68. Chapter Sixty-Eight

I woke up alone, and found myself surprisingly comfortable with the silence. Perhaps it was because the scent of him still lingered on my sheets—orange peels and cloves melding with the sweat and the sex in a surprisingly pleasant fashion. I smirked to myself as I stretched out in bed, the various aches and soreness providing some very obvious reminders of what had transpired the night before.

Kieran also had the foresight to let me know over dinner last night that he had to leave before dawn, a seemingly simple gesture that actually meant the world to me. It eased my mind when I knew what to expect, and he knew that last minute changes in routine had a tendency to stress me out.

I ran my thumb over the astral quartz he had left behind on my pillow. The stone was smooth, flat and rounded—and it fit perfectly in my palm.

It made me think of you.

The quartz captured the morning sun flawlessly in irisated, opalescent little fractals. In a way, it reminded me of the way my Light often manifested, too. If Kieran could see me in the beauty of this tiny treasure… I felt my chest tighten.

Gods.

I was starting to think that Kieran and I had been kidding ourselves—and that the sex was all it had taken to wipe away that thin veneer claiming that what we had together was platonic. Had it ever been? Had we ever really been just friends?

I felt my cheeks heat as I remembered some of my lust-addled confessions last night. If it weren’t for his sweet, hand-written note, and the quartz, I may have been afraid that I had scared him off.

Sometimes I really think we were made for each other.

It had sounded like the mallow-soft, saccharine confessions of a pre-teen crush, and I had admittedly been drunk on submission and satisfaction as I had said it, but sometimes, I did legitimately get the sense that there was something… more to the bond between Kieran and I. Something meant to be.

If Kieran had said anything in response, I hadn’t heard it. While it used to take me quite literally hours on end to fall asleep, it took mere minutes when I slept with him in my bed. The warmth of his chest and the way he liked to draw lazy, loving circles on my back with his fingertips as I drifted off…

Good gods.

If I didn’t get my ass out of bed and enforce some productivity upon myself now, I ran the risk of spending my entire day in bed—fantasizing about a man who had only left 3 hours ago. I needed to get my shit together. I summoned a small orb of Water from the washroom, icy cool, and let it splash against my face. I jolted and shivered as I jumped out of bed, but hey—it did the trick.

I padded into the kitchen to prepare myself some tea, only to find a small rabbit perched on my windowsill, sparkling in the sun. No ordinary rabbit, naturally. This one looked as though it had been carved out of amethyst and labradorite while also being semi-corporeal—it was Laurel’s mail sprite.

Oh,right, I thought to myself as I opened the window latch and retrieved Laurel’s note. We’ve got brunch plans.

I swear to the Source, Asher - if you cancel on us because you’re too busy getting laid, I will break into your apartment and tear Kieran off of you with my bare hands.

See you at eleven!

I burst out laughing before I peeked out my window, towards the clock tower in the center of the city.

Shit. I had to start getting ready.

I slathered my toast with butter and jam as Sienna Makar ranted and rambled about the expectations of her father.

“And like… Tell me why Theia had to be the one to tell him that was unrealistic. He thinks that I should come home on every break between quarters so that I can shadow him at Court, as if it’s not a week’s worth of travel both ways. Sure, Theia does it all the godsdamned time, but she doesn’t even teach right now. She barely needs to be in Sophrosyne!”

“Wait, so Markus thinks you should travel for a week, spend a week back home in Luxtos amp; Stygos, and then journey back to Sophrosyne. Just to then take the week-long journey home again in between every academic quarter? To train for a role that you’ve, uhhh, literally grown up training to inherit?” I asked, incredulous. “That would eat up your whole break.”

“Right? Gods, the man is exhausting. Thank the gods for Theia. She’s the only one who can keep my father in line, I swear.”

“At least she can keep him in line,” Laurel laughed, though the smile didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Mama Ansari couldn’t keep my dad in check if she tried. And she does try, to be fair. He’s just as stubborn as an ass.”

I chewed on my toast, a little bit lost in thought. Sometimes when Laurel or Sia talked about their family lives, I felt strange pangs of wistfulness—a certain morbid curiosity overtaking me. What were my parents like?What would our relationships look like, if they hadn’t… If they were…

“You alright over there, Arken?” Sia asked, nudging me with an arm.

“I mean, just take a look at her fucking neck,” Laurel crowed. “That rude bastard kept her up all night, I’d put every Lyra I have on that bet.”

“We fell asleep eventually,” I murmured, cheeks heating.

Sia cackled.

“Good for you, girl,” she said with a smirk, clinking her glass of juice against my tea cup.

“Am I allowed to say I told you so yet?” Laurel inquired, reaching across the table to swipe the grapes that I had pushed aside on my plate.

I rolled my eyes.

“If you need to get it out of your system, go right ahead, Ansari. By all means.”

She didn’t even hesitate.

”I fuuuucking told you so! ‘Just friends’ my ass,” Laurel snorted. “What did I tell her, Sia?”

“That they just needed to bone and get it over with?” Sienna replied, smirking over her juice.

“You keep that shit in mind the next time I offer you my advice, Asher,” Laurel cackled.

“I dunno, Laur—I’m not sure they’ve gotten over anything. It’s what, day ten? Eleven? And they’re still going at it like horny teenagers,” Sienna said, pushing my hair back to get another glance at my neck.

Kieran had bit me hard enough last night that those strange godling teeth of his had nearly punctured my skin. I couldn’t help but laugh when I’d caught a glance in the mirror. I looked like I’d fallen prey to yet another daemon attack—a vampyric one, this time.

Close enough.

Laurel let loose a low whistle, craning her neck to see just how shamelessly the man had claimed his territory.

“We’ve gotta get you some concealing powder or something, godsdamn. Or we could hit up Elise. She’s getting pretty good at her cleric shit. Fixed my sprained wrist last month without any issues. I’m sure she wouldn’t charge ya to clean that up.”

My blush deepened as I realized that the dark little creature stirring in my chest didn’t want to cover it up. Or conceal it. Or heal the wound with arcana. Not when the bite had made me come harder than I think I ever had before.

“Oh, you’ve got it so cataclysmically bad, Arken,” Sia said with a wicked grin.

“So is he your boyfriend now, or what?” Laurel tacked on.

I shrugged.

“We haven’t really had the conversation yet,” I admitted, though saying that out loud didn’t bother me as much as I thought it might. Things were surprisingly comfortable between Kieran and I after last night’s… explorations.

“Ah, right,” Sia replied dryly. “Of course. It’s only been eleven days, Laur. Wherever would they find the time to talk about their feelings?”

“Alright, these are some bold jabs coming from you two. You know, the ones who rotate through the women of Sophrosyne like it’s a professional sport,” I groused. “What’s the overlap in your body count at this point? Has anyone done a Venn diagram?”

The conversation devolved into further jabs, cackles, and screeches for the majority of our meal—so much so that I was grateful that it seemed to be a slow day for Corinne. We made sure to tip generously all the same, just in case we had scared off any of her other customers.

“Gods, I missed you two,” Laurel said. “It’s good to be back.”

“How are things going back home, Laur?” I asked gently.

She had taken about a month off her coursework recently to go home to Samhaven, checking in on her parents after the disappearance of Amir.

My friend sighed. “I don’t know. It’s hard to gauge how they’re actually doing right now. Mama’s been putting on a brave face, my dad is just burying himself in work. I don’t have the heart to tell them that I think these private investigators that they’ve hired are total frauds. It all just feels so fucking pointless. I don’t know what they think those hacks could find that Lord Ymir’s men couldn’t. Or the Elder Guard, for that matter?”

“In a way, they might just be paying for their own peace of mind,” Sienna pointed out. “So they can at least know they’re doing absolutely everything they can for him right now.”

“I suppose,” Laurel sighed. “Regardless, I’m glad to be back, I’m not sure how much longer I could’ve dealt with how quiet that house is without him. And I felt like such an asshole, but every time another body would show up and they would confirm that it’s not Amir…”

“You’re not an asshole,” Sia said softly. “There’s still hope.”

Laurel nodded, her gaze going distant and wistful.

The three of us sat in silence for a while, soaking up some much needed sunbeams until the bells of the clock tower sang out to interrupt.

“Gods, it’s already two? I’ve gotta get going,” Laurel said.

“I should probably go reply to my father’s missives,” Sienna groaned, getting up from the bench.

Personally, my day was looking to be uneventful at best. I had one lecture left, but that wasn’t until early this evening, so I was half-tempted just to go home and take a nap. I had admittedly been operating at something of a… sleep deficit lately.

“Oh, and don’t forget, Ark. We’re meeting up for drinks at The Clover next week. Bring Kieran if you want. It’ll be fun,” Laurel called over her shoulder, just before she left.

“Friday, right?”

“Yes ma’am. I think the band that Hanna was talking about starts some time after eight.”

“I’ll be there,” I promised.

“Pfft. You don’t have a choice,” Sienna said with a wink, heading off in the opposite direction.

Walking home, I caught myself smiling, feeling sentimental.

Before I came to Sophrosyne, I had never had friends like this. I loved the village, and I missed them all dearly—Hattie, Willem, gods, I even missed Thistle sometimes—that old daemonic chicken. But save one single soul in the Brindlewoods, nobody else had ever seen the real me. Not truly. And I owed everything to Amaretta, but even my mentor hadn’t quite seen past certain facades I had built in an effort to please her.

Here, in the City of the Gods, I finally felt like I could be myself. I had nothing to prove, nobody who knew the awkward little girl from the forest. I had a handful of dear friends, maybe not much to anyone else in this sea of a thousand souls—but they were everything to me, because they saw me. They loved me. And I loved them so.

I had already been laying down roots. Slowly, but surely, I felt the leaves of my heart unfurl.

This whole thing had been a shot in the dark, my journey to the Arcane Studium—a blind leap of faith into the unknown. All I had hoped for was to survive it. It had been almost a year now.

We did it, Ark.

I hadn’t just survived. I was thriving here.

Sophrosyne had become my home.