Raven's Watch raven's watch

her breath caught—not in fear, but in something perilously close to surrender. no one had spoken to her in her mother-tongue since the night her kingdom burned. the sound of it on his lips was a ghost returned, a promise pulled from ash.

she did not pull back either.

instead she lifted her chin, granting him that nearness beneath her jaw, a place sacred enough that even sun eater had been denied it since the birth of her children.

blackfell… his name exhaled like a confession, like a wound brushed open.

her eyes closed for a heartbeat, lashes trembling—not fragile, never fragile, but struggling beneath the enormity of being seen. truly seen. not as a vessel. not as a weapon. not as a ruined thing.

a queen with no throne, she murmured, voice low and wintersoft. a mother with no children.

she opened her eyes again, their pale fire fixing on him, steady despite everything.

the gods would appear to be against us.