CHAPTER 91

JARRETT'S POV

The rain never stopped.

After the bridge, after Vane and his cavalry finally turned tail and rode south with their velvet getting soaked through and their banners dragging in the mud, we didn't go back to the main hall.

We went back to the shrine.

It was the only place that ever felt like it was actually ours. Not the palace's. Not the council's. Ours.

The fire was dead when we got inside. Cold ash and the smell of old smoke. Helena knelt to relight it immediately, like she needed something to do with her hands. While I barred the door. Two heavy beams, iron brackets. The sound it made when it slid into place was final.

Her cloak was soaked through, plastered to her back. Her hair stuck to her neck in dark, wet ropes. She was shivering so hard I could see it from across the room.

"You're going to get sick," I said.

"I'm fine," she said, but her teeth were chattering so badly she almost bit the words.

I didn't argue with her. I never win when I argue about her taking care of herself anyway. I just walked over to the low bed in the corner, pulled the heavy fur blanket off it — the one she always says is too heavy and too hot and then steals in the middle of the night — and dropped it around her shoulders.

She looked up at me. Eyes still that storm-grey from the bridge. Exhausted, but alive.

"Jarrett."

"Helena."

The fire caught them. Small at first, a little lick of flame fighting the damp kindling she was coaxing. Then bigger, catching properly, throwing orange light across the stone walls and across the floor where we had once laid out maps and plans for a war we didn't want. The only sound was the rain hammering on the slate roof and her breathing slowly evening out.

She sat on the floor in front of it. Not like a queen. Not like the woman who had stood on that bridge this morning with lightning under her skin. Like a girl who was finally warm. She tucked her knees up, the fur blanket pooling around her feet.

I sat next to her.

Close enough that our shoulders touched. Close enough that I could smell rain and smoke and her.

For a long time we didn't say anything. We didn't need to. The quiet after everything was its own kind of conversation. For months it has been orders and messengers and doors closing. This was just... quiet.

"You remember the first night we stayed here?" she asked quietly, staring into the fire.

"I remember you tried to make chicory tea and burned it."

"I did not burn it," she said instantly, indignant even while exhausted. "It was... smoky. It was supposed to be smoky. That's the characteristic."

"It was black, Helena. It was charcoal with water."

She laughed. A real laugh this time. Not the tired, thin one from the bridge when she thought I was going to get myself killed. This one came from her chest, a little rough.

"You drank it anyway," she pointed out.

"You made it for me," I said. "I wasn't going to say no. You could have handed me poisoned river water and I would have said thank you."

"You're so dramatic."

"You love drama."

She pulled the blanket tighter. When she shifted, her knee brushed mine. She didn't move it away. She left it there, a small, deliberate pressure.

"Can I tell you something?" she said, her voice dropping.

"Always."

She picked at a loose thread on the blanket. "When you stood in front of me on the bridge today... when Vane pulled that sword... I wasn't scared."

I looked at her. "Helena, he had a sword at your throat."

"I know. I know that. But for the first time in months, I wasn't thinking about what could go wrong. About what happens if I fail, if they take the city, if... I just wasn't. I just knew you were there. And that if you were there, it was going to be okay."

My throat went tight. My hand was on the floorboard between us, palm up without me even realizing I'd done it. Hers was right there, pale against the dark wood.

"I will always be there," I said. It came out rougher than I wanted. "In front of you. Behind you. Wherever you need me to be. You know that, right? You have to know that by now."

"I know," she whispered.

She turned her head. The firelight was on her face now, painting her in gold. Rain still clung to her lashes. Her lips were a little chapped from the wind. No golden fire under her skin, no crown, no power flaring. Just her. Just Helena, who burns tea and shivers and looks at me like I'm something worth coming back to.

"Helena," I said, my voice lower than I meant it to be. Like the name was stuck.

She leaned in. Just a little. Just enough that I could feel her breath warm against my cheek. Enough that it was a question.

And then she stopped, a few inches away, and her eyes flicked to my mouth and back up, and a small, tired, mischievous smile tugged at her lips.

"If I kiss you right now, will you overthink it for the next three days?"

The question was so perfectly her, so perfectly us, that I almost laughed.

"Absolutely," I said honestly. "I will analyze the angle. The timing. I will write a mental report."

"Good," she said, and she did.

It wasn't like in the stories they tell in the capital. It wasn't perfect. Her lips were cold from the rain, mine were chapped from shouting orders all day. The blanket kept slipping off her shoulder and getting in the way. My leg had gone half asleep from sitting on the stone floor.

But it was soft. And it was real. And it was ours.

She kissed me like she was tired of waiting. Like she was done being brave for everyone else. I reached up, cupped her cheek with my hand — my hand that wasn't dead asleep anymore, that knew exactly where it belonged — and kissed her back. Slowly. Like we had all the time in the world and not just a barred door and a storm and a world that would want us again by morning.

Her hand came up and fisted in the front of my damp shirt, not to pull me closer, just to hold on.

When she pulled back, just barely, her forehead rested against mine. She was smiling. I could feel it more than see it.

"You still overthinking?" she asked, breathless.

"Not at all," I said, lying completely.

"Liar," she whispered, and brushed another quick, cold kiss against the corner of my mouth.

"You love that about me."

"I do," she said, and this time she said it without teasing. Without the armor. She said it like it surprised both of us to hear it out loud. Like a truth we had both known but hadn't dared to speak in a shrine with a dying fire.

She rested her head on my shoulder then, like all the strength had gone out of her at once. That bone-deep exhaustion from this morning, from weeks of not sleeping properly, came crashing back. I wrapped the blanket around both of us this time, pulling her into my side, against the bedframe so we weren't just on the hard floor.

She fit there perfectly. She always has.

Her hand found mine under the blanket, cold fingers lacing through mine.

"Stay?" she asked, her voice sleepy now, small and muffled against my neck.

"I'm not going anywhere," I said. I leaned back against the bedframe, pulled her closer so her head was on my chest, right over my heart. I pressed a kiss to the top of her wet hair, tasting rain. "Not tonight. Not ever."

"Promise?" she mumbled, already half-asleep, her breathing going slow and even.

"Promise."

And for the first time in a long, long time, there was no council waiting outside. No riders on the road. No war council. No crown.

Just us. Just the fire crackling and popping, throwing our shadows huge against the wall. Just the rain on the roof, keeping the rest of the world away.

Just quiet. Just romance, finally.