Instead, she sat on the back steps with Tessa while Rush and Dato tried to beat each other into the dirt.
“Try” might have been generous. At the moment, Rush was very much enjoying every minute of thoroughly thrashing the prince. Dato had already hit the ground twice; she was fairly sure she’d be easing bruises later and checking that rib again. To be fair, Dato got his own good hits in, Rush would be tending to his own bruises tonight, whether he admitted it or not.
Maybe this was a man thing. Take turns knocking each other over until everyone felt better. Tessa didn’t seem surprised by any of it, so maybe it was a guard thing, too.
Kairi’s thoughts drifted toward the house: to the little pile of packed boxes, to soaps and salves and tinctures all wrapped and labeled and ready for Branson to hand out when the townfolk ran low. They’d measured what the town needed for a season and done their best to leave it behind.
The festival was tonight. Soon enough she and Tessa would take their bags and head to Mena’s house to get ready. Pins, powder, borrowed ribbons, Tessa’s careful hands at her hair. Tessa looked almost… excited for that part.
Kairi let her gaze slide to the woman beside her. Tessa’s hair was braided back tight for now, her attention fixed on the boys in the yard. She was watching their footwork, their angles, taking mental notes of each strike and counter. No sparring for the women today, not with dresses to keep clean and hair already washed.
Kairi’s own thoughts slid backward, to the dream-walk through Carlbrin’s streets two nights ago. They’d been walking together through his memory of the capital, his voice low as he pointed out districts and streets, the way the market overflowed toward the lake on festival days. At one point, he’d gone quiet, then asked, almost too casual:
“Can you heal old scars?”
She’d thought first of his shoulder, the arrow scar she knew so well now, the one where a shaft had gone clean through. She’d asked if that’s what he meant. He’d shaken his head. “Not for me,” he said. “For Tessa. She took a blade for me when I was younger. Throat. Early on, when she’d just become my personal guard. They saved her, but… there was a lot of damage.”
Kairi had felt sick, then, thinking of the raw edge of Tessa’s voice in a new light.
She’d had to tell him no. Not that she wouldn’t try, but that she’d never been able to fully undo damage long healed. He’d only nodded and gone back to pointing out some alley that led to a bakery near the east windows. He’d kept talking about streets and bridges. Not bringing it up again. He was good about that, not prying.
She’d kept thinking: what if I tried harder. What if I reached further, all the way down to whatever the Phoenix had put in her the night of her name day.
A heavy thud snapped her back. Rush hit the ground flat on his back, air leaving him in a grunt. Dato stood over him, chest heaving, practice blade pointed at Rush’s sternum and a smug, tired grin tugging at his mouth. He pulled the blade back and offered Rush a hand up without thinking about it.
Rush took it. They stood close, talking low enough only they could hear, then stepped apart and reset their stances.
Kairi’s thoughts slid to yesterday at the archery range. The town boys had been wide-eyed and pleased to be allowed anywhere near the two visiting guards, soaking up pointers like dry earth. She’d kept her shots neat and tidy, grouping them exactly where she wanted, except for the last quiver.
She’d watched Dato watching her, the little line between his brows deepening each time her arrow landed lower than it should have. He knew how she shot. Too many twilight hours with floating targets for him not to notice. The last arrow hit the bottom of the outer ring.
When the range was finally cleared and they walked down to pull their arrows, he’d nudged her and raised one eyebrow.
“Why?” he asked quietly. She’d worked the last arrow loose and flipped it to tap his chest with the fletching. “They all hit exactly where I wanted them to,” she whispered, then turned before he could see her face. She hadn’t looked back to see what expression he made. Confusion. Pity. Worry. She wasn’t sure which would have hurt more.
He hadn’t brought it up. Not yet. But, he would eventually.
Her mind skipped from that to the night he’d finally read the letter. She’d pulled him into the house, fingers still woven through his from the lane. They’d barely sat before he’d said, very simply, “I told her, Rush.”
So her brother had known already. Of course he had. Rush talked with Ryder and Jayce. Jayce had likely told him months ago that Prince Dato would be the one coming as a guard. Tessa had congratulated him on being honest, hands moving too fast for Kairi to catch every word. She’d managed to get
. Maybe some encouragement to be princely. Kairi had folded in on herself a little while Rush laid out rules in his calm, uncompromising way.
He must ask Rush before anything. That was the gist. No sweeping gestures without the dragon’s say-so.
If she was honest, Rush was behaving better than the versions of him she’d once imagined. In her head, he had tied Dato to a chair and interrogated him, punching the wall, or the man, whenever an answer didn’t satisfy. After Trinity, he’d promised no man would lie to his face and his heart about how they felt about his sisters again. Like Raven.
Raven. His green eyes, Krezin pushing her out of the—
Her mind skipped like a stone: from Raven’s eyes to Dato on the road, to the way she’d quietly aimed low at the range. To the way she’d laughed off her own power for years. It occurred to her, with an uncomfortable clarity, that she had been practicing the art of being “less” for a very long time. Less loud. Less bright. Less miracle.
She’d shrunk herself in so many little ways it felt normal: making her healing look like good salves and luck more than godfire; bowing her head and calling herself “apprentice” in places where she knew more than the midwives; letting people think she was just Rush’s little sister with clever hands. It had kept them safe. Smaller targets were harder to hit.
But lately, Brindlecross and Dato and the looming capital, the question gnawed at the edges: If I keep making myself less, do I eventually become it?
She thought of archery practice again. Those boys had watched her with awe, and she had pulled her shots on purpose, tucking herself back into “good” instead of “frightening.” The real grouping she could manage belonged to the girl who’d trained night after night in a dream sky with a prince who refused to let her pretend she was anything but dangerous.
Dato knew that version of her. In the meadow, she never had to pretend her hands didn’t burn brighter than they should. He was the only person she trusted with her whole self. Atleast, she thought she did. The thoughts of every withheld thought, every withheld action. Could she do this? Can she be Kairi Rose Shadow of Tearia?
Here, she kept smoothing herself down. For Rush, because the world had taken too much. For the town, because Brindlecross needed a healer more than it needed a phoenix. For herself, because if she admitted how much she could do, she might have to admit how much she hadn’t done that night.
And now there was the prince. Kylar. Dato. Dream boy with a real title and a real family and real expectations, standing in her yard getting knocked around by her brother because he’d chosen to stand in front of her.
Was she allowed to want more from him than safety on the road and a promise of more in a month? Was she allowed to be a princess and still the girl who ran a soap shop and shot too well and healed too deep?
Or would the capital want her smaller, too? Or would they want more than she could give? Or would she be a pretty bird in a pretty cage.
The thought sat like a stone in her stomach. She hadn’t decided yet whether she was more afraid of being punished for being too much… or of quietly folding herself down until she didn’t recognize the shape of her own life.
Her attention snapped back to the present.
Practice blades clattered together, then one skittered across the packed dirt. There was a grunt, a curse, the thud of a body hitting ground, not as clean as before. When Kairi opened her eyes, Rush had half an arm looped around Dato’s, holding him upright instead of pinning him.
Dato wasn’t looking at Rush. He was looking at her.
“Everything okay?” he called, breath still rough.
Rush eased him fully upright and waited, eyes cutting briefly to his sister and back, giving her space to answer or lie.
“I’m all right,” she said. Her voice came out lighter than she felt. “Just… a quick thought. Nothing important.” She pushed herself up and brushed dust from her skirts. “You should wash if you’re going to stay by my side tonight. Can’t have my guard smelling like the yard for the festival.”
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He nodded at once. “Of course.”
She glanced at Tessa as she stood. The other woman was still watching her, eyes sharper than her expression gave away—like she saw exactly how much of that “I’m all right” was cloth over a bruise.
Kairi forced a smile and signed,
Tessa’s mouth twitched into a real, quick grin. She signed back, and stood with her.
The word dangerous caught in Kairi’s chest and warmed there, a small, stubborn ember. For tonight, at least, she decided she would let that be true.
Dato watched them disappear into the house, skirts and braids vanishing through the doorway. The yard felt louder in the quiet they left behind. He rolled his shoulders once, testing the pull of the latest bruise, thumb rubbing idly along the hilt of the practice blade.
Rush’s voice came low. “She hasn’t done that in a long time,” he said. “That I’ve seen, anyway.”
Dato’s jaw worked. He kept his eyes on the door. “Flinch like that?” he asked, though he already knew what Rush meant. Rush didn’t answer right away. He set his own blade down on the wall, movements precise. “Go that far under,” he said instead. “Like she hit a memory too hard. She used to do it more. First years, it was…” He broke off, fingers flexing once as if he wanted to crack his knuckles and thought better of it. “Bad.”
They both knew 'I’m all right' meant almost nothing. “I can talk to her later,” Dato said quietly. “If she wants it.”
Rush snorted. “If she wants it, she’ll tell you,” he said. “She’s got a mouth.”
Dato finally turned to face him. “She doesn’t always use it for herself,” he said. “Not when it matters.” His tone stayed even, but there was steel under it. “You know that.”
A muscle jumped in Rush’s cheek. For a heartbeat it looked like he might bite back; then he huffed, sharp. “You’ve known her what, three weeks?” he asked. “You planning on lecturing me on my sister now, Your Highness?”
“I’m not lecturing,” Dato said. “I’m telling you I see it. Same storms you do. Different angle.” His gaze didn’t drop. “You get to be the dragon. I get to be the anchor. She’s allowed both. And you know it's been more than three weeks.”
There was a flicker there, annoyance, acknowledgment, something tangled. Rush stepped closer until they were nearly shoulder to shoulder, both facing the dark rectangle of the back door. “You don’t fix this in a night with one dance,” Rush said, voice low and rough. “You don’t charm it out of her. You don’t kiss it away. You steady, or you get out of the way.”
Dato’s fingers tightened once on the hilt, then let go. “I’m not here to fix her,” he said. “I’m here to not run when it’s ugly.” Rush’s mouth curled, not quite a smile. “Good,” he said. “Because if you tried to fix her, I’d have to break you. And she’d be annoyed about the blood on her floor.”
“Can’t have that,” Dato said dryly. “She just scrubbed it.” A beat of silence stretched, not entirely unfriendly.
“You going to breathe down my neck all night,” Dato added, “or am I still allowed to dance with her?” Rush rolled the practice blade between his palms, weighing it, then set it back on the wall with a soft clack. “Yeah,” he said. “You can dance with her.” His eyes narrowed. “You do know how to dance like a commoner, right?”
Dato snorted. “Damon dragged me into city squares enough times. I can manage not to trample her feet.”
“Wasn’t sure you did anything besides smile, train, and invade her dreams,” Rush said. “I never invaded,” Dato muttered. “I was invited.” The words landed warmer than he meant them to, a small, private glow in his chest. He hesitated. “You still think it’s because of my bloodline?”
Rush gave a small, humorless huff. “Feels like it,” he said. “Your name day’s coming. When the Naberian beasts have their say, we’ll know more.” He tipped his head, considering him like a problem on a board. “Could be Lion. Could be something else. You’ve got… options.”
“Sounds exciting,” Dato said. “I’ll try not to embarrass your family god.” Rush’s eyes sharpened at that. “You embarrass my sister, I won’t wait for any god to weigh in.”
Dato met that flatly. “You’ve already threatened my ribs, my nose, and my continued existence,” he said. “Anything left?”
Rush’s mouth finally twitched. “My patience,” he said. “Don’t test that one. I like you just fine as long as you keep getting back up.”
“Noted,” Dato said. He took a step backward toward the stairs. “I’m going to wash the dust off before I go collect my… charges.”
Rush made a noncommittal sound. “Try not to look too princely,” he called after him. “She likes you when you forget you’re royal.”
Dato took the steps two at a time, only feeling the ache in his legs once he’d passed the landing.
He wasn’t sure which bruise tonight would hit harder, the ones from Rush’s blade, or whatever waited in Kairi’s eyes when the music started.
Rush watched Dato disappear up the stairs and let the quiet of the house close in again.
Without the spill of festival noise from the lane, it felt too big. Boxes stacked by the wall, tidy and accusing. The list by the door with most of its lines crossed off in Kairi’s neat hand. Their lives condensed into parcels and ink, ready to be loaded into a wagon tomorrow.
One more sleep in this town. Then roads and ravines and escorts and the long, grinding work of becoming Crown Prince Rush of Tearia.
He dropped into a chair at the table, elbows on the scarred wood. The pills he’d taken earlier blurred the sharp edges of sound and light, but they made his thoughts drag, sliding sideways if he didn’t pin them down. But the silence was worth the thoughts most of the time.
Had he been a good brother?
The question was an old one. It came with the same ghosts. A hallway slick with blood and glass. Two small bodies he hadn’t been there to shield. Krezin’s hand slipping out of his. Kairi’s screams. He pressed the heel of his hand to his brow and rode the ache down, down to its usual place.
Would reclaiming Tearia ever actually make any of them safer? Would it balance that night? Or was he just dragging them toward a different kind of danger with a prettier flag on it? Was he letting her near handsome predators that would lie to her face and promise all of their love only for them to stab her in the back later? Trinity.
Rush, He promised we would change Saebria together. He wants a more united world. He really loves me.
He pressed harder against his brow. He didn't Trinity...He murdered you the night before your wedding.
Footsteps on the stairs pulled him back.
“You look very serious,” Dato said quietly from the bottom step. “And you were… very quiet. Which is suspicious.”
Rush lowered his hand. Dato flicked his hand up
He tilted his head in question. Rush only nodded.
Dato had washed and changed, hair still damp at the ends. He’d traded practice clothes for a clean shirt and decent trousers, the kind that would pass in any small town on festival night. To anyone else, he looked like a well-turned-out guard.
Rush’s eyes went, uninvited, to the simple chain at his throat. The Lyon family ring hung from it, catching a thin line of late light.
“…I'm,” Dato went on, thumb brushing the edge of the ring, “I’m going to give her my family ring tonight.”
Rush huffed out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Lost in thought for once,” he said by way of excuse, then tipped his chin at the chain. “Confident she’ll take a prince’s ring before she’s even seen the capital, are you?”
“Not even slightly,” Dato said. It was so honest Rush had to look at him properly. The prince dropped his gaze to the worn floorboards, as if they might contain a better script. “We’ve laid out… an incredibly slow burn,” he added. “A month of behaving like we’re falling in love for everyone else’s benefit while we work out what we already are.”
Rush’s voice went flat. “A month until you plan to ask to court her?”
“I’m asking you now,” Dato said, lifting his eyes to meet Rush’s head-on. “And following her plan for when she’ll let me ask her.” One corner of his mouth tugged. “If she still wants me. If Damon doesn’t sweep her off her feet tomorrow.”
“Your brother is that charming?” Rush asked, unimpressed. Dato exhaled something like a laugh. “He has the practice and the résumé,” he said. “And very little shame.”
Rush studied him. Clean shirt. Good boots. Damp hair. Ring on a chain like a promise he hadn’t earned yet. Under all of that, the same young man who’d earned her trust over years and threw himself between his captain and wild magic. Reckless, but a good heart. He sighed, the fight in his shoulders easing a fraction. “No new threats,” he said finally. “You’ve had all the ones you need.”
Dato’s mouth twitched. “I’m starting a collection,” he said. Then, after a beat, quieter: “For what it’s worth… I get it. You’re wound tight. We all are.” Rush raised a brow. “She grew up royal,” Dato went on. “Then spent half her childhood being anything but. Now she’s supposed to walk back into crowns and courts like it’s a coat she outgrew and can just put on again.” He tapped a knuckle lightly on the table. “That’d be enough to scramble anyone’s head. Yours included.”
Rush stared at him for a long, measuring second. “Are you,” he said slowly, “trying to tell me I’m stressed, Your Highness?”
“I’m saying you’re not the only one carrying a kingdom around in your teeth,” Dato said. “And that half of what’s bothering her is this whiplash. Not just us. Not just…” he caught himself, “the dream and the ring and the escort. All of it.”
That hit closer than Rush liked. He leaned back in his chair, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “You’re very free with your opinions for a third prince,” he muttered.
“You’re very free with your threats for a future king,” Dato shot back, but there was no real heat in it. Silence sat between them for a moment, not comfortable exactly, but less sharp.
Rush let out a breath through his nose. “I was… harder on you than I needed to be, at the start,” he said at last, staring at a knot in the tabletop. It was as close to “sorry” as he knew how to get without choking on it. “I keep seeing men who say pretty things and then leave her with the ash. You looked like another one.”
Dato didn’t flinch from it. “Fair,” he said. “I’ve seen enough nobility to know you’re not wrong to worry.” Rush glanced up and met his eyes. “You keep getting back up,” he said. “That helps.” Dato’s mouth crooked. “I'm very good at standing back up.”
Rush huffed, accepting that. “If you hurt her, I’m still breaking your nose,” he said, because some things didn’t change.
Dato didn’t bristle. “I know,” he said. “You’ve been very clear. Repeatedly.” Rush’s gaze flicked to the ring again. “You really think you’re ready to hand her that?” he asked, quieter. “Knowing what it means in your world and mine?”
Dato’s fingers closed loosely around the ring, feeling the familiar shape press back into his palm. “No,” he said. “Not really. But I know I want her to have the choice.” He looked up. “And I’d rather she take it from me now, when I’m just Kylar-who-came-to-Brindlecross, than have it thrown at her in Carlbrin with half the court watching.”
Something in that lodged under Rush’s ribs. Choice. That was the part he’d been clawing for, all these years, some way for Kairi not to be dragged by every tide but the ones she chose.
“Good answer,” he said grudgingly. “For a princeling.” Dato’s smile turned real, if a little tired. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Don’t,” Rush said. “You’ll get spoiled.” That earned him a quiet laugh. Outside, the first proper run of festival bells rolled across the town. Voices rose with them, bright and messy and alive. Dato glanced toward the window, judging the light. “I should go,” he said. “If I’m late, Raelin will find a way to blame you, and I'm not sure you could survive whatever punishment she may give you.”
Rush smirked. “Go, then. Try not to make a mess of it.” He hesitated, then added, a shade softer, “You’re… not the worst choice she could have made.”
Dato blinked, clearly understanding that for the gift it was. “I’ll do my best to live up to that glowing endorsement,” he said.
He pushed to his feet, the faint weight of the ring warm against his chest, the thought of Kairi’s hand there later making his pulse climb in a way he tried very hard to ignore.
Rush watched him head for the door, then looked at the packed boxes, the list, the empty spaces their lives would leave.
“Bring her back smiling,” he said, mostly to himself.
At the threshold, Dato paused and glanced back. “That’s the plan,” he said.
Then he stepped out into the sound of bells and laughter and lanterns being lit, leaving Rush alone with the quiet house and thoughts of tomorrow.