POV: Mara
The first morning of us is chaos. Not romantic chaos—no, this is the kind that spills like marbles across a stone floor. The kind you can’t chase fast enough.
I wake because I feel someone thinking about a door hinge. A hinge. Turning. Groaning. Needing oil. It takes three breaths to realize the someone is me and not me at the same time.
“Stop thinking about the door hinge,” I mumble into the pillow.
“I’m trying to fix it,” Cael mutters from his pillow, eyes still closed, hair a riot against his cheek. “In my head.”
“Fix your ribs first,” I say, rolling over.
“They’re attached to you now,” he says, and the way he says you makes the bond purr under my skin like a cat discovering fire.
We try to stand at the same time and immediately sit at the same time because our balance is apparently one brain short. When I reach for water, he swallows reflexively. When he flexes his hand, my fingers tingle like I slammed them in a door. When I grit my teeth at a memory—Seris’s scream on the wind—he flinches like the blade is his.
“Boundaries,” I say, pointing at my forehead like it’s a classroom diagram. “We need doors.”
“Agreed,” he says, pointing at his heart like a dramatic idiot. “We also need windows.”
“You want windows?”
“So I can see you coming,” he says softly.
I bite my tongue hard enough to ground myself.
Pia barges in without knocking, carrying bread, cheese, and judgment. “How’s the haunting?” she chirps.
“Loud,” I say.
“Beautiful,” Cael says at the same time.
Pia screams into the tray like a kettle about to explode. “Disgusting! I love it! Eat. Then command. War didn’t see your glow and decide to retire.”
“No,” I say, tearing bread. “But it blinked.”
Cael snorts. The bond flickers like laughter wants to be a language.
We try to be serious. Truly. We make it a full twenty-eight seconds before a stray image pops into my head—his mouth at my collarbone last night, the way my spine turned to moonlight, how the world tilted toward something almost unbearable.
My face goes volcanic.
“Stop,” I blurt.
He freezes. Then opens one eye. Guilty. Delighted. “That wasn’t on purpose.”
“Liar.”
“It wasn’t entirely on purpose,” he corrects. His ears go pink. He bites the inside of his cheek because he’s losing, and I love him for it. I hate how much I love him for it.
“Door,” I warn.
“Window,” he bargains, low. “I promise not to throw stones.”
We practice—push thought, pull thought, dim, brighten, say mine without making it a chain. It’s stupid and tender and intimate in a way physical touch can’t compete with. We get it wrong five times. Right once. Wrong again. I laugh so hard my stomach cramps. Cael laughs so hard Jax storms in and threatens to throw a bucket of cold water on us.
“Try bonding again,” he grumbles. “At least that was quiet.”
From the ramparts comes a horn—not alarm, but report. Lorre’s voice carries up the stone spine of the citadel: “Moonfell is pulling back. Not gone. Regrouping.”
“You hear that?” I ask the air.
“I do,” Cael says, already trying to stand, which is ridiculous because he is very much half-mended and held together by willpower and stubborn royal blood.
He gets halfway up before pain eats his face. I lunge forward and catch him before he crushes the window or himself.
“Slow,” I say, planting him back on the bed.
“War is a poor listener,” he mutters.
“So be loud,” I answer. “From a chair. For one hour.”
“One hour is an eternity.”
“One hour keeps your lung inside your body.”
He scowls. I scowl. The bond hums like two tuning forks arguing until they align into a reluctant compromise. He sits. Barely. Heroically. With the sulk of a king denied a battlefield.
“Traitor,” he mutters.
“Thank you,” I answer.
He grumbles something that might be affection if translated through three dictionaries.
I tie his boot because his hand shakes uncontrollably when he tries. He pretends not to notice and kisses the top of my hair instead—light, almost absent-minded, except for the part where it sends warmth down my spine.
“I felt that,” I whisper.
“I know,” he whispers back.
Aster hums in approval. Rhun stretches inside Cael like a wolf waking to the scent of dawn. The bond snaps warm, steady, alive.
The door swings open again—Jax, sweating, clutching a stack of reports.
“Good news or bad news?” Cael asks.
“Yes,” Jax says.
I groan. Cael pinches the bridge of his nose.
Jax unfolds a map on the bed. “Moonfell is regrouping south. Kade rides with them now. Seris has mobilized her Coil. And—this is the fun part—refugees crossing the Ash Divide swear they saw white-gold light last night. Guess what they’re calling it?”
“No,” I say.
“Yes,” Jax says, grimacing. “Moon’s Anchor. Some are using it like a blessing.”
Cael looks at me. I look at him. The bond flares, embarrassed. Unimpressed. Terrified.
“Prophecy is quick,” Cael mutters.
“People are quicker,” I correct. “And war is fastest.”
A quiet settles between us—not fear, not dread. Something stronger, sharper. A shared breath.
“We stand together,” he says, voice low, steady.
“We stand,” I echo.
He reaches for my hand. I take it. Our pulses align. The first morning of us is chaos. But it’s ours.