Inheritance.

Inheritance.
Sage
The storm’s been threatening to split the sky all day. You can feel it in the air — that sharp, electric heaviness that makes the hairs on your arms rise and the sky taste like metal. The recruits always move faster when there’s weather coming, like the air itself is warning them to finish what they’ve started. Connor’s out by the training field, sleeves rolled, hammer in hand, tightening the bolts on the sparring posts. I’m sitting on the steps of the armoury, sharpening a knife I haven’t needed in years. It’s a habit more than a necessity; the weight of it feels right in my hands. Some things you never unlearn. From here, I can see most of the compound. The cabins, the hall, the little patches of vegetable gardens that Ma insisted we build for the “domestic touch.” The recruits move through the yard in pairs, sparring, laughing, dripping with sweat and the sprinkle of rain that’s started to fall. It’s not the army I grew up in. There’s no fear here, no screaming, no pain-for-pain’s-sake. There’s structure, sure, but it’s built on something more substantial — belief. Connor calls out something to one of the younger men, his voice low but firm, and they grin instead of flinching. That still surprises me sometimes, that he can command without fear now. That I can teach without cruelty. I never thought peace would look like this.
He spots me watching and shakes his head with a grin. “You going to help or just sit there looking dangerous?”
I twirl the knife between my fingers, smiling. “Why ruin a good thing?”
“Suit yourself,” he calls back. “But when it pours, don’t think I’m coming to rescue you.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I lie.
He finishes with the bolts and looks up at the clouds, dark and swollen, the first roll of thunder humming through the air. He gives me that grin, the one that says he’s about to do something stupid and starts toward me.
“What are you—” I start, but he’s already got me.
Strong arms scoop me clean off the step, and before I can protest, he’s running straight into the rain. The sky opens, drenching us instantly. I yelp, half laughing, half cursing, my knife clattering harmlessly into the mud.
“Connor!” I shriek, shoving at his shoulder, but he just spins me once, water flying off us both in a glittering arc.
He laughs, deep and unguarded, and I can’t help it, I laugh too. The rain is cold, the ground slick, and his shirt sticks to him like a second skin, dark hair plastered to his forehead. He looks younger like this. Wilder. A lot like the man I first fell in love with.
He sets me down at last, my boots sinking an inch into the mud. “You’re insane,” I breathe, pushing my wet hair from my face.
“Probably,” he says, smiling in that way that ruins me every time. “But you’re laughing.”
He reaches up, brushes a raindrop from my cheek, then kisses me hard enough to steal the air from my lungs. The world blurs to just thunder, rain, and him.
When we finally pull apart, I’m grinning like an idiot. “You’ll be tracking mud into the armoury after this.”
He shrugs. “Worth it, when it means I get to kiss my girl in the rain like those sappy love movies you secretly like.”
We sprint together toward the overhang, laughing the whole way. The sky cracks open again behind us as we take shelter under the eaves, both soaked and breathless.

The clouds roll in thick and fast, turning the sky into a beautiful, furious bruise. Most of the trainees have retreated into the hall. Only a few linger outside now, the stubborn ones. The ones like me who can’t sit still, who need a little bit of fear to get them moving.
I sheath the blade, stand, stretch. “Looks like rain,” I say, stepping under the overhang beside Connor.
He wipes his brow with the back of his arm. “Looks like home.”
Thunder rumbles, deep and distant. The sound sends a memory crawling down my spine, the echo of another storm, another night, years ago, when we were still fighting ghosts instead of raising them.
“You ever wonder,” I ask softly, “if peace is just the pause between storms?”
Connor leans against the post beside me, the lines around his mouth deepening as he watches the rain. “It’s the breath you take before the next fight.”
The rain comes harder now, drumming against the tin roof. For a moment, we just stand there in the quiet of it, two soldiers too used to chaos to trust the calm completely.
Then he reaches for me, fingers brushing my wrist before settling against my jaw. “We did good,” he murmurs.
I nod, throat tight. “We did.”
He kisses me again, and it’s not fire this time, not playful, it’s full of warmth, love, and understanding. The kind of kiss that anchors you when the world shifts. When we part, I see the faint glow through the rain, a light still on in Diego’s cabin.
Connor follows my gaze. “He’s busy in there lately, isn’t he?”
“Always.”
We both watch for a moment, his silhouette moving behind the curtain, steady, focused.
“He’s planning something,” I murmur.
Connor exhales a quiet laugh. “Then he’s definitely ours.”
Lightning flashes, painting the world in white for half a heartbeat. In the glass of the armoury window, I catch our reflection, my face overlaid with his, both lit by the same bolt of light. The lightning crackles once more, and it pulls me back to the present. Whatever we will be, will be. If Diego wants to create a little chaos, then so be it. I'll support him every step of the way and ensure he's handling it correctly. Conner takes my hand and kisses the back of it. I know he'll support him, too. Both of us will love him, whether it's good, bad, or crazy, that he chooses to be.
Some inherit peace.
Others inherit the fight.
And my boy?
He was born for both.