Chapter 3 – Little Fires of Care

*CRACK.*

“Roof’s iced over again,” muttered Thom, the butler, peering out the fogged window. “No supply wagons for at least a week.”

“I’ll manage,” Sepharine replied, rolling her sleeves up. “We have dried herbs and firewood.”

Draven’s voice echoed from upstairs. “If she so much as steps into my chamber today—”

“I heard that,” Sepharine called back, calm as ever.

She entered anyway.

“You’re persistent,” he muttered, not turning from the window.

“So is winter,” she said, setting a log into the hearth. “But it doesn’t mean we stop fighting it.”

“No one asked you to fight anything,” Draven snapped.

“No,” she agreed. “But someone has to keep you from freezing to death in your sulking corner.”

He turned sharply. “I’m not sulking.”

“You’re in the same shirt as yesterday.”

“I like this shirt.”

“You hate linen.”

He scowled.

She laid a warm compress along his calves. He flinched.

“You felt that,” she said quietly.

“No.”

“You did.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s something.”

“I said—”

“I know what you said,” she interrupted, voice firm for once. “But I also saw your fingers twitch yesterday when I read the battle at Iron Hollow.”

He froze.

“That was your favorite, wasn’t it?” she added, opening the worn leather-bound novel. “You memorized half of it.”

“Shut the book,” he said. “It’s pathetic.”

“No. It’s hope.”

She began reading.

“‘And though his leg bled, the alpha stood, blade in hand, daring the shadows to come closer.’”

“Stop—”

“‘He stood,’” she repeated, looking up. “And you will, too.”

He shoved the book off her lap. “You’re delusional.”

She picked it up again. “Delusional is giving up before the fight starts.”

He stared at her. “Why do you even care?”

She blinked. “Because you don’t.”

Silence.

Later, she found him staring at the shattered mirror, glass littered across the floor.

“Another tantrum?” she asked.

“I overheard the council,” he muttered. “They want to name Roran as acting Alpha.”

“Your cousin?”

“They say I’m too weak. A symbol of failure.”

“What did you do?”

He held up his hands. Blood trailed down his palms, glinting where glass embedded his skin.

Sepharine rushed forward. “You idiot—”

“I needed to feel something.”

She guided him to the chair and began cleaning the wounds.

“You know,” she whispered, “some wars are won with waiting, not swords.”

He didn’t respond. But he didn’t pull away either.

Her hands were steady as she bandaged the cuts. When she finished, she looked up.

“You're still bleeding,” he muttered.

“Only on the outside.”

A long pause.

“You should hate me,” he said.

“Sometimes I do,” she replied.

That made him blink.

“But I love you more.”

He looked away, throat tight. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Maybe not,” she said, standing. “But you didn’t deserve the pain either.”

She left before he could answer.

That night, alone in the firelight, Draven opened the book to the battle at Iron Hollow.

And read until dawn.