Chapter 60 THE MORNING BEFORE

Chapter 60 THE MORNING BEFORE

"She knows me well for someone I've known less than two weeks," Aria said.

"She knows people," Sable said simply. "That's her thing." She stepped inside and set a small wrapped bundle on the table. "Eat before anything else happens. Both of you. Mara sent it from the morning fire."

"Mara is feeding us during a battle preparation?" Aria said.

"Mara feeds everyone during everything," Sable said. "It's how she handles things. Don't question it just eat it." She looked at Elara. "The ward — is it ready?"

"Yes," Elara said.

"The southern face specifically?" Sable pressed. "A wolf mentioned it twice in the briefing last night."

"Tell the wolf the southern face is holding," Elara said. "I walked it less than two hours ago. It will hold."

"He'll be glad to hear that," Sable said. She looked at Aria again with the careful measuring look she used when she was checking something she didn't want to ask about directly. "How are they?"

"Still," Aria said. "Both of them. Which either means they're fine or they know something I don't."

"Probably both," Sable said.

"That's incredibly reassuring," Aria said.

"I thought so," Sable said. She moved toward the door then stopped with her hand on it. "He asked about you."

Aria looked at her.

"This morning," Sable said. "When I passed the eastern shelter. He didn't ask to see you. Didn't ask me to carry any message." She held up a hand before Aria could speak. "He just asked if you were alright. I told him yes." She paused. "I'm telling you because you should know. Not for any other reason."

Aria was quiet for a moment. "Thank you," she said quietly.

Sable nodded once. "Eat something," she said. "Both of you." She looked between them one last time. "Whatever happens today — you are not alone in this camp. Every wolf out there knows why they're fighting." A pause. "Including him."

She walked out.

The shelter was quiet.

Aria looked at the wrapped bundle on the table for a moment. Then at Elara. "He asked," she said.

"I heard," Elara said.

"He didn't ask to see me," Aria said. "He just asked if I was alright."

"I heard that too," Elara said. She rose from her cot and moved to the table and unwrapped the bundle — bread and dried meat and something that smelled like it had been cooked over a proper fire. She handed Aria a portion without comment.

Aria took it and looked at it in her hands without eating it immediately. "Is that better or worse?" she said. "Him just asking if I was alright. Not asking to see me. Not sending a message." She paused. "Is that him respecting what Vaska said or is that him not—" She stopped.

"Does it matter right now?" Elara asked.

Aria looked at her.

"Today is not the day for that question," Elara said gently. "Today has enough in it already without adding that."

Aria looked at the bread in her hands. "You're right," she said.

"I usually am," Elara said. "Eat."

Aria ate.

They sat together in the quiet shelter with the sounds of the camp shifting into its final battle preparation outside — footsteps moving with purpose, quiet voices confirming positions, the specific controlled energy of people who had been told what to do and were doing it. Aria finished the bread and started on the dried meat and stared at the fire and tried to keep her thoughts inside the shelter rather than letting them follow the bond north to the eastern shelters.

It was harder than it should have been.

"Elara," she said after a while.

"Hm."

"When this is over," Aria said. "When whatever is coming has been dealt with and the twins are here and things are—" She stopped. "Are we ever going to have a normal day? Just one. A day where nothing is hunting us and nobody needs anything and I can just exist without it costing something."

Elara looked at her. "Yes," she said. "I believe you will."

"You believe," Aria said. "Not you know."

"Belief is what I have right now," Elara said. "It's more than nothing."

"Not by much," Aria said.

"More than you think," Elara said. She looked at the fire. "When I was your age I didn't believe I would survive the decade. Every year I did felt like something I had stolen rather than earned." She paused. "Eventually the stealing becomes earning. It just takes longer than you want it to."

Aria looked at her. "How long did it take you?"

"Too long," Elara said. "But it happened." She met Aria's eyes steadily. "It will happen for you too. I am more certain of that than almost anything else I know."

Aria held her gaze for a moment. Then she looked at the fire again. "I want them to have a normal day too," she said quietly. "Liora and Veyr. I want them to have a day where nothing is hunting them and nobody needs anything from them and they can just—" She pressed her palm flat against her stomach. "Be little wolves. Just be little wolves without any of this attached to them."

Elara was quiet for a long moment.

"That," she said finally, "is exactly the right thing to want for them." She put her hand briefly over Aria's where it rested on her stomach. "And it is exactly the kind of thing worth surviving everything else to give them."

Aria looked at Elara's hand over hers.

Then she nodded once and looked back at the fire and said nothing more.

They sat like that for a while — Elara's hand over Aria's, the fire burning low between them, the camp outside settling into its final shape before everything changed.

Then from the south — one long clear note from the watch horn.

They both looked at the window.

"They're coming," Aria said quietly.

"Yes," Elara said. She removed her hand slowly and picked up her staff and rose from her cot. She looked at Aria directly. "You stay inside this shelter. Whatever you hear. Whatever you feel through the bond. Whatever your instincts tell you to do." She held her gaze. "You stay inside."

"I know," Aria said.

"Promise me," Elara said.

"I promise," Aria said.

Elara looked at her for one more moment. Then she moved toward the door.

"Elara," Aria said.

She stopped.

"Come back," Aria said. Simply and quietly.

Elara turned and looked at her. Something in her expression moved — brief and unguarded and completely real.

"I intend to," she said.

She walked out.

The door closed.

Aria sat alone in the shelter and listened to the sounds outside change and pressed her hands flat against her stomach and told herself to breathe.

She was scared.

The bond blazed suddenly to the east — Kael's wolf hitting something at full force.

She breathed through it.

The twins pressed back against her palms. Both of them. Steady and certain.

She breathed through that too.

Outside the battle had begun.