When Fia wakes, the first thing she notices is that she's not in Vyrn.
The ceiling above her isn't rough stone but pale carved wood, painted with soft constellations and tiny golden dragons twining between the stars. The curtains around her bed are velvet, thick enough to smother half the sunlight trying to sneak in.
The air smells like home.
Not battlefield smoke, not healing tinctures and fear-sweat.
Rosewater.
Lemon oil on polished wood.
Fresh linen.
She blinks.
Her chest feels like someone used it to test war drums, but the sharp, tearing agony from the altar is gone. What's left is a deep, ugly ache, like bruises on her lungs and hearts.
When she tries to sit up, every muscle in her body complains.
"Absolutely not."
A hand lands on her shoulder and pushes her gently but firmly back down.
Mira.
Her hair is loose and frizzy, blue-black strands escaping everywhere, dark circles under her eyes. She's in simple healer's robes instead of armor, sleeves already rolled up like she's ready to fight God with nothing but her hands and a scalpel.
"You're awake," Fia croaks.
"Unfortunately for you, yes," Mira says coolly. "Because now I get to yell at you."
Before Fia can answer, three more shapes crowd into her vision.
Seraphine, still in a stripped-down version of her royal uniform, cloak discarded, crown nowhere in sight but authority radiating anyway.
Elira, in casual leathers, hair tied up in a hasty knot that says she's been pacing more than sleeping.
Lyriel, coat off, shirt rumpled, ink smudged up to her elbows, glasses slightly crooked.
All four of them are staring at her like she is the world's biggest, dumbest problem.
Fia swallows.
"…hi?" she tries.
Four voices hit her at once.
"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!"
Mira's shout is the loudest, but Elira's is the most dramatic, Seraphine's the sharpest, and Lyriel's the most offended in an academic way.
Fia flinches.
Her hearts actually stutter.
Mira notices and clamps down on her reaction, switching to healer-mode for exactly one panicked heartbeat—checking pulse, checking breathing—then switching right back to furious.
"You promised me," Mira says, voice trembling. "You promised 'seven, eight max.' You hit eight and a half, Fia. Eight and a half on a scale that ends at 'you die in my lap.' Do you have any idea what that felt like?"
Fia opens her mouth.
Mira keeps going.
"I watched your hearts stagger," she says, eyes suddenly glossy. "I had to take control of them. Do you understand what that means? Do you have any idea how terrified I was that if I slipped, if I miscounted by one beat, you'd just—"
Her voice cracks.
She snaps it off.
Fia's anger at herself hits before guilt even finishes forming.
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
"That is not enough," Mira says flatly.
Seraphine steps closer, her jaw clenched so tight Fia can see the muscle ticking.
"You do not get to do that," Seraphine says, every word low and precise. "You do not get to take an altar built on mass death, look at it, and think, 'Ah, yes, I will pour my soul disease into it personally and see what happens.'"
Fia winces.
"In my defense—"
"There is no defense," Seraphine cuts in. "You're not a single-use weapon. You're not a ritual component. You're not some convenient piece on a board the gods keep throwing at problem altars. You are my future wife."
The word lands heavy and hot.
Fia's face goes crimson.
Seraphine doesn't let her look away.
"If you had died," Seraphine continues quietly, "I would have had to bury the woman I intend to marry knowing she did it while I was holding her hand. Do you understand how unacceptable that is to me?"
Fia's throat tightens.
"Yes," she says. "I— I know. I know it was reckless, but—"
"Oh, reckless?" Elira explodes. "Reckless is going down a staircase two steps at a time. Reckless is kissing someone in a storage closet when your commander might walk in. You—"
She stabs a finger at Fia.
"— looked at a cursed god-sink and thought: 'what if I just…kissed that with dragon-plague.' That isn't reckless. That's insane."
Lyriel pushes her glasses up, mouth pressed into a thin angry line.
"And incredibly interesting from a thaumaturgical perspective," she mutters. "Which I cannot even enjoy because you nearly flattened your own life-thread in the process."
Fia stares at all of them, surrounded, pinned to the mattress by four different flavors of fury.
"…it worked," she says weakly.
Mira makes a strangled sound.
"Yes," Mira snaps. "It worked. That does not mean you get points for technique. 'I didn't die' is a terrible benchmark."
Seraphine folds her arms.
"Do you have any idea how many people were in this room when you went under?" she asks. "Your parents. Your sister. Me. Mira. Elira. Lyriel. Half the palace staff lurking in the corridor pretending they were 'just delivering towels.' We all watched you stop breathing for three full beats."
Three.
Fia's chest hurts for a different reason.
"I remember…waking up here," she says slowly. "Not…that part."
"Good," Mira says. "Because if you had seen your mother's face, you would never, ever, ever try something like that again."
At that exact moment, someone pounds on the door.
"Seraphine," a woman's voice calls, trembling between furious and formally polite. "Are we allowed in now, or do we have to storm our own daughter's bedroom?"
Fia goes cold.
Her family.
Seraphine sighs.
She squeezes Fia's hand.
"Prepare yourself," she murmurs. "You deserve this."
Fia flattens herself against the pillows like they might shield her.
They don't.
When the door opens, her mother comes in first.
Duchess Helena looks like Seraphine will in fifteen years—poised, exquisite, every hair in place even when she's falling apart.
Right now, she is very much halfway between poised and falling apart.
Her eyes are red.
Her usual composure is hanging by a thread.
She marches straight to the bed, stops, stares at Fia for a long, shaking second—
Then leans in and wraps her arms around her daughter with enough force to make Mira squawk in protest.
"Mother, her ribs—" Mira starts.
Helena loosens the hug by a millimeter.
"Do not 'mother' me, Healer," she snaps, not looking away from Fia's face. "My child nearly died again and I was not there. I will hug her as fiercely as I please."
Fia is squished against silk and perfume and the faint salt of tears.
"M-Mother, I can't breathe," she wheezes.
"Good," Helena says sharply. "Now you know how I felt when I arrived and your hearts weren't beating in rhythm."
She pulls back just far enough to cup Fia's face in her hands.
Her fingers tremble.
"You promised me," Helena says, voice breaking. "You promised you would be careful. And then I hear that you decided to fight a cursed altar with your own body like some kind of— of sacrificial phoenix—"
"I didn't die," Fia tries.
"You almost did," Helena snaps. "Do you understand how little comfort 'almost' is to a mother?"
Behind her, Fia's father steps in.
Duke Cassian is usually all dry wit and lazy elegance, dangerous only when you look at the numbers attached to his political influence.
Right now, he looks like he hasn't slept in two days.
There's stubble on his jaw.
His tunic is askew.
His eyes are flat and too bright.
He takes one look at Fia and exhales like someone punched him in the gut.
"Fia," he says.
It's not a reprimand.
Not yet.
Just her name, wrecked around the edges.
"I'm sorr—" she starts.
He lifts a hand.
"Oh, you will apologize," he says. "You will apologize in detail, with diagrams if needed. But first, I need to check just how much of you is still attached."
Before she can protest, he sits carefully on the edge of the bed and starts poking at her ankles. Then her knees. Then her arms.
"Father!" Fia yelps as he lifts her left arm like he's inspecting a piece of art for damage. "I'm not a tapestry!"
"You're infinitely more valuable than any tapestry," he says, utterly serious. "Which is why I'd like to confirm the war hasn't knocked any crucial parts off."
Her younger sister Elys barrels in next and flings herself right onto the bed without a shred of decorum.
"Fifi!" Elys cries, latching onto Fia like a tiny octopus.
There goes what's left of Fia's breathing.
"Elys," Fia wheezes. "Your elbow— lungs—"
Elys scrambles back guiltily, then just…clings to Fia's hand instead, eyes huge and swimming.
"You're stupid," Elys says, voice wobbling. "You're so stupid. I love you so much. Don't you ever do that again. If you die I'll never talk to you again!"
"That's…not how…" Fia starts, then gives up. "Okay. I'll…try not to die to avoid being ghosted by my own sister."
Her older brother Aldren appears in the doorway, more composed, but his knuckles are white on the frame.
He takes it all in—the bed, the gathered women, the cluster of healers hovering in the hallway, his parents' faces, Elys clutching Fia's hand like a lifeline.
His gaze settles on Fia.
"You owe me a drink," he says quietly. "I already started threatening generals on your behalf. That level of stress deserves compensation."
Fia lets out a ragged breath that is half laugh, half sob.
"I'm not sure my doctor will approve," she says.
"I am your doctor," Mira says crisply. "And I approve, once your lungs stop sounding like crushed paper and your hearts are no longer auditioning for a marching band."
Helena rounds on Mira.
"You will not be alcoholizing my delicately recovering daughter," she says. "She gets tea. Herbal. Calming."
"And soup," Cassian adds. "She looks thinner. Has she been eating? Mira, I told you to make sure she eats."
"I have been force-feeding her like a very small dragon," Mira snaps. "Maybe if she stopped spending calories on reckless divinity stunts, it would help."
"And blankets," Elys says urgently. "She's cold. I can feel it."
Elys is already hauling an extra quilt from the foot of the bed, trying to cocoons Fia.
Fia vanishes under a pile of embroidered fabric, hands and head the only things visible.
Seraphine watches all this with a kind of helpless fondness.
Then she clears her throat.
"Duke, Duchess," she says smoothly, formal habits slipping back into place. "With all due respect, if you smother her, I'll have to fight you for bed space."
Helena straightens, remembering who, exactly, she is snapping in front of.
Her eyes flick from Seraphine to the others.
To Mira, still half leaning over Fia with healer's hands glimmering faintly.
To Elira, arms crossed, positioned protectively at the end of the bed like a very insubordinate guard dog.
To Lyriel, taking notes even now, but sitting close enough that her knee touches the quilt.
Helena's gaze softens.
Her mouth does not.
"I would like to file a complaint," Helena says stiffly, "about the entire concept of four people I did not give birth to encouraging my daughter in acts of absolute, unadulterated insanity."
Elira lifts a hand.
"In our defense," she says, "we did tell her it was insane. She's just very bad at listening when the word 'sacrifice' shows up."
"That is not the defense you think it is," Cassian says.
Lyriel points her charcoal-smudged thumb at Fia.
"In my defense," she says, "she keeps inventing new magical edge cases I've never seen before. Do you have any idea how unfair that is to a researcher? How am I supposed to resist studying them?"
"You're grounded," Helena says.
Four heads snap toward her.
"Who, exactly?" Seraphine asks, very carefully.
Helena points at Fia.
"Her," she says. "From anything involving altars, experimental wards, or phrases like 'this might break reality but…'"
Cassian sighs.
"Darling, you can't ground a national strategic asset," he says, then looks at Fia and winces. "You can, however, wrap her in so much cotton that anyone who tries to use her as ammunition has to go through three layers of Arclight stubbornness first."
"Already on it," Elys says, adding another pillow.
Fia's head is practically swallowed now.
"Mother," Fia tries, voice muffled, "I can't move."
"Excellent," Helena says. "Maybe you'll sit still long enough to listen."
Mira huffs.
"Move," she says, elbowing Helena aside with professional rudeness. "If anyone is wrapping her in cotton, it's going to be the person who can literally feel when her lungs are about to rebel. You can decorate her after I'm done."
She starts fussing.
Adjusting blankets so nothing presses too hard on Fia's chest.
Propping her up at a better angle.
Checking her pulse again.
Checking her pupils.
Checking everything.
"You scared me," Mira mutters, mostly to Fia's collarbone. "You stupid, wonderful, self-sacrificial idiot. You scared me so much I nearly bit through my own tongue stabilizing your hearts."
Fia swallows.
Her eyes sting.
"I'm sorry," she says again, softer. "I know that's not enough, but…I am."
Mira exhales.
Some of the sharpness leaves her shoulders.
"It's a start," she says quietly. "Just…next time, let us carry some of it with you before you go picking fights with altars. You're not alone. Stop acting like you are."
Seraphine leans on the bedpost, arms folded.
"I will be revising our war council rules," she says. "New clause: if Fia proposes anything that includes the words 'I open myself to—' she is immediately tackled."
Elira raises her hand.
"I volunteer to tackle," she says.
Lyriel nods solemnly.
"I second this," she says. "And will add subclause: if Fia's eyes start glowing in a way that suggests 'interesting new magic experiment,' I am authorized to throw a bucket of water on her."
Fia gapes.
"You can't just…make laws about tackling me," she protests.
"Yes we can," Elys says. "I'll help."
Cassian folds his arms, one eyebrow arched.
"You realize," he says dryly, "if you do marry Seraphine, it will become very easy for your mother and I to file formal complaints if you continue this habit."
Fia covers her face with her hands.
"Can we maybe not discuss my potential marriage contract while I am in a nest of blankets and probably look like I fell down the stairs?" she mumbles.
Helena's expression softens, just a little.
"You look beautiful," she says automatically. Then, after a beat: "And also like you fell through a war altar. But still beautiful."
Fia peeks through her fingers.
"What alternate universe have I landed in where my mother is okay with me marrying the queen and three terrifying women at once," she wonders aloud.
Helena blinks.
Then lifts her chin.
"My daughter is the most powerful, most stubborn, most ridiculous creature in this kingdom," she says. "If four equally terrifying women are willing to love her properly, cherish her, guard her recklessness, and occasionally sit on her to prevent martyrdom, I would be a fool to object."
Seraphine's ears go a little pink.
Mira pretends to be very busy adjusting Fia's pillow.
Elira grins.
Lyriel actually blushes.
Cassian sighs dramatically.
"I was hoping for a quiet retirement," he says. "Instead, I get politics, war, and four royal in-laws. Truly, the gods hate me."
Elys pats his arm.
"You love it," she says.
He sighs again, less dramatically.
"…I do," he admits.
The yelling lasts hours.
It comes in waves.
They take turns.
Seraphine lectures her about strategy and trust—how her choices affect everyone, not just herself.
Mira snaps at her about pain scales and what "manageable" actually means, then babies her so aggressively with water, tonics, and soft food that Fia isn't sure if she's being punished or pampered.
Elira complains that watching Fia collapse gave her "emotional wrinkles" and she's "too pretty to be this stressed," then spends twenty minutes gently massaging Fia's cramps out of her hands.
Lyriel launches into a half-angry, half-fascinated monologue about magical ethics, accidental heresies, and why using yourself as untested ritual input is the fastest way to get a very disapproving footnote in future spellbooks.
Her parents tag-team guilt and affection with professional skill.
Helena keeps fixing Fia's hair, tucking strands behind her ears, smoothing her braid, then lapsing into "When you were a baby—" stories with tear-glossy eyes.
Cassian leans in every hour or so to ask things like, "On a scale of one to ten, how badly do you regret not becoming a boring, untalented accountant?" and "Has anyone told you how much I love you and how extremely grounded you are?"
Elys periodically falls asleep half-on-top of Fia, then wakes, remembers, bursts into tears, yells at her again, and reattaches herself.
At some point, soup appears.
Fia has no idea who brings it; she just knows that suddenly Mira is holding a bowl and a spoon and giving her The Look.
"I can feed myself," Fia protests weakly.
Mira lifts a brow.
"Can you?" she asks. "The last time I let you manage your own health decisions, you negotiated with a war altar."
Fia opens her mouth.
Finds no comeback.
"Open," Mira says.
Fia opens her mouth.
Mira feeds her small, careful spoonfuls of broth and soft vegetables, blowing on each one to cool it to "I will not be blamed if this burns your tongue" temperature.
Elira leans on the bed, chin in her hand.
"This is very cute," she says. "And also deeply unfair. I almost died of worry; where is my soup?"
"I will sedate you," Mira says calmly.
Lyriel is scribbling notes again.
"Stop taking field notes while I'm being infantilized," Fia complains.
"Never," Lyriel replies. "This is valuable data. I need to confirm whether being fussed over improves your recovery speed."
"And your mood," Seraphine adds.
"That's already improved," Elira mutters. "She's making full sentences. Yesterday she was all '—'." She demonstrates by going limp and letting her tongue loll out.
Elys snorts and then claps a hand over her mouth, torn between horror and giggles.
Fia sinks lower under the blankets.
"How am I supposed to ever be a terrifying dragon villainess again after this," she moans.
Mira presses the spoon to her lips.
"By eating your soup," she says. "Terrifying dragons do not skip meals."
Helena nods.
"Exactly," she says. "You may breathe fire, but if I find out you're skipping breakfast again, I will personally march onto the battlefield and drag you home by your ear."
Cassian pats Fia's ankle.
"Also," he adds mildly, "you have circles under your eyes. Terrifying villainesses are supposed to look haunting, not exhausted."
"You're all impossible," Fia mutters.
"Yes," Seraphine says softly. "And we are not going anywhere."
The words settle over her like another blanket.
Heavy.
Warm.
Safe.
She realizes, with a tiny start, that at no point did anyone suggest she should have stayed out of the fight entirely.
They're furious.
Terrified.
Exasperated beyond measure.
But not a single one of them said: You shouldn't have fought.
They said: You shouldn't have done it alone.
Her eyes prick.
She blames the steam from the soup.
Later, when her family has been coaxed out to get some rest—Helena leaving only after extracting three separate promises from Mira, Seraphine, and Lyriel that they will "watch her like a hawk and tell me if she even sneezes strangely"—Fia is left with the four women and a quieter room.
The sun has shifted.
Soft afternoon light filters through the curtains.
Fia is propped up on pillows, wrapped in enough blankets to qualify as an independent nation.
Her chest still aches.
But it's a dull, tolerable throb.
Mira sits on the bed beside her, fingers resting lightly over Fia's pulse.
Seraphine is in a chair pulled close enough that their knees bump.
Elira is lying at the foot of the bed on her stomach, chin on her arms, watching Fia like she might bolt.
Lyriel has taken over the armchair near the window, notebooks spread on her lap, though she's only pretending to read.
They're all…closer than Fia can remember.
Closer than they were before last night.
Before this morning.
Before the altar.
"I scared you," Fia says softly.
It's not really a question.
"Yes," Mira says immediately.
"Absolutely," Elira says.
"Deeply," Lyriel says.
Seraphine's gaze doesn't waver.
"More than anything else in this war," she says quietly. "And that includes the dragon the first time he stretched his wings."
Fia swallows.
"I'm sorry," she says again.
Seraphine leans forward.
"Fia," she says. "I am not asking you to apologize for fighting. I am not asking you to apologize for being what you are. I am asking you to remember something very simple."
She reaches out and gently takes Fia's hand.
"We love you," she says. "Enough that watching you burn yourself for us hurts more than the prospect of losing a battle."
Mira nods.
"Enough that your pain is not…acceptable collateral," she adds. "Your body is not some abstract price on a ledger. It's you."
Elira's voice is softer than usual.
"Enough that if you die," she mutters, "I'm going to be very annoyed at you for a very long time, and that's a really depressing thought."
Lyriel closes her notebook.
"Enough that I will turn down fascinating research," she says, "if the cost is 'Fia might stop existing.' And that is, frankly, outrageous."
Fia's eyes burn.
She feels small and huge at the same time.
"I don't know how to…do this," she admits. "I spent one life playing games where every bad end was on rails. I woke up in this one expecting to die by script. Being…wanted past the final chapter is still…" She waves a hand, helpless. "Weird."
Mira's expression softens.
"Then we'll keep yelling at you until it isn't," she says.
Elira grins.
"And baby you," she adds.
Lyriel smirks.
"And study you."
Seraphine squeezes her hand.
"And build a future with you," she finishes simply.
Fia lets out a shaky breath.
"I'll try to be less…dramatic with my martyrdom," she says.
"Good," Mira says. "We accept this compromise."
Elira wriggles her way up the bed until she can rest her head on Fia's blanket-covered lap.
"I'm still going to complain every time you cough," she says.
"I can't not cough," Fia points out.
"Then I will complain every time you cough too dramatically," Elira amends.
Lyriel lifts a hand.
"I'll set up a little charm," she says thoughtfully. "If your pain spikes above seven, it shrieks in my head and I come running."
"Absolutely not," Fia says.
"Yes," Mira and Seraphine say together.
Fia groans.
"You're all conspiring against me," she mutters.
Mira leans in and presses a soft kiss to her forehead.
"Yes," she whispers. "Because we love you."
Fia closes her eyes.
For once, she lets herself be babied.
Let herself be yelled at, fussed over, fed, tucked in.
She lets herself sink into the blankets and the weight of arms and promises, into the sound of their voices arguing quietly over who gets to guard her door tonight.
Her body is tired.
Her hearts ache.
But the space around that ache is full.
Family.
Lovers.
Annoying, overprotective people who plan to keep her alive even if they have to tackle her away from every altar and bad idea she finds.
She thinks, as sleep tugs at her again, that if this is the price for doing something "crazy and reckless," she might actually be willing to pay it—
as long as they're there to scold her after.
And to hold her while she heals.