Dawn arrived softly. The camp stirred, the clamor of soldiers rising from their bedrolls, their armor clanking, voices spilling into the morning air. But within their tent, for now, there was quiet.
Alessia slept, her breathing steady, her fever chased away into memory. Dionys remained at her back, stoic as ever—though his fingers absently traced idle patterns on the edge of her borrowed tunic—something he’d deny if called on it.
Stella, still curled against her mother’s side, blinked awake in increments—stretching like a cat before nuzzling back into the warmth.
And Odrian…
Odrian watched them all from his perch near the tent flap. His usual smirk was absent, replaced by something quieter, something almost content.
He doesn’t say that this—this strange, fragile peace—feels like something worth fighting for. He doesn’t need to.
The war is still outside.
Nomaros’ shadow still lingers.
Walus’ threat still looms over Alessia and Stella.
But for these few stolen moments, they were safe. They were whole.
And they were his.
─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─
Alessia woke when she heard Stella stir, the little girl stretching only to cuddle closer to her side. She rubs her daughter’s back absently, checking to see if she’s feverish.
Then she blinks, remembering the last few moments before she had fallen asleep again—calling Dionys a pillow, him pretending to hate it, Odrian being dramatic.
She glanced up and—oh.
Dionys was still there behind her, arms looped loosely in a way that suggested he didn’t move an inch while she slept. His expression was as unreadable as ever, but there was something almost…protective in the way he hadn’t let her slump.
Which would have been sweet if she hadn’t also realized that she’d been drooling on his arm.
She swallowed, wiping her mouth as subtly as possible.
“You’re…you’re still here…?” she asked with a sheepish grin. “I figured you would have gotten sick of me drooling on you.”
Dionys doesn’t even glance at his damp sleeve. Doesn’t flinch. Just arches one brow—slow and unimpressed—like her drool is the least offensive bodily fluid he’s endured today.
“You weigh less than my spear,” he muttered, deadpan. “Wasn’t worth the effort of moving.”
Odrian, lurking near the tent flap, nearly chokes on the lie.
Dionys shifted just enough to roll his shoulder—subtly testing the stiffness of a limb that had been immobilized for hours, before adding, gruffly, “Also, you would’ve whined.”
Another lie, worse than the first. Alessia knows she was dead asleep. And the way his fingers briefly tighten at her hip, just once, betrays him entirely.
Alessia blinked at him, momentarily speechless. Then, with a slow, knowing smirk, she leaned her head back against his shoulder, testing him.
“Oh, so that’s why,” she said, her voice dripping with exaggerated understanding. “Because I would’ve whined. Not because you, y’know, care or anything.”
She added a theatrical sigh, like she had just uncovered a great mystery of the universe—The Enigma of Dionys’ Feigned Indifference.
His jaw clenched just slightly, a tell. His usual stoicism wavered for a split second before slamming back into place like a shield wall.
“Obviously,” he grunted. It was painfully unconvincing.
Odrian—still pretending to not be eavesdropping—failed to stifle a snort.
“Oh, naturally,” he chimed in. “Our beloved Dionys is famous for his selflessness. Why, just yesterday, I saw him personally carrying three wounded soldiers and a stray puppy back to camp—purely out of disinterest.”
His eyes gleamed with mischief as he leaned in, whispering conspiratorially to Alessia, “Rumor has it he even smiled once. A terrible tragedy. The physicians are still studying the phenomenon.”
Dionys leveled them both with a glare that could curdle milk.
“You,” he growled at Odrian, “are unbearable.” Then to Alessia, his voice dropping into something perilously close to a warning, “And you are incredibly heavy.”
His arms, still looped securely around her, begged to differ.
“Ah, the truth comes out,” Alessia said as she glanced down at herself—gaunt, skeletal, seven whole stone soaking wet if she was lucky. “You’re trapped beneath my impressive weight.”
Dionys’ nostrils flared—just slightly—as his glare intensified.
“Crushed.” The word was flat, completely deadpan. “Might never recover.”
And yet his grip didn’t loosen, not even a little.
Odrian gasped—pointing dramatically at Dionys’ biceps, which were, in fact, fully capable of bench-pressing a small chariot.
“Look at him, Alessia! A prisoner of your devastating bulk! How will history remember this tragic tale?” He clutched his chest, swooning against a tent pole. “The Great Dionys, Felled at Last by a Woman’s Crushing Feather-Lightness!”
He kicked lazily at Dionys’ foot. “You poor, powerless man.”
Dionys exhaled through his nose, long-suffering, but didn’t dignify Odrian’s theatrics with a response. Instead, he glanced down at Alessia.
“… Are you done?”
His tone suggested she had better be. His grip—loose enough to let her shift away if she wanted—suggested otherwise.
“Never,” Alessia said with a grin. “But I’ll grant you a reprieve for now.”
Dionys made a show of grumbling—rolling his shoulders like he was finally free of a substantial burden—but his hands lingered just a second too long as he helped ease her upright.
Odrian let out a dramatic sigh, throwing his hands into the air. “Finally, some mercy for the weary warrior.”
His smirk softened as he glanced at Alessia, searching for any lingering pain or fever.
He found none, just her: grinning, stubborn, and alive.
“…You scared us,” he admitted quietly.
Alessia observed Odrian for a moment—just long enough to see the fleeting moment of raw concern before he veiled it again, and offered him a soft smile. Not teasing, not sarcastic. Just genuine.
“I was scared too,” she admitted softly. “Thank you for staying with me.”
Odrian’s smile softened slightly more. Then, just as quickly, he clapped his hands together—the morning’s vulnerability already shuttered away.
“Now, who wants breakfast?”
Stella was awake in an instant, her hand shooting up like an eager recruit’s.
“Only if it’s better than camp rations,” Alessia said. “I was stabbed, after all. I deserve something nice.”
She tightened her arms around Stella as the little girl wiggled excitedly at the mention of food.
“Only the finest for our resident knife magnet,” he teased—already halfway to the tent flap before pausing. “And…you’re welcome.”
Simple words, but the way his fingers twitched at his side—like he wanted to reach out but didn’t quite dare—said more than enough.
“Fresh bread, salted fish, even olives,” he paused, “…if you promise not to stab me over them.”
“I’ll stab you if you don’t give them to me,” Alessia said with a grin that was only a little feral.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had olives. It had been years.
Odrian threw his head back and laughed—bright and startled—as if her feral little oath was the most delightful thing he had heard all week.
“Noted,” he wheezed, clutching his chest for dramatic effect. Then, with a theatrical bow, he ducked out of the tent. “Your olives, Your Highness, or my life.”
He doesn’t quite escape the tent before Alessia catches the way his grin lingered—soft at the edges, like sunlight through storm clouds.
His voice floated back in, slightly muffled.
“Dionys, restrain your bloodthirsty paramour before she redecorates my tent with my internal organs—”
Alessia choked on the water she was drinking, feeling the tips of her ears burn pink. She wasn’t unhappy with the description…just surprised.
Dionys, who had been resolutely ignoring the entire exchange while checking Stella’s rock collection for contraband (more likable stones), went preternaturally still at Odrian’s words. He turned to stare at the tent flap, slowly, as though contemplating whether to strangle the king with it.
“…Paramour,” he repeated, voice flat as a dull blade.
Then, with a pointed glare at Alessia like she had personally orchestrated his humiliation, he grabbed the nearest object and chucked it at Odrian’s retreating back.
The linen bandages fell pathetically short—a tragic end to his rebellion.
Alessia’s laughter burst out before she could stop it, only slightly pained as her stitches protested the movement. She pressed a hand to her side but kept laughing—partly at Dionys’ outrage, and partly at the sad little arc of his projectile.
“Truly,” she gasped, wiping her eyes. “A devastating display of force. I tremble at your might.”
Stella, sensing the shift in mood, giggled and flopped back against Alessia’s uninjured side—watching Dionys with wide, delighted eyes, clearly waiting to see if he would actually murder Odrian.
Then came the true danger: Alessia tilted her head, mischief glinting in her eyes as she pitched her voice to carry.
“You know, paramour is a very generous term for someone who just called me a drooling burden.”
His look at her was nothing short of withering.
“You were drooling,” he said. “On my sword arm.”
Then, just as she was opening her mouth to retort, he leaned in, close enough that his breath stirred the hair at her temple as he dropped his voice to a whisper.
“And if you want to be my paramour, say it plainly. I won’t play word games with kings…or thieves.”
And with that tossed neatly into her lap, he straightened—satisfied—and fished a honey cake from his belt pouch. Wordlessly, he broke it in half, handing one piece to Stella and hovering the other near Alessia’s mouth like a man attempting to bribe a feral cat.
Alessia glared at him, but there was no heat in it, and her bright blush belied her actual feelings. She snapped at the honey cake, trying to cover her embarrassment with humor.
Dionys’ smirk is vicious as he lets her take the honey cake—purposefully lingering just close enough that their fingers brush. “That’s what I thought,” he murmured, voice low and smug.
Stella—mouth full of her own honey cake—watched them with wide, fascinated eyes.
“Oooooooh,” she whispered to Dottie.
She had no idea what was happening.
Odrian chose that moment to reappear—arms laden with a small, cloth-wrapped bundle that smelled suspiciously like stolen luxury.
Alessia, cheeks still burning, was too busy pretending the honey cake required her full attention to notice Odrian’s return immediately.
Stella, however, whispered loudly, “Uncle Ody! Uncle Dio’s got butterflies!”
Alessia chokes on the honey cake.
Violently.
“Stell,” she wheezed between coughs as she tried not to asphyxiate in front of them all. “What—”
Dionys, who had very much heard Odrian walk in and had been enjoying Alessia’s fluster a little too much, suddenly went rigid. Then, agonizingly slowly, he turned his head to meet his best friend’s gaze.
Odrian, standing frozen in the tent flap, stared at Dionys with an expression of pure, unmitigated delight. His mouth twitched twice before he finally burst into laughter loud enough to startle birds from the trees outside.
“Dionys,” he managed between wheezes. “Uncle Dio with butterflies.” Another peal of laughter. “By all the gods, this is the best day of my life.”
Then, just to ensure maximum chaos, he tossed the bundle of food onto the nearest cot and folded himself onto the ground, bracing his chin on his hands with all the eagerness of a child waiting for story time.
“Please,” he said with a grin like a fox in a henhouse, “do continue.”
Dionys’ glare could melt stone. “No.”
He yanked Odrian up by his collar and shoved him toward Alessia. “Feed your damn paramour before she coughs up a lung,” He paused and looked away. “Not that I care.”
“Oh, I see how it is,” Odrian sing-songs—already unwrapping his bundle to reveal actual, honest-to-gods olives alongside the promised bread and fish. He popped one into his mouth with a smirk. “Too flustered to do it yourself, Dio?”
Then, mercifully, he tossed a few olives Alessia’s way before Dionys could actually commit regicide.
Stella, sensing the tension and deeply curious, tugged on Dionys’ sleeve.
“What’s ‘paramour’ mean?” she whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Alessia, still recovering from her honey cake-induced near-death experience, flailed a hand toward Stella in a desperate abort mission motion.
Dionys, with the long-suffering air of a man who had lost all control of his life, picked Stella up by the back of her tunic like a misbehaving kitten and dropped her onto Odrian’s lap.
“Ask him,” he growled. “He’s the one with opinions.”
Odrian, trapped beneath a wiggling, interrogative five-year-old, had the nerve to look delighted by this turn of events. “Why, tiny terror! A paramour is—”
“—Odrian.” Dionys’ voice was lethally calm.
Odrian smirked but pivoted. “—someone very important,” he explained to Stella, tone conspiratorial. “Like…a royal pain in my ass.”
His grin turned downright wicked as he glanced between Alessia and Dionys. “Usually, you only get one. Your mother’s special.”
Alessia buried her face in her hands, torn between hysterical laughter and the urge to throw a bread roll at someone. Anyone.
But most likely Odrian.
“Oh gods,” she groaned, her voice muffled mainly by her palms. She peeked between her fingers at Dionys, eyes sparkling despite her horror. “You—you started this. You realize that, right?”
She didn’t mention the flutter in her chest at the idea—the sheer warmth of being claimed so boldly, so publicly. Even as a joke. Even as chaos.
Some things were too fragile to name.
Stella, oblivious to the emotional carnage she was wreaking, stared at Odrian with a curiosity that promised future interrogations.
Alessia reached blindly for the olives—if she was going to perish from sheer mortification, she was at least doing it on a full stomach.
Odrian took one look at her despair and tossed her the entire pouch, eyes alight with the kind of mischief that suggested he was just getting started. Then he leaned in to Stella with exaggerated gravity. “Now, Stellaki. Tell me—how exactly did you diagnose Uncle Dio with ‘butterflies’?”
“He flutters!” she announced, as if this were obvious. “An’-an’ his face does the…the thing.” She squinted up at Dionys, tiny fingers mimicking an explosion. “Boom. Red.”
Dionys walked out of the tent very calmly.
He would return, but not before committing several inevitable war crimes in the training yard.
Odrian watched him leave with unholy glee. “Oh, this is beautiful,” he whispered before turning back to Alessia and Stella with the expression of a man who had won the greatest of prizes.
“So…Paramour lessons after lunch?”
Alessia flung an olive at his smug face in an act of swift justice.
It bounced off his nose.
Stella clapped.
The next one Alessia throws, Odrian caught in his teeth, grinning around it like the bastard he was.
“Fine, fine,” he relented. “But only because you’re still bleeding onto my good bandages.”
─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─
Dionys does, in fact, return—shirt streaked with sweat, knuckles bloodied, expression tranquil in a way that could only mean someone (or several someones) in the training yard deeply regretted their life choices.
“Olives?” he asked, gruff and expectant, as if the morning’s madness never happened.
(It did, they all knew it, but this was peace.)
Alessia chuckled and offered him some.
“Saved ‘em for you.”
Dionys took one, slow and deliberate, before flicking it back at her.
“Liar.”
He knew Odrian had handed her the whole pouch, but the fact that she tried to save him some was … something.
“Eat the rest, thief,” he said with a nod toward the leftovers. “You’re still alarmingly hollow.”
It was said like an insult.
It was meant like care.
Odrian, cradling a drowsy Stella, watched the exchange with deep satisfaction before mouthing at Alessia, “Butterflies.”
Dionys crunched an olive with his teeth while staring directly into Odrian’s soul.
Stella snored through the entire silent showdown.
Alessia huffed a laugh before popping an olive into her mouth with a grin. The salt burst on her tongue—good salt, the kind she hadn’t tasted in years.
She caught Odrian’s ‘butterflies’ mime and replied with an equally exaggerated eye roll.
She turned back to Dionys with a smile, nudging the olives toward him in a silent offer.
“…Stop being stubborn and eat,” she murmured. “You also look hollow.”
She was deflecting. He didn’t look hollow. But the words tasted sweeter than honey cake.
Dionys stared at her, hard, for a solid three seconds before he exhaled sharply through his nose and grabbed a handful.
“Fine.”
He eats them slower than usual—savoring each one like it were something rare and precious.
Odrian said nothing, just leaned back against the tent pole with a smirk that screamed I win.
Dionys exhaled—something perilously close to a laugh. For a long moment, he just sat there, the shared silence comfortable in a way that defied the chaos of earlier.
He glanced at Alessia from the corner of his eye.
“…You’re staying, right?”
Three words, a question masquerading as an order.
A plea wrapped in bronze.
Alessia went very still.
She hadn’t let herself think about it—about the possibility of staying, not just surviving. Not just taking shelter and moving on.
Her first instinct was to deflect, to laugh it off—but she looked at Stella, curled in Odrian’s arms, at the olives in Dionys’ rough, calloused hands, at the tent that smelled of herbs and safety…
The lie wouldn’t come.
“I want to,” she admitted. “Stella is happy here.”
Which was far from the only reason she wanted to stay, but was the easiest to talk about.
Dionys’ thumb brushed over her knuckles—quick, barely there—before he nodded. “Good.”
No grand speeches, no poetic declarations.
Just … good.
It’s enough.
“…And the olives had nothing to do with it,” he teased.
“Mmm,” Alessia hummed as she ate another one, “No comment.”
Odrian, who had absolutely been eavesdropping, piped up from the other side of the tent.
“Liar.”
The smirk in his voice was audible.
Dionys pinched the bridge of his nose—the long-suffering martyrdom of a man surrounded by children.
“I regret everything.”
Odrian snorted, low and amused, before stealing an olive for himself.
Alessia just grinned, unrepentant, before she stole another olive from the pouch herself.
She nudged her shoulder against Dionys’ as she did.
He didn’t pull away. Didn’t even glare. Just exhaled—half exasperation, half something softer—and nudged her back.
Later, there would be strategy to discuss—threats to address.
Ten days to survive.
But for now, there were olives and quiet and the warmth of stolen kinship.
Odrian said nothing.
He’d tease later.
He was too busy watching them—Alessia’s tired but real smile, Dionys’ quiet contentment, and Stella’s peaceful weight against his chest—and thinking, with startling clarity.
This was worth keeping.
─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─
The raven reached the villa as the sun kissed the horizon.
Walus, the Butcher of Ellun, unrolled the scrap of parchment with hands still flecked with blood. His lips peeled back from his teeth as he read the terse message.
She’s still alive.
His fist slammed down onto the war table, scattering markers. Across the room, his lieutenants froze.“Find my wife,” he growled—soft, almost giddy with fury. “Before the Aureans remember what she’s worth.”
Tiny Raven 
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