The first wrong thing was the grass.

  The dreamscape meadow never held still. Even on the quiet nights there was always some small motion. Some wind combing the blades, the willow letting a few leaves drift, the lake taking the stars and smearing them gently across its surface.

  Tonight the grass lay flat around Kylar’s boots, pressed down in a circle like something heavy had settled there and refused to move.

  He stood at the water’s edge with his hands fisted at his sides. The air felt thicker than usual, the sky too bright and far away. His chest was already tight, breath stacking shallow. The lake’s reflection jittered like the whole world had been set to a different frequency.

  Not here, he thought. Not this place.

  “Hey.”

  Her voice slipped in behind him the way it always did here, soft and sure, like she’d stepped out of the part of his mind that still believed in quiet things.

  He didn’t turn. If he looked at her, the last thin thread of composure might snap. “Hi,” he managed.

  Kairi came closer, bare feet whispering through unmoving grass. The meadow felt wrong around him, too tense, too frozen. The hair on her arms prickled.

  “Something’s wrong,” she said quietly.

  “Just tired.” The lie tasted thin even as he said it.

  Above them, the sky flickered. A ring of dark crept in at the edges of the blue, like ink soaking in from a torn seam. The willow’s reflection broke and shivered.

  Kairi’s eyes flicked upward, then back to him. “Dream boy,” she murmured, “your lie is leaking.”

  He tried to laugh. It came out wrong, a short, frayed sound. His ribs wouldn’t open properly. Air stayed high in his chest, buzzing there.

  The spin in his head kicked up, old phrases, old doubts, the council voice from earlier that day saying you’re not ready playing on a loop. His hands began to shake.

  She saw it. Noticed the tremor, the way his fingers twitched against his thighs like they were looking for a hilt that wasn’t there. Same kind of twitch that Rush did sometimes.

  “Okay,” she breathed to herself, heart rate ticking up in sympathy. “Okay. Can I…?” She then asked him.

  She stepped around him until they were almost shoulder to shoulder, not blocking his view but close enough to see the strain in his profile. She lifted a hand, hovering near his forearm without touching.

  “Can I?” she asked again, this time a little louder.

  He swallowed. He wasn’t sure he wanted anyone touching him while his mind was going sideways like this. He also wasn’t sure what would happen if she took her hand away. The thought alone scared him.

  He nodded.

  Her fingers closed around his wrist, gentle, warm, grounding. His pulse pounded under her touch, too fast, more like a drumline than a heartbeat.

  “You’re shaking,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah.” The word scraped out of him.

  The willow behind them rustled with no wind. The flattened ring of grass widened by an inch, as if the ground itself were bracing.

  Kairi moved to stand directly in front of him now.

  "Hey, don't stare at the sky, look here". She whispered, bringing his focus down from the wild sky to the very human shape of her. Up close, she could see a fine sheen of sweat at his hairline, the tight line of his jaw, the way his eyes kept trying to slide past her to scan the horizon.

  “What does it feel like?” she asked. “Inside?”

  He muffled a curse. Panic made words feel like weeds tangling in his throat. “Like I’m falling,” he said finally. “Like the ground might just… drop out from under me. Like my own head doesn’t believe we’re safe.”

  He hit each phrase like a step down a staircase he wasn’t sure existed.

  “I know—” He tapped his temple with his free hand. “I know up here that nothing is wrong. No battle. No council. No corridor. But my body…” His chest hitched. “My body hasn’t gotten the message.”

  Kairi’s hand tightened on his wrist. She knew what it was to have “safe” mean nothing to your bones. To have your body remember things your mind was tired of revisiting.

  “Thank you,” she said, and the sincerity in it made his throat go hot. “For telling me. That’s…not a small thing.”

  He tried to answer. A breath came instead, too quick, then another. His world narrowed. The sky too big, lake too bright, sound of his own pulse hammering in his ears.

  “Is it helping that I’m here,” she asked suddenly, “or making it worse?”

  He blinked. Of all the things she could have said—calm down, you’re fine, it’s just in your head—she’d chosen that. It startled some calm thoughts in him.

  He checked, as best he could, between heartbeats. Fear, shame, the instinct to retreat… but also her hand, solid and warm; the faint echo of her breath; the way the faint feeling he felt here less like static and more like a humming wire with her close.

  “It’s… helping,” he said, surprised by how true it turned out to be. “A lot.” He gave a small pained smile.

  Some of the tightness left her shoulders. “Good.”

  She let go of his wrist only long enough to take both his hands in hers. His fingers were tense, tendons standing out like cords, but he didn’t pull away. She guided his hands up, placing them lightly on her shoulders, palms flat against the thin fabric of her tunic.

  Her own hands slid to his forearms, thumbs resting just inside his elbows, a bracket of warmth.

  “Wildflower—” His voice came out thin, the panic still crowding his lungs. “I don’t—”

  “Hey,” she interrupted, soft but firm. “Eyes on me. Not the sky.”

  He hadn’t realized how fixated he’d been on that ever-shifting horizon until she said it. He dragged his gaze back down, anchoring it on hers. Her eyes were clear and steady, worry there but no fear of him in it.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, faintly bewildered.

  “Being here,” she said, mouth quirking. “Now. Can you try to match my breathing? In when I do, out when I do. If it makes it worse, tell me and we stop. Deal?”

  He latched onto the word deal like a rope. Deals he understood. “Deal,” he forced out.

  Stolen story; please report.

  She took a slow breath through her nose. As she inhaled, her chest rose under his hands, ribs expanding. He focused on that, on the small movement, the warmth under his palms, the subtle stretch of muscle.

  He copied her. The first inhale caught halfway, then pushed past the tight band around his lungs. Air burned a little going in. He held it because she did.

  “Now out,” she murmured, and he followed that, too, letting his exhale trail hers.

  The meadow twitched.

  The ring of flattened grass lifted by a fraction. The sky’s frantic flicker dulled, like someone had turned down the contrast. He could feel his breath still coming too fast, but the edges of it were less jagged.

  “There you go,” she said. “Again.”

  They repeated it, inhale, hold, exhale. On the third breath his hands stopped feeling like claws on her shoulders and more like hands. On the fourth, he realized the tremor in them had eased.

  “It’s…quieter,” he admitted, frowning as if that were suspicious.

  “Good quieter or creepy quieter?” she asked.

  A tiny, genuine huff escaped him. “Good. Like…someone turned the volume down inside my head.”

  “Dreamscape has its uses,” she said. “Sometimes it listens if we ask nicely.”

  He snorted. “Wish my body would read the rulebook.”

  “We’ll add it to the reading list,” she said, daring to move one of his hands. She slid it gently from her shoulder down to the left side of her chest, laying his palm over her heart. “Here. Now you’re holding something steady.”

  Under his hand, her heartbeat thumped, strong and steady. The feeling hummed along with it, that shared space between them echoing the rhythm.

  “You’re very bossy in my own dream,” he said, the words softer now, ragged edges sanded down by exhaustion.

  “Do you not want me to be?” she asked. Her eyes searching his.

  He thought about the empty meadow he’d used to land in, alone with the echo of his own breathing. About how, before her, panic had always been something he carried by himself, in quiet corridors and on high walls, away from any gaze that might see it as weakness.

  “No,” he said, and his voice finally sounded like his again. “I think I… like it.”

  She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Good. Because I’m making up half of this as I go, and the rest is ‘what would I want if our places were swapped.’”

  He blinked. “You’d want…this?”

  “My hands held,” she said simply. “My breathing matched. Someone asking if it’s helping or hurting instead of just pretending not to see. I’ve had enough of people deciding for me what’s supposed to make me better.”

  He looked at her like he was seeing another layer peel back. There was something in her eyes now, an old echo of fear, of stone and fire and being told to be strong when what she needed was a hand.

  “For the record,” he said, “it’s helping. You’re helping.”

  The way he said it, like a confession, like a surrender, hit her square in the chest.

  “Okay,” she murmured. She smiled."You have been there for me. And you have always helped you know. Anyway, want to sit?”

  He took her words in and sat them down near his heart. He helped. He nodded, sudden exhaustion washing over him in a wave now that the worst of the panic had ebbed.

  She didn’t let go of his hand. She led him to the willow, its drooping branches forming a curtain of green around a small patch of grass. They sank down side by side, backs against the trunk, their shoulders touching from the weight of the cloak he’d somehow remembered to bring with them into sleep.

  The lake settled into a calm mirror. The sky smoothed, stars winking back through the thinning dark.

  “Is it always like that?” she asked after a minute. “When it hits?”

  He stared out at the water. Now that his lungs were working again, the shame rushed in to try and take panic’s place.

  “Sometimes worse,” he said. “Sometimes it feels like my armor’s cracked and everyone can see everything inside. Sometimes it feels like I should retreat. Leave the room. The city. Just disappear until I’m…fixed.” He gave a humorless half-smile. “It never works.”

  “No,” she agreed. “Running usually just teaches your fear it was right.”

  He huffed a breath that was almost a laugh. “You sound like you’ve been giving lectures in my head for years.”

  “I’m not trying to lecture.” She plucked a blade of grass and twisted it between her fingers. “I’m trying to be here. With you. In this. Even when it’s messy.”

  He turned his head to look at her. The way she said with you landed somewhere deep.

  “Do you want me to say all the things people usually say?” she went on. “‘You’re safe,’ ‘they’re wrong,’ ‘you’ll be fine,’ ‘it’s not that bad’…”

  He grimaced. “I get a lot of those.”

  “I bet.” She bumped her shoulder lightly against his. “Do they help?”

  “Not really,” he admitted.

  “Then I won’t say them,” she decided. “I’ll just sit here and breathe and hold your hand and be annoying when necessary.”

  He swallowed around something thick. “I already know,” he said slowly, “the things I’m supposed to believe. It’s…better when you just sit with me while I remember how.”

  “Good,” she said. “That’s easier. I can sit for a very long time.”

  He smiled at that, a real one this time. The knot between his brows softened.

  “Why?” he asked suddenly.

  She tilted her head. “Why what?”

  “Why are you doing this?” His eyes searched hers, careful and raw. “You don’t even know who I am.”

  She thought of all the hints he’d dropped, the weight in his voice when he talked about brothers, the way he moved like someone raised to stand between danger and others. She thought of how little any of that mattered compared to the way he’d looked standing by the lake, shaking and trying so hard not to let her see.

  “You’re you,” she said. “That’s enough.”

  His breath caught. “You’re taking care of me,” he said quietly, testing the words. “Not what im expected to be. Not the soldier. Just…me.”

  “That’s the only you I’ve ever met,” she answered. “The rest is… window dressing.”

  He barked a short, disbelieving laugh that turned soft at the edges. Emotion flickered across his face,gratitude, confusion, relief.

  He looked suddenly more tired than she’d ever seen him.

  The panic had let go. What was left was the crash.

  “Come here,” she said, shifting.

  She slid closer along the grass until their sides were flush, then opened her arm in invitation.

  He hesitated, reflexively. Princes didn’t lean. Soldiers didn’t sag.

  Kylar did. He needed this.

  Slowly, like the movement itself might startle someone, he let his head tip over until it found the curve of her shoulder. The contact sent a shock of something through him, vulnerability, yes, but also a bone-deep sense of oh.

  Her shirt smelled faintly of herbs and soap. Her shoulder was solid under his weight, not delicate the way he’d half-feared. The world didn’t end when he rested on her. It just…shifted to accommodate them both.

  “Too much?” she asked, voice a warm rumble against his ear.

  “No,” he said, eyes slipping half-closed. “It’s…good.”

  “Okay,” she murmured.

  Her free hand hovered a moment, considering. Then she brought it up slowly, giving him time to flinch or pull away. When he didn’t, she threaded her fingers into his hair, nails just scratching lightly against his scalp.

  Every muscle in his shoulders loosened a notch.

  The simple, absentminded motion, like she’d done this a hundred times in other lives, sent a quiet shock of comfort down his spine. No one touched him like this. Ever. Not like he was something soft that deserved to be soothed.

  He breathed in. The air went all the way down without catching.

  “Better?” she asked.

  His answer was more exhale than word. “Yeah.”

  She kept the slow motion of her fingers, occasionally dragging them down to rub gentle circles between his shoulder blades where tension liked to live. Each circle worked something loose that years of discipline had knotted tight.

  From this angle, she could see the side of his face, eyes closed, lashes dark against his cheeks, mouth finally relaxed. He looked younger like this. More boy than soldier.

  “I hate that it hits you like that,” she said quietly. “I hate that no one ever taught you how to sit with it.”

  He made a small sound that might have been agreement. Or apology. She gave his hair a faint tug.

  “Hey. No apologizing,” she chided. “If you start saying sorry for having a nervous system, I’m leaving you here and stealing your cloak.”

  That earned her a soft huff of laughter against her shoulder.

  They fell into a comfortable silence.

  His breathing found hers without effort now; they rose and fell together. The feeling hummed low and calm. The willow leaves above them whispered something approving. The lake settled so completely it looked like glass.

  Kairi watched the starlight tremble on the water and let her cheek rest lightly against the top of his head. This was not what she’d imagined the first time she’d pictured being alone with her mysterious dream boy. This wasn’t flirtation or easy banter or stolen kisses under the willow.

  This was better.

  “Dream boy?” she said after a while.

  “Mm?” The sound was half-asleep.

  “If it happens again,” she said, “here or out there… you can come find me. You don’t have to do the falling part by yourself.”

  He was quiet long enough that she wondered if he’d slipped into sleep. Then, very softly, “You might regret offering.”

  “I won’t,” she said, just as soft. “Trust me on that.”

  He shifted, nestling a little closer. Her hand splayed over his back automatically, thumb drawing a slow line down his spine. His arms went around her and closed her eyes and burned this moment into her memory.

  His internal symphony was still there under her palm, quieter now, but recognizable. The difference was that, for the first time, it felt like a duet instead of a solo.

  “Thank you,” he murmured, words slurred at the edges.

  “You’re welcome,” she whispered.

  He fell asleep like that, head on her shoulder, body finally trusting the ground again. She stayed awake a little longer, fingers combing idly through his hair, eyes on the calm, dark surface of the lake.

  Someone was taking care of him, she thought. Not the soldier. Not the title.

  Him.

  She tightened her arm around him just a little, as if daring the next wave of fear to try and reach him through her.

  And when sleep finally came for her too, it found them exactly like that: tangled in cloak and grass and quiet, his weight a warm, solid proof that for once, neither of them had to hold their armor alone.