felt... different.
Not cold, exactly. Not aloof.
But more like someone trying not to feel anything at all.
Liora recognized the effort. She'd made it herself, more times than she could count.
But it didn't suit Veyra. Not after the night before. Not after the way she'd looked at her.
Not after the battlefield.
She remembered the sound of her name on Veyra's lips. Remembered the sword swing that took down the soldier that had nearly turned back for her body. Remembered the shaking in Veyra's hand when she'd dropped to her knees beside her, too hard to be tenderness, too soft to be anything else.
Why did she look like that? Liora wondered. Like her world threatened to break around her...
She stood slowly, slinging her pack across her uninjured shoulder with a wince. The pain was sharp this time. She bit her lip and forced herself to move. The cloak she folded carefully, pressing it against her chest for a breath longer than necessary before tucking it into the pack.
No one had said anything about it.
But she'd felt Kellen's look last night. The subtle flicker in his expression. The silent fact of what had not been said between any of them.
Now, Veyra turned, gesturing toward the path.
They would walk.
The terrain ahead narrowed into tight brush—too dense to ride. The kind of trail meant for messengers and ghosts. Liora fell in at the rear, her pace measured, her ribs tugging with each step. Kellen and Malen moved ahead. Veyra led on foot.
Her shoulders were squared like always. Her boots stepped sure, her hand resting near the hilt of her sword—not clenched, but close.
Yet every so often, Liora saw the smallest shift.
A pause too long at a bend in the trail. A glance toward the trees like she wasn't watching for movement, but thinking. Remembering.
She won't look back, Liora realized. She's not ready to.
And still—
Still she felt it in the air between them.
The tension hadn't faded. It had only sharpened.
Not fear. Not confusion.
Something older. Something more dangerous.
And for the first time in days, Liora felt her own breath steady—not from comfort, but from clarity.
She was not just following Veyra Halvarin to Fort Dalen.
She was following the woman who had fought the world for her.
And whatever came next, Liora would not pretend she hadn't seen it.
—
The rest of the journey passed in steady silence.
They rode north as the sun rose higher, the dense forest behind them thinning into open fields and packed dirt roads. The air grew warmer, edged with the scent of tilled earth and distant smoke. Birds wheeled overhead. There were no more signs of ambush. No more signs of anything but the living rhythm of the kingdom—soil, sweat, and survival.
When they crested the last low ridge before the fort, the eastern sprawl of the outer city came into view.
Liora drew her horse's reins tighter without thinking. Her eyes widened slightly.
It wasn't the inner keep—the stone spires of Fort Dalen still loomed far off, silver and grim against the northern cliffs—but this was the real city. A place that moved without the permission of the highborn. Farmhands loaded crates onto carts, merchants bartered along weather-beaten stalls, smiths and wheelwrights shouted over the clang of work.
Mostly Betas. Broad-shouldered, sun-darkened, practical.
A few Alphas, too—off-duty, some leading wagons, others watching from shady stoops.
And here and there... an Omega.
Each one flanked by their Alpha keeper, wrist leashed or arm held.
Liora's gaze lingered for a moment. None of them wore collars like hers.
And more than one pair of eyes turned to look.
She didn't see it at first. She was too distracted—watching the pulse of the city, the flash of color in a baker's scarf, the way a child darted through a line of livestock with bare feet and an armful of apricots. This wasn't the cold stone of the keep. This wasn't the place she'd been trapped recovering or hiding behind closed doors.
This was alive.
This was Vaereth's heart: the Capitol of Dalen surrounding the inner fort, a city twisting only along the east-side border.
But behind her, Kellen had noticed.
So had Veyra.
The glances weren't aggressive—no one stepped forward. But they lingered. Eyes drifted from Liora's face to the collar at her throat: front-clasped, unlocked, unbranded. Then to Veyra beside her, riding tall in dark armor, hair loose and wind-shaken, silver eyes calm but unyielding.
There was no leash.
No chain.
Just proximity.
And that was enough to spark interest. Or suspicion.
Kellen leaned slightly in his saddle beside Veyra. His voice dropped low.
"They're noticing."
Veyra didn't respond. Her gaze scanned the road ahead, her jaw set with quiet certainty.
But Kellen saw the way her grip tightened on the reins. Just a little.
He didn't press. But he stayed close.
Liora's thoughts remained elsewhere.
She watched the people. The buildings. The crooked fences patched with cord and straw, the old clocktower that leaned too far east, the mill house with white-limbed goats tied to its posts. She drank it in like breath after too long underwater.
It wasn't freedom—but it wasn't the cage she'd grown used to either.
It didn't matter that her side ached or that people stared. Here, she could pretend—just for a moment—that she was someone else entirely.
Someone passing through.
Someone free.
And that was exactly how she looked to those who saw her.
Veyra kept her gaze ahead, calm and unreadable as they passed beneath the worn stone archway marking the outer edge of the city road. Guards didn't stop them—just a quiet nod, a glance at the crest on her cloak. But she still felt the eyes.
Not the soldiers'.
The people's.
Their gazes tracked her as they passed—but more than that, they tracked Liora.
An Omega, riding with dignity.
Unafraid. Unleashed.
No court silks. No gilded leash. Just loose hair catching wind, a tunic cinched at the waist, and the front-fastened collar Veyra had given her—a symbol not of ownership, but of choice. No one had to ask to understand what that meant.
And Veyra saw it.
The stir it caused.
Good, she thought.
Let them see.
This had always been the plan. Not whispered speeches or petitions buried under council seal. Not just words. But proof. Visible. Undeniable.
If the kingdom was going to change, it needed to start here.
With her.
With this.
With a commander willing to ride at an Omega's side, not ahead or above. With a woman like Liora—fierce, stubborn, wounded but unbroken—sitting tall in a saddle and making people look again at what they thought they knew.
Liora didn't realize it, not yet. Maybe she wouldn't for a while. But she'd become something more than herself the moment she'd chosen to stay. The moment she'd stood in the firelight and said nothing while the collar stayed on.
Not because it bound her—but because it didn't.
Veyra adjusted her grip on the reins, jaw tight.
Change didn't come from declarations. It came from moments like this.
Small revolutions on a quiet road home.
Beside her, Kellen gave a quiet huff through his nose. It wasn't derisive.
It was proud.
When Veyra glanced his way, he only gave the barest nod, eyes flicking toward Liora and then back to the road with a faint, satisfied smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Malen, farther behind, offered something even gentler—a low, warm sound that could've been a hum or the beginning of a laugh. He looked at Liora the way one might regard the first soft bloom after a hard winter.
They saw what she was doing.
What it meant—even if she didn't.
And ahead, past the curve of the trade road that bent toward Fort Dalen's main gates, something new stirred the air.
Music.
Light, uneven at first—played on strings and pipes, half-swallowed by distance. But unmistakable. The sound of a festival—some market day celebration spilling out into the lower courts. Liora's head tilted as it reached them, slow and curious.
Her smile came softly.
Unthinking. Unpracticed.
But real.
Veyra felt something twist in her chest. A slow, quiet pull. Because Liora had no idea what she looked like just then—smiling at the sound of music with sunlight brushing her cheek, riding through the city like she belonged in it. She didn't know what the collar meant to the people watching. She didn't know how many would whisper about her by sundown.
She was just listening.
Just living.
And that made her all the more powerful.
Oblivious, radiant, and strange.
A symbol of change in a kingdom that barely knew how to name it.
They rode through the east gate this time, passing beneath the worn arch into the old stable lane that flanked the side of Fort Dalen's outer court. The festival market was already beginning to stir to life around them.
Bright cloths were strung between post and shutter, hung in loose waves that caught the wind like flags. Vendors rolled out crates and hooked lanterns from archways. Children chased one another past carts filled with herbs and grain, and someone strummed a half-tuned lyre off-key while laughing between verses.
It smelled of fruit skins and roasted nuts, of sawdust and soap and sweet wine barely watered down. For the first time in days, the air didn't feel pressed. It moved freely.
Liora shifted slightly in her saddle, careful of her side. Her gaze swept the cobbled lane with soft wonder—half-tilted smile already forming.
"I want to see this one day," she murmured. "When we aren't road worn. I want to..."
Veyra made no reply at first, but her lips twitched, betraying she'd heard.
Liora looked toward a stall where a Beta woman was stringing citrus slices along a thin twine line, humming to herself while two children argued cheerfully about which ones would dry sweeter. There was joy there. Messy, unfiltered joy.
And for the first time since the garden, since the pain and the blood and the collar, Liora laughed.
Not loudly.
Just a low, quiet sound that seemed to start in her throat and fall easily from her lips—unforced, unguarded. A sound that drew Kellen's attention and cracked a soft grin across his face.
"I didn't realize the people of Fort Dalen could smile like this," she said under her breath.
Then she cast a glance back toward Veyra—her eyes sly now, teasing.
"Should I be worried this was all a clever ploy to impress me? A parade and a fruit market? Very subtle, Commander."
Veyra startled.
Just barely—but Liora caught it.
Her reins shifted in her gloved hands, posture straightening like she'd been yanked from thought, or from silence too deep to hide behind.
Kellen made a choking sound that might've been a cough or a stifled laugh. Malen, beside him, didn't even bother hiding his smile.
Veyra didn't turn, but her reply came a beat too late.
"Not everything revolves around you," she said flatly.
Liora's grin grew, slow and dangerous.
"Oh? Could've fooled me."
Veyra didn't answer.
But her ears stayed a little pink at the tips.
Liora took that as a win.
They passed a trio of drummers tuning their shallow-handled instruments beneath the eaves of an open cart. Somewhere down the lane, a woman barked a joke loud enough to send flour into the air, and bells strung across a high window chimed as a breeze passed through.
Liora let her shoulders fall back just a little. Not from confidence, not quite. But from something like ease. She wasn't being dragged through these gates this time. She wasn't hiding behind Veyra's cloak. She wasn't afraid of the guards at the post or the stares.
She was riding in.
On her own horse.
At her own pace.
The collar stayed at her throat—but it was light now, almost forgettable. Not a shackle, not anymore. Just a reminder. A mark of the choice she'd made. And maybe, she thought, as they passed under the wide inner gate and the cobbles began to echo with the sharper acoustics of the central court—
Maybe that meant something.
Veyra said nothing as they passed beneath the shadow of the gate's high arch. But she didn't ride ahead.
She kept pace beside Liora, her expression unreadable, her hair wind-tangled and glinting like dark armor around her face. And for all her usual gravity, there was something softer in the set of her mouth now. Something close to contentment.
Kellen drew up alongside Liora just as they passed a stall with ribbons tied around stacked bread loaves. He didn't look at her directly, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
"You're enjoying this."
Liora arched a brow. "Am I not allowed?"
He hummed, then said low enough only she could hear, "You know, if you keep teasing her like that, we're going to need a second set of armor to protect you."
Liora's smirk was immediate. "You think she'd strike me?"
"Not with a weapon," Kellen muttered. "But I've seen her cut men down with a look."
Liora glanced ahead at Veyra—silent, straight-backed, windswept, seemingly unaffected. But her shoulders held just the tiniest flicker of tension now. Liora's grin widened.
"She's already struck me," she murmured, mostly to herself. "Just didn't bleed."
Kellen groaned under his breath and looked away, the sound halfway between fondness and defeat. "Saints help us."
—
They passed the final bend into the stable yard, hooves striking stone with clean, steady rhythm. The space opened beneath the shadow of Fort Dalen's east wall—cooler here, with the scent of hay and saddle oil replacing roasted nuts and festival smoke.
Stablehands came forward at once, bowing as they approached. A few of them paused a little longer than they should have when their eyes caught on Liora—on the collar, the position she rode in, the way she dismounted without being pulled down or spoken for.
Kellen slid from his saddle with practiced ease, handing off his reins before throwing a mock-weary glance up at Liora. "Don't worry. I'll make sure to let the stables know you prefer only the finest festival stalls on arrival. It'll be noted for future diplomatic ventures."
Liora made a show of swinging her leg over carefully—gritting her teeth slightly as her side pulled—but grinned through it. "Thank you, Captain. I do prefer citrus garlands in my official travel protocol."
Malen caught her elbow as her boots met the stone, steadying her without ceremony. "Careful," he said quietly, his hand warm and steady. "You're still healing, no matter how regal you look."
"I'll try not to bleed on the flour carts," she whispered back, but nodded her thanks all the same.
Behind her, Veyra dismounted wordlessly—tall and unreadable as always, but her gaze flicked to Liora once.
Just once.
And then away again, as if it hadn't lingered at all.
But it had.
Liora felt the echo of it in her spine.
"I think I like this gate better," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else.
Veyra's voice was quiet, but firm.
"You came through it by choice."
That made Liora's smirk falter for half a second—less out of offense, and more out of weight. Like Veyra had reached into the joke and found something true curled beneath it.
But Liora, ever quick, recovered.
"Well," she said, brushing dust from her tunic, "next time I expect a banner and a trumpet."
Kellen groaned again.
Veyra didn't rise to it.
Not with words.
But as she turned toward the keep's archway and the long stone corridor beyond, her hand brushed lightly against Liora's as she passed. Just a graze—unintentional, maybe.
But Liora's breath caught all the same.
Veyra paused at the edge of the yard, just before the corridor that would lead them through the stone archway into the keep proper. The light here was dimmer—filtered through high lattice windows and catching on the worn banners overhead. Voices echoed from within, quieter here than in the bustle of the city beyond, but no less watchful.
She turned to Liora, her tone calm, almost routine.
"Go on ahead," she said. "My quarters will have been unlocked for us."
Liora blinked. "You're not coming?"
"I will." A pause. "Shortly. I need to speak with Kellen. And with a few... others."
That quiet weight again. The one that always meant she was going to take care of something that didn't need Liora's eyes on it. Or maybe she just didn't want Liora near certain words.
Liora didn't argue. Not this time.
She gave a soft, almost knowing smile. "Try not to bark too loud. They're just soldiers, not spies."
Veyra didn't smile back—but the edge of her expression softened, the faintest flicker of warmth in the line of her mouth.
"I'll be up soon."
And then she turned. One fluid motion of cloak and stride, crossing toward Kellen and the waiting figures gathered at the arch of the adjacent hall—Captain Lorne, and Ryven, already waiting in quiet formation. Her faction. Her chosen inner circle.
Liora stood for a moment longer, watching Veyra's shoulders disappear into shadow.
She thought about the garden. About the battlefield. About the way Veyra had looked at her when she thought no one else was watching.
And then she turned, tugging the collar lightly at her throat—not out of discomfort, but thought—and headed up the inner stair alone.