The tent was too warm.

  It was stifling enough that sleep refused to settle properly. The air down here didn't move the way it did above ground. It pressed instead of flowed, held instead of dispersed. Heat from the earth gathered and lingered here, trapped by the stone.

  If I knew it was going to be like this, I would have preferred to sleep in the open.

  At least there, you could see what was coming.

  But the tent gave us something essential: privacy. Canvas walls instead of eyes. A thin boundary between us and the padins who had made it clear, in a hundred small ways, that they were watching our every move.

  I y on my back, hands folded over my stomach, listening to the soft rhythm of Lumiere's breathing beside me. She slept on her side, facing away, her mantle folded neatly within arm's reach. Even asleep, she looked composed.

  I envied her that.

  It took everything I had to resist the urge to kick the covers aside.

  Then I heard it.

  Something moving outside the tent.

  It was subtle. A shift in shadow where the light fell unevenly through the fabric.

  My eyes opened fully.

  I stayed still for a moment, listening. Counting breaths. Letting the sounds of the camp sort themselves out. A low murmur. The distant drip of water. The faint creak of leather as someone shifted their weight.

  Close.

  I rolled onto my side and reached for the dagger tucked beneath my bedroll.

  Lumiere stirred, just slightly, at the motion.

  I froze.

  Her breathing evened, slipping back into sleep. Good. I didn't want her awake for this. Whatever it was.

  I slipped out from under the covers and eased to my feet, careful not to brush the canvas. The tent was just tall enough for me to stand in the center without signaling anything to the outside.

  I took a deep breath and pushed aside the fp, stepping out into the dim blue glow of the ruins.

  "Who's there?" I said sharply.

  Rocher straightened from where he had been standing, half a shadow himself against a fallen pilr. He had been facing outward, away from the tent, sword resting point-down against the stone.

  He turned at once. "Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to wake you."

  I let out the breath. "You didn't," I said. "I was already up."

  That earned a small, rueful smile. "That makes two of us."

  I folded my arms, feeling the cooler air brush against my damp skin. Even here, away from the tent, it was warmer than it should have been. The mountain held its heat like a secret.

  "What are you doing out here?" I asked.

  Rocher gnced back toward the camp, then toward the darker reaches of the city beyond the nternlight.

  "Well, since I wasn't sleeping anyway, I figured I might as well keep watch."

  My mouth twitched despite myself. "You know those padins have already assigned themselves to guard duty."

  "Yes," he said. "I noticed I wasn't included."

  "And yet."

  "And yet," he echoed.

  I studied him more closely then. He looked tired. Not exhausted, but worn around the edges. The kind of fatigue that did not come from travel or fighting, but from holding himself too tightly for too long.

  "Is this your usual insomnia," I asked, "or something new?"

  "Both," he admitted. "I don't sleep well most nights. But this..." He gestured vaguely at the stone ceiling far above us. "This is different."

  "How so?" I asked.

  "I think I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment." He gave a short, humorless ugh. "Like I'm one wrong move away from being surrounded."

  My eyebrows lifted.

  "I feel responsible. For both of you." He dropped to one knee and leaned in close, whispering. "There are four of them. Four armed men who answer to the Church first, and only tolerate us second. I have to be ready the second they stop."

  It dawned on me then. If the numbers imbance unsettled me, then that went double for Rocher. To this memory-less version of him, we weren't comrades-in-arms. We were charges he had to protect.

  "Don't worry," I said, flexing one arm with exaggerated bravado. "I can handle myself just fine."

  He chuckled before he could stop himself. "Thanks. That makes me feel much better."

  The sound lingered between us, softer than the stone. For a moment, the tension eased.

  I realized then I was staring.

  Just long enough for the shape of his expression to settle in my mind. The way the lines around his eyes softened when he smiled. The strong line of his jaw, eased now that he was not bracing himself for conflict.

  He was handsome. Distractingly so.

  And close.

  I turned away abruptly, heat rising to my face that had nothing to do with the air down here.

  Rocher cleared his throat.

  "Um," he said. "Can I ask you something?"

  "That depends," I said, grateful for the change.

  "Your names," he said. "Yours and Lumiere's."

  I gnced back at him. "What about them?"

  "De Sol. De Lune," he said. "Those are usually given to orphans. Or children left with the Church." He winced, remembering himself. "I'm sorry. If that's too personal, I'll shut up about it."

  "It's alright," I said. "You're not wrong."

  Children without parents were told they were gifts. From the Goddess herself, sprung from the earth and sky.

  Rocher waited, careful now.

  I leaned back against a stone block, cool against my spine. "Lumiere was raised by the Church. She never knew her parents."

  "And you?" he asked.

  I hesitated.

  "I ran away," I said finally.

  From a vilge that smelled of dried herbs and boiled alcohol. From shelves lined with gss bottles where I could see my reflection hemmed in like a cage.

  "My father was an apothecary," I continued. "Overprotective. Overbearing. Utterly convinced I was a mb in a world full of wolves."

  Rocher smiled faintly. "Maybe that was his way of caring."

  "You could say that," I said, huffing a dry ugh.

  In the game, if the Hero so much as looked at his daughter, the old man would double his prices out of spite. Pyers would stick it to him, reloading the save after they had collected the CG.

  But I couldn't expin any of that.

  "I left before he could decide my whole life for me," I said instead.

  "And that's when you joined your convent?" Rocher asked.

  "That's when I met Lumiere," I said, and then stopped myself.

  Not a lie. Not the whole truth either.

  Rocher nodded slowly. "Do you ever wonder how he's doing?"

  "My father?" I asked.

  "Yes."

  "Sometimes I feel a little guilty," I said. "But it's been so long. At this point, we're both better off if he thinks I'm dead."

  Rocher's expression tightened.

  "I wouldn't leave it like that," he said quietly.

  I looked at him.

  "You know, the st thing I said to my mother before she died was in anger."

  He didn't meet my eyes. His gaze was fixed at some distant point in the ruins.

  "We were arguing," he said. "Over what, I can't even remember." He sighed bitterly. "I was so young then. So stupid. The only thing I cared about was being right."

  His hands curled at his sides.

  "I would give anything," he said, "to go back and tell her that I loved her. Just once."

  I stared at him.

  I knew the story. I knew everything he wasn't saying.

  The poison. The accusation made in grief and fury. The execution ordered to appease a boy with royal blood and no understanding of the gravity of his words.

  Corveaux's mother had died screaming her innocence, and Rocher had lived the rest of his life trying to make it up to his brother. Trying to make himself small.

  He said none of it.

  But it was there, etched into his face like something permanent.

  I stepped forward before I could think and wrapped my arms around him, pulling his head gently against me.

  He stiffened at once, startled. "Cire?"

  "Don't read too much into it," I said softly.

  He hesitated. His breath left him in a slow, shaky exhale, and his hands came up, careful at first, then more certain. He pulled me in tight, burying his face against my shoulder as if anchoring himself there.

  For a moment, the ruins fell away.

  It was just the two of us. The heat. The quiet. The weight of things unspoken.

  When he finally let go, it was with reluctance.

  "Thank you," he said, voice rough.

  We stood there a while longer, watching the shadows at the edge of the camp.

  Eventually, I gnced back toward the tent. "I should get back. Lumiere will get worried if she wakes up and sees me missing."

  Rocher nodded. "You know where to find me if you need me."

  I inclined my head, lingering just a moment before I slipped back inside the tent, easing the fp closed behind me. The air inside felt even warmer now, but somehow I no longer minded it.

  Lumiere stirred as I settled back onto my bedroll.

  "Everything all right?" she murmured, half-asleep.

  "Yes," I said. "Just went out for some air."

  She shifted closer, her hand brushing mine. "Get some rest," she said. "We have a long day ahead of us."

  I y there, eyes closed, willing myself to sleep. One by one, my thoughts left me, until the only things left were the sound of her soft breathing and the distant hum of the city beyond.