The coals were still warm when Liora stirred them back to life.
Dawn rolled over the tree line like a breath held too long—gray with a flush of peach, heavy with damp air. The forest around them hadn't quite shaken off night, and the stillness clung to every branch. Liora crouched near the fire, coaxing it into flame with practiced flicks of moss and bark, her movements steady despite the tremor under her ribs.
Two pills.
Her fingertips drifted to the hidden pouch at her waist, brushing the coarse cloth. Silence, the old woman had called it. Every step to the hollow, every breath she'd taken as she lied, was a quiet betrayal. But one she couldn't regret.
Because if Veyra knew…
The heir still slept behind her, wrapped in her cloak and the wool blanket like a soldier between battles. One arm tucked under her head, one hand curled loosely near the hilt of her blade. Even in sleep, there was tension behind her closed eyes—residual pain, maybe, or some buried fear she'd never voice.
Liora hadn't forgotten how sharp Veyra's stormy eyes had been when they met, or how her suspicions had simmered behind every question. Even last night, during their quiet firelit talk, that same edge had lingered. They'd spoken carefully, like dancers skirting blades, touching on the treatment of Omegas in the kingdom—on reforms and resistance, on the kind of change that cracked bones before it freed anyone.
"You think it's enough to shift the laws," Liora had said, "but most of us never even see the laws. Just the hands that enforce them."
"I know it isn't enough," Veyra had replied. "But tearing it all down without a plan just builds a different kind of ruin."
She hadn't said it cruelly. In fact, there had been real weight in her voice—something personal. Something vulnerable, for just a breath. And Liora had felt something strange twist in her chest because of it.
Now, morning.
She poured two cups of bitter mint tea and set one by Veyra's side without a word. It didn't take long for the alpha to stir.
"You always wake this early?" Veyra murmured, voice low and rough.
"When I have to," Liora replied.
Veyra sat up, wincing faintly as she adjusted her bandages. "Should've known you'd be efficient."
"Do you want to waste the light?" Liora asked lightly. There was an unintended edge to her usually soft voice.
Veyra smirked faintly and took the tea. She sipped. Her mouth twitched—either from the heat or the taste.
"You make it bitter on purpose, don't you?"
Liora offered a shrug of her slim shoulders. "Helps keep people awake."
Veyra chuckled. Just softly. Then glanced toward the road, her expression shifting. "We'll reach the outer farms by midday if we're quick. The fort should be within sight before dusk."
Liora nodded. Her heart beat once—hard—behind her ribs.
That didn't leave much time.
But her mind was already working ahead. There would be inns in the village. Taverns. Rooms with locks. Time to slip away, briefly, under the guise of errands. She'd already risked one night walk to get the Silence. But if they were to move through towns, she'd need to get more.
And all without raising Veyra's suspicions.
Veyra set her cup down and reached for her boots. "I meant what I said last night," she added after a pause. "About the system. It wasn't just rhetoric. I've seen what the contracts do—how they're abused. But fixing it really isn't as simple as tearing the whole thing down."
"I imagine it wouldn't be," Liora said lightly, brushing off her cloak.
"You don't approve," Veyra noted.
"I don't disapprove either." Liora turned to meet her gaze, copper eyes even. "You just don't know what it's like to live under it."
Veyra didn't argue. She only nodded. Her dark hair drifted with the light breeze of the early morning wind, framing her face like a lion's mane. Despite the unkept style, it rather suited her regal attitude in Liora's mind.
The morning began to break into pale ribbons, cool and dry, light stretching over the road like a cautious hand. Camp had been packed in near-silence. Liora moved with habitual efficiency, folding the blankets tight, stamping out the coals until only the faintest warmth remained. Beside her, Veyra tied the last loop on her satchel with a little less grace, the stiffness in her bandaged side catching her breath every few minutes.
They attached the satchels to Veyra's warhorse, filling the saddlebags with the heaviest of Liora's belongings. The black horse shifted on its hooves under the weight, but otherwise only offered a single snort to display its discomfort.
They had said little since dawn.
Veyra hadn't pressed further about last night's conversation. Perhaps she sensed Liora's reluctance, or perhaps the effort of travel weighed heavier than her questions for now. Still, her gaze lingered longer than it had yesterday, watching Liora from atop her steed when she thought the other woman wasn't looking.
They reached the small outpost village just past midday. A handful of clay-walled homes and a squat timber inn marked the edge of what could be called civilization. Chickens darted under carts, and a man scrubbed dried blood from a wagon wheel as if the stain had taken root.
Liora paused just before the inn's threshold. She could feel the eyes of strangers before she saw them—measured, distant, but wary. A traveling woman and a noble-born riding into town? That would spark rumors, if not questions. Liora might pass as a servant, but the idea didn't sit well with her. It was the exact lifestyle she'd meant to avoid by taking to the road.
"We'll rest here tonight," Veyra said, voice low. She hadn't asked—she rarely did.
Liora nodded, offering to secure a room. Veyra looked exhausted but proud, still unwilling to accept help she hadn't asked for. She simple slipped from the horse, and passed Liora the reigns—then limped through the door alone while Liora lingered outside, scanning the alley shadows, noting the half-covered merchant's stalls farther down the road. One of them might have what she needed. If not openly, then under the table. Liora stepped near the run down stable outside the building, tying off the horse at one of the posts by the feeder.
She then waited until Veyra was safely upstairs—visible through a cracked shutter, sitting with slow, measured movements on the edge of the bed—before slipping back into the street with her scarf pulled high.
⸻
The old woman had said there was another seller here. She'd warned Liora not to mention Silence by name—just ask for "threaded spice," and only to merchants who stocked traveler's tonics.
Liora's boots whispered over packed earth. Her palms sweated beneath her gloves.
She found the stall tucked behind a smithy, smoke curling from the forge nearby like a warning. The merchant was a thin man with skin like old bark and eyes like soot. He wore a neutral face until Liora asked, softly, "Do you carry any spiced thread for the long road?"
The pause that followed was long and brittle.
Then the man turned, disappeared behind a canvas flap, and returned with a small tin vial. No label. No markings. But when he unscrewed the cap just enough for her to catch the bitter tang beneath it, she knew.
"Twenty silver," he said.
Too much. But she didn't argue. She gave him five. Better not to haggle over something this important.
———
Back at the inn, Veyra was asleep—or doing a convincing impression. Her face was angled away from the door, one hand curled beneath her chin. The bruising along her ribs was a sickly lavender now. Healing, slowly.
Liora closed the door quietly, drew the bolt, and sat with her back to the wall. The new suppressant tucked safely in her satchel. With the two she'd bought from the old woman in the hollow, she had thirteen now. Thirteen weeks of freedom. Or something like it.
She did not let herself relax. Not yet. Not while Veyra Halvarin—the Lion's Heir—was still breathing in the same room as her, still watching her with war-born eyes when she wasn't asleep.
Liora turned her gaze to the shuttered window. Though as her gaze lingered among the passing peasants and villagers below going about their days as normal, she couldn't help the haziness that began to overtake her mind. They had not made nearly as much headway as they could have, due to stopping often for the horse to rest, and to have the occasional meal break on the road. Injuries made their progress slower than predicted or intended. There would be another day or two before they reached the fort…
— (Veyra's Perspective) —
The floor creaked near the door.
Veyra kept her breathing slow and even, not moving. Just listening.
Liora's footfalls were light—unnervingly so. No clumsy scrape, no hesitation. Not like a servant. Not like a merchant's apprentice either. Too quiet, too deliberate. The kind of quiet you learned when being noticed could cost you something.
Maybe everything.
She waited until the door clicked shut and the bolt slid into place, then cracked one eye open just enough to glimpse the girl's silhouette against the window. Not a girl, she corrected herself—Liora was a woman, though there was something strangely delicate about her presence. Like a reed at the edge of a river: bending, but never breaking.
And always watching.
Veyra closed her eyes again—not out of trust, but calculation. She wasn't in shape to confront anyone. Not yet. Her side still throbbed where the blade had gone in, a deep ache that pulsed with every breath. She'd been bleeding out in the mud when Liora found her—half-conscious, delirious. She could have been left there, forgotten and nameless in a ditch like so many other casualties of ambition.
But Liora had dragged her out. Treated her wounds. Carried her weight. Fetched firewood. Gathered herbs. Shared her food.
And lied through her teeth.
Veyra wasn't a fool.
There were too many little things—moments that didn't sit right. The way Liora handled a blade, quick and practiced but never boastful. The way she slipped into the woods at odd hours, always returning with her scent muted beneath smoke or pine sap. And her eyes—those too-vivid copper eyes—always calculating, always measuring. She spoke softly, but rarely without purpose.
Then there was the tea. Bitter, sharp. Not what most travelers drank for comfort.
And last night…
Veyra cracked her eyes again, just slightly, to watch her companion by the shuttered window. Liora was sitting against the wall now, arms folded, head tilted slightly to one side as she looked down toward the street. Not quite relaxed. Not quite guarded. But somewhere between. Her hair had come loose near the temples, soft strands falling over her cheek like threads of dusk.
There was a question Veyra had been carrying for days now—one she hadn't spoken, hadn't dared to. Not when they were alone by the fire. Not when Liora returned from some unexplained errand with dirt on her boots and tension in her shoulders.
What are you hiding?
She didn't say it aloud. Not yet. But she could feel the words forming at the back of her throat like a blade she hadn't drawn.
Instead, she broke the quiet.
"You move like a soldier," she said softly.
Liora turned her head slightly, brows lifting—but not with surprise. More like… restraint.
"I move like someone who's used to walking," came the careful reply.
"Most travelers don't walk with their weight in their toes," Veyra murmured. She winced and shifted slightly, drawing the blanket higher over her ribs. "That's how scouts move. Or thieves."
Liora's eyes narrowed. Not defensively—but cautiously. "Do you always accuse your rescuers after they've saved your life?"
Veyra gave a faint, tired chuckle. "Only when they lie as well as you do."
Silence stretched between them, long and unbroken.
Then Liora looked away again, gaze dipping toward the dusky streets below. "You're lucky I was the one who found you," she said. Her voice was even, but there was something layered beneath it. Regret, maybe. Or warning.
"I know," Veyra said, with a quiet truth that surprised even her.
She sat up a little more, propping herself on one elbow. "I don't need to know everything," she added after a pause. "But if I'm walking into Fort Dalen with someone who's being hunted or hiding something dangerous, I do need to know whether I'll be bleeding for it again."
Liora didn't respond right away.
Then: "I'm not a danger to you."
It wasn't a promise. It wasn't a lie either. Just a plain fact, delivered like a stone pressed into her hand.
Veyra let it settle.
She didn't believe all of it. But she believed enough. Enough to keep walking beside her.
For now.
She lay back down slowly, arm over her eyes, and let the weight of the bed take her again.
"We leave at first light," she murmured. "If the horse is rested."
"Of course," Liora said behind her. "You'll want to make a good impression."
That earned the faintest twitch of a smirk at the edge of Veyra's mouth, unseen by either of them.
But beneath it all—beneath the wound, beneath the weariness, beneath the knowledge that she was still being lied to—something in her chest softened.
She didn't leave me. She stayed.
Somehow, that was harder to understand than the lies.
A knock stirred the silence.
Veyra's arm dropped from over her eyes. Across the room, Liora was already on her feet—quiet, composed, not startled but alert. She moved to the door in a few smooth steps, unbolted it halfway, and peered out.
A girl stood there—no older than sixteen, with freckled cheeks and a loosely braided cap of straw-blonde hair. She held a battered wooden tray with both hands, careful not to spill the contents.
"From the kitchens," the maid mumbled, eyes flicking past Liora to Veyra's figure on the bed. Her voice had that rural hush, the kind born from habit and narrow hallways. "Soup, bread, a little broth-steeped rice. Cook thought you'd like something warm."
Liora accepted the tray with a small nod, murmuring something polite. She bolted the door again once the girl had left, then carried the meal to the low table near the foot of the bed.
Veyra sat up slowly, pushing the blanket aside.
The scent met her first—rosemary, root vegetables, a hint of smoke from the hearth. The bread was rough-hewn but warm, the soup cloudy with stock and thickened grain. There was even a wedge of hard yellow cheese tucked between the bowls, sweating slightly in the warmth.
She watched as Liora divided everything evenly between them, not sparing herself less, but not taking more either. No ceremony. Just quiet practicality.
"You didn't have to share," Veyra said, accepting her bowl with both hands.
"You're the one with holes in your side," Liora replied without looking up.
Veyra cracked a smile. "That's generous logic."
"I'm in a generous mood."
They sat in near silence after that, the occasional scrape of spoon against bowl filling the small room. Outside, the village continued its slow dusk routines—boots thudding against packed earth, dogs barking in far courtyards, the quiet murmur of travelers bedding down for the night. The window's cracked shutter let in a sliver of amber light.
Liora ate quickly but neatly, as though unused to full meals but determined not to waste them. Veyra noticed the way her jaw tensed with each bite, like her body was still waiting for something to go wrong.
"You don't trust inns," Veyra said.
Liora glanced at her, one brow lifting faintly. "You do?"
"No," Veyra admitted. "But I have the luxury of being loud about it."
That earned a tiny flicker of a smile—barely there, but real.
A quiet passed between them, not quite comfortable but less sharp than before. Like a stone beginning to round at the edges from time and water. Veyra finished her soup and leaned back against the bedframe, eyes drifting toward the shuttered window.
She spoke softly. "When we get to the fort… you won't need to come inside."
Liora didn't respond immediately.
Then: "I know."
"It'll be guarded. Watched. They'll ask questions if you walk in beside me."
"I won't."
Veyra looked at her again. "You don't want to be seen, do you?"
Liora's lips pressed into a line. "I want to leave in one piece."
There was no defiance in the words. No challenge. Just honesty, wrapped in weariness. Veyra studied her face, the shadowed cheekbones, the pale pink hair tucked back behind one ear. There were too many unanswered things still coiled inside this stranger who'd saved her. But she didn't press. Not yet.
"I'll find you," Veyra said softly, "after."
Liora's gaze snapped up. Not startled—but wary.
"If I can," Veyra added. "If you want to be found."
Liora's expression flickered—something complicated passing through her eyes. But whatever she was about to say was swallowed, replaced by a small, deliberate nod.
The light had faded almost entirely now, casting the room in a dusky wash. Veyra stood slowly, wincing as her side pulled taut. She stepped over to the washbasin, poured a little water into her hands, and ran it over her neck. Her reflection in the cracked mirror above it looked older than it had last week. Worn, but standing.
Behind her, Liora gathered the bowls onto the tray, careful not to clatter.
"You can sleep first," Veyra said. "I'll take the watch."
Liora hesitated, then nodded. She slipped out of her boots, curled beneath the spare blanket on the floor by the far wall. Not the bed. Not even the extra cot. She'd chosen the cold floorboards without complaint.
A survival instinct, Veyra realized. Stay ready. Stay low.
As Liora's breathing evened into the soft rhythm of sleep, Veyra sank back onto the edge of the bed, sword within reach.
Her thoughts tangled behind her eyes.
For days, Liora had said nothing of consequence. She moved like a ghost and guarded her silences like treasure.
And yet… she had stayed. Risked her safety. Carried another's weight.
Veyra didn't understand her.
But despite the obvious lies, she was beginning to trust her.
You don't need to know a person's secrets to know they mean you no harm.