Page 107 of The Last Rose of Ashwood

“Medicinal?” Seren asked after smelling it.

“Makes me feel better,” Mara said. “That seems medical.”

Coren reached hopefully for it.

“No,” Seren and Mara said together.

He sighed with the tragic dignity of youth denied corruption. “Almost seventeen.”

“And yet,” Seren said.

Aelira found herself watching the exchange with an unwelcome stillness. There was no performance in it, no courtly edge, no hidden test waiting beneath the warmth. Mara’s affection hid itself inside mockery because soldiers were often cowards around tenderness. Coren accepted correction because he trusted the hands that gave it. Seren did not smile fully, but her mouth softened when the boy sulked into his apple, and Aelira felt the small betrayal of noticing.

Small loyalties were often the most dangerous. Grand oaths could be broken in public, and banners burned beautifully when the world changed its mind, but these quiet bindings were harder to sever cleanly. They rooted in the unnoticed places. They made leaving feel like betrayal before anyone had the cruelty to ask you to stay.

Mara passed the flask to her.

Aelira considered refusing, because refusal was sensible. She did not drink from unknown flasks in ancient stone circles after root chambers whispered through blood. She did not accept easy camaraderie from soldiers who would one day learn her true name and decide whether fear or duty moved faster. She did not allow herself to become part of small circles around small fires.

But Seren was looking down at the map, not at her. Mara’s expression was neutral, almost deliberately so, and Coren was still sulking into his apple with admirable commitment.

Aelira took the flask.

The liquor burned like insult and pine smoke.

“Stronger than it smells,” Aelira said.

“Most decent things are.”

Seren’s gaze lifted from the map for one brief moment, and Aelira felt it with the impossible precision of touch before the general looked down again.

The day had held too much—the white road, the marker beneath the arch, Seren’s hand closing around her sleeve, the descent into the chamber, and the roots bending toward her like courtiers recognizing a sovereign beneath rags.

The black basin had shown them the well, the child’s hand, Briar Hollow threaded through with something old and hungry, and the chamber had heard the name Elira and refused it—old magic was so often impolite.

Aelira sat opposite Seren while the others settled into the cold. The fire remained low between them, bright enough that neither could pretend not to see the other clearly. Mara took first watch near the northern stone with her bow across her knees. Coren was ordered to sleep on the grounds that horses required someone conscious and useful in the morning. He accepted this with the solemnity of a boy promoted to sacred office, then fell asleep almost immediately.

Mara glanced back at his bedroll and shook her head. Seren’s mouth softened again. Aelira saw it anyway. Her chest tightened in a way she disliked.

“You collect them,” Aelira spoke low only to the woman next to her.

Seren looked up from the map. “What?”

“Strays.”

Seren followed her gaze to Coren, then Mara. “They would object to being called strays.”

“Mara would object for sport. Coren would be secretly flattered.”

Seren studied her across the fire, her eyes sharper than the softness at her mouth had suggested. “You are observant.”

Aelira looked into the flames. “That sounded like an accusation.”

“It may have been.”

“Then you are correct.” The fire snapped softly between them.

Aelira expected Seren to let the conversation die there, which would have been wiser. The night was too old, the hill too attentive, and the chamber beneath them too freshly opened for either of them to go looking for sharper truths. But Seren Veyr had a talent for stepping precisely where caution had placed its warning signs.