Tiny Raven

Alessia was going to set the tent on fire if Askarion didn’t let her up soon. She had been in bed for days, with her ankle a throbbing mess of stitches and poultices.

She was losing what was left of her godsdamned mind.

Stella had taken to her role as “warden” with terrifying enthusiasm, threatening to tattle to Patrian whenever Alessia so much as thought about standing.

So when the tent flap rustled open, she nearly threw a wooden cup at whoever dared disturb her imprisonment—

—only to freeze as Dionys ducked inside, his expression as unreadable as ever.

He took one look at her murderous expression and snorted—unfazed—before tossing a wrapped bundle into her lap.

“Still alive?”

“Unfortunately.” Alessia’s groan was only a little exaggerated. “I’m going insane.”

Dionys rolled his eyes fondly and nudged the bundle toward her. “You’ll live.”

It wasn’t a statement, but a command.

“Open it.” His fingers lingered on the fabric bundle a moment too long.

Alessia rolled her eyes but obliged—only to freeze when the linen wrapping fell away to reveal a dagger. Her breath caught.

It was perfect. Balanced for her grip, the fuller etched with curling waves that shimmered in the lamplight. Waves that matched those carved into the old comb in her satchel.

It was a weapon meant for her.

Her fingers hovered over the blade before she dared touch it. The waves glinted in the firelight, almost alive as she traced them with a reverent fingertip.

“…You made this,” she said. It wasn’t a question—the work was unmistakably his, brutal in its efficiency, elegant in its purpose. “For me.”

Her voice cracked on the word.

She had never owned anything so fine.

Dionys huffed and crossed his arms, not meeting her gaze.

“Wave pattern’s Otharan. Handle’s Karethi.”

He turned back toward her, his gaze steady and assessing as she traced the blade.

“Took three tries,” he grunted, as if admitting he’d botched it twice was a confession.

With a flick of his wrist, he turned the hilt toward her, revealing a hidden detail beneath the leather.

Two tiny engravings—a boar and an owl—nestled side by side near the pommel.

“They fit.”

Then a skein of yarn tumbled out—dark as Stella’s wild curls, threaded through with gold like Alessia’s own sun-bleached strands—and something in her chest tightened.

“Found it in a merchant’s cache near the Ashurak ford,” he muttered. “Too fine for patching gambesons. Waste to use it on anything else.”

A lie. The colors were too deliberate, too matched to a little girl’s unruly curls and her mother’s stubborn streaks.

Alessia choked on something between a laugh and a sob, clutching the dagger to her chest as her other hand fisted the yarn.

She should tease him, call him sentimental, say anything. But the words stuck in her throat, heavy with something too big to name.

So instead she reached out and hooked her fingers into his belt, tugging him toward her until he had to brace a hand on the bedroll beside her. She leaned up—just enough—to press her forehead to his.

“Thank you.”

Her voice shook. Her fingers trembled where they clung to him.

Dionys went still—a man handed something fragile with no idea what to do with it. For three heartbeats, he didn’t move, his hands frozen where they braced against the bedroll.

Then—slowly, carefully—his fingers came up to cup the back of her head. Not gentle. Grounding. His thumb brushed the nape of her neck, calloused and warm, and he pressed his forehead more firmly against hers until their breaths mingled.

“Hn,” he muttered before his other hand found hers where it clutched his belt. He squeezed once, sharp and fierce, his knuckles brushing the dagger pressed between them.

Don’t thank me, the gesture said. Just take it.

─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─

Odrian chose that exact moment to burst through the tent flap with all the subtlety of a shipwreck.

“Did someone order more sentiment?” he bellowed, his arms laden with a wooden box and a scroll pack that looked suspiciously like actual diplomatic treaties.

He stopped dead at the sight of them—Alessia clutching the dagger like a lifeline, Dionys’s hand fisted in her hair, their foreheads pressed together in a moment so intimate it felt obscene to witness.

For three heartbeats, Odrian just stared.

Then he dropped to his knees beside the bedroll with a dramatic flourish, shoving the wooden box into Alessia’s lap hard enough to make her yelp.

“You stole everything else,” he muttered, his voice cracking.

Alessia opened the box to find two olive wood beads, small enough to fit in Stella’s palm. One carved into a boar—the sigil of Kareth. The other an owl for Othara. He pressed them into her hands, his fingers closing over hers with a grip that trembled.

“Our homes are yours,” he rasped, low enough that only she and Dionys could hear. “Stella gets a room with an actual bed and walls that don’t leak. You—” his thumb brushed her knuckles, once, “—get to stop running.”

He jerked his chin at the scroll packet.

“And this is for story time. So she can always have Little Star.” He swallowed hard past the lump in his throat. “So you’ll stay.”

He leaned in and stole a kiss—quick and bruising—before yanking back and fleeing the tent like a man running from his own heart.

Alessia sat frozen, with Odrian’s kiss still burning on her lips and the two beads digging into her palm like tiny, carved promises.

Her chest felt too tight, her throat too small.

She looked at Dionys, still kneeling beside the bedroll, his hand still fisted in the blankets where he’d braced himself. His expression was carefully blank, but his eyes were fixed on her with an intensity that made her breath catch.

“Did he—” her voice cracked. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Did he just run away from his own feelings?”

Dionys snorted as his fingers uncurled from the bedroll to reach for the beads still clutched in her palm.

“Always,” he muttered as his thumb traced the carved owl with a gentleness that belied his gruffness. “He’s never been able to face his heart without a running start.”

He tucked the beads back into her hand more securely, his knuckles brushing hers before his gaze lifted to meet her eyes, sharp and unwavering.

“…But he means it.”

A pause as his other hand found the dagger, sheathing it for her with a quiet click.

“We mean it.”

Then, because he couldn’t leave it there, he leaned in until their foreheads rested together, his voice dropping to a rough murmur meant only for her.

“…Do you?”

─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─

Odrian didn’t make it ten paces from the tent before his legs gave out. He dropped to his knees in the sand, chest heaving as if he’d just run the length of the Theran peninsula, his heart a wild, reckless thing battering against his ribs.

Idiot, he thought as he pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. Absolute theatrical hopeless idiot.

He could still feel the press of her knuckles beneath his fingers, the way she’d gone utterly still when he’d pressed the beads into her palm. Could still taste the salt on his lips from where he’d kissed her—stolen, really, because he’d been too much of a coward to stay and earn it.

But then his hands fell away, and he was grinning like a madman.

He’d given her everything. Home. Safety. A place for Stella to be a child instead of a survivor. He’d handed her the keys to his kingdom and run before she could hand them back.

And he didn’t regret a damn thing.

From inside the tent, he could hear Dionys’s low rumble, the gruff question hanging in the air—“…Do you?”—and Odrian held his breath, waiting for her answer like a man waiting for his verdict.

He dragged himself to his feet, dusting sand from his knees, and pressed his back against the tent’s outer wall. 

Close enough to hear.

Close enough to feel the warmth of the fire leaking through the canvas.

Close enough that if—when—she answered, he’d know.

He stayed there, listening, grinning like a fool, and waited for his world to either end or begin.

─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─

“I mean it,” Alessia said, her voice as soft as Dionys’s had been. “Always.”

Dionys didn’t say a word. He just growled—low and feral—and hauled her into his lap, crushing their mouths together in a kiss that tasted like vows and victory.

Outside the tent, Odrian pressed his back against the canvas, breath hitching as the world tilted.

Always.

The word—her word—hung in the air like a spell, and he felt it hit his chest with the force of a stone from a sling.

Then came the soft, unmistakable sound of a kiss, and something in him unraveled.

He’d spent years building walls high enough to keep out grief, regret, the ghost of what he’d nearly had with Dionys—to keep out the ache of a son he’d left behind and a kingdom that needed more than he had to give. He’d learned to live in the spaces between want and duty, to make a fortress out of a smile.

But this—this—was a siege he’d never seen coming. A thief with the laugh of a child and the stubbornness of a king who had just handed him everything he’d given up on. And she’d meant it.

Odrian exhaled a shaky laugh into the darkness. He was certain his heart had been stitched back together with olive wood and stolen kisses.

He pushed off the tent wall and walked back in—through the flap, into the firelight.

Into them.

His gaze found Alessia first, still in Dionys’s lap, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright with unshed tears. Then Dionys, holding onto her like she was the last solid thing in a world made of smoke.

Odrian’s grin was lopsided, obscene in its relief.

“Well,” he announced, “I knew I was the better thief.”

He sauntered closer, his steps deliberately casual, and dropped to his knees beside the bedroll.

“See, I—” he gestured vaguely at himself, “—stole you—” he pointed at Dionys, “—and you—” he grinned at Alessia, “—and now you’re all mine.”

A pause. His voice dropped, all his bravado bleeding into raw, honest truth.

“Permanently.”

He leaned in and kissed her—quick and fierce—stealing the taste of always from her lips before pulling back just far enough to press his forehead to hers.

“Don’t run,” he whispered, the words both a plea and a promise. “I’m terrifying when I chase.”

And he would, he knew it. He’d chase her to the ends of the earth and back. He would burn kingdoms and crown thieves if that was what it took to keep her.

He just hoped—prayed—he wouldn’t have to.

She was already his. Had been since the moment she’d stolen his rations and called him king without flinching.

Now, he just had to make sure she never regretted it.

─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─

Alessia could taste the word on his lips—permanently—and it hit her like a blade to the ribs, except it wasn’t pain but something else. Something that made her hands shake as she clutched the dagger and the beads and the memory of his forehead pressed to hers.

Words wouldn’t come.

They caught in her throat like a dam she’d spent years building, finally cracking under pressure.

Don’t run, he’d whispered, and the plea in his voice unraveled her completely.

She didn’t know who moved first.

Maybe it was her, surging forward despite the pain in her ankle, despite the tears still drying on her cheeks.

Maybe it was Odrian, catching her before she could fall.

Maybe it was Dionys, his arm banding around her waist from behind.

She knew only that they had caught her between them.

Pinned but not trapped. Held but not imprisoned.

And when she tilted her head up to meet his eyes, she didn’t see a king or a thief or a man who made terrible decisions about goats.

She saw home.

“You’re an idiot,” she managed, her voice cracking on the last syllable. She fisted her hands in his tunic, in Dionys’s sleeve, anchoring herself to them both. “You can’t just—steal people and then run away—”

Odrian’s grin was sharp and devastating and hers.

“Watch me,” he murmured, and then his lips were on hers again, stealing the rest of her protest along with her breath.

Dionys growled against her neck, something low and approving, and she could feel the vibration of it down to her bones. Ours. The word echoed between them, unspoken but undeniable.

When Odrian finally pulled back, his forehead still pressed to hers, she let herself sag against them both. Let herself believe it, if only for a moment.

“Forever,” she whispered back, the word tasting like an oath and a prayer and a threat all at once. “You’re both stuck with me.”

She pressed a kiss to Dionys’s knuckles, then tugged Odrian down by his hair to steal another from him—quick and fierce—before she let her head drop to Dionys’s shoulder.

He absorbed the weight of her leaning into him, one arm curling around her without thinking, like the motion had been forged into muscle memory long before.

Odrian lingered just a heartbeat longer, a wolfish glint in his grin as he swiped a fingertip over where she’d kissed—like he could brand the warmth there to keep.

Dionys snapped the moment in half with a low warning rumble, already turning toward the tent flap.

Affection was one thing.

Hovering was another.

He growled and shoved Odrian toward the entrance.

“Guard duty,” he ordered, flat and final as he pulled Alessia closer, his arm an iron bar across her waist, anchoring her to his side. “You sleep outside.”

A pause before he grudgingly added, “…You can stay if you stop talking.”

His lips brushed Alessia’s temple in a silent echo of forever before he buried his face in her hair and let the night settle in around them.

Odrian lingered at the tent’s threshold—half in shadow, half kissed by firelight—his back pressed against the canvas like a man trying to hold up the sky. His fingers drummed restlessly against his thigh, a staccato of thoughts he couldn’t quite silence.

Forever.

The word echoed in his chest, a war drum he’d never expected to hear again. Not after Elenai. Not after he’d learned the cost of wanting things that didn’t belong to him.

But then—

He heard Alessia’s laugh, muffled by the tent walls. Dionys’s low gruff rumble in response. The soft thump of bodies settling.

Odrian’s teeth sank into his lower lip hard enough to bruise.

He could leave. He should leave. Let them have this moment without his drama, without the weight of his own desperate need crowding the space.

But his feet wouldn’t move.

He’d spent nearly a decade learning to live without Dionys’s warmth beside him, without the steadying presence of someone who understood his silences and his eccentricities. Without the belonging that had once been his entire world. And now—

Now she was giving it back. Not just to him. To them. A thief who had stolen his rations and his sanity and somehow, impossibly, his heart, and she was offering it back like it was hers to give.

(It was.)

He exhaled shakily, the sound lost to the night wind. His gaze drifted to where Stella had curled up by the fire, her tiny fist clutching Lieutenant Pebblepants as she snored gently, oblivious to the seismic shift her mother had just caused.

Odrian’s lips twitched upward.

That was another thing he hadn’t expected—to find himself uncle to a five-year-old who negotiated better than most diplomats and hoarded rocks like they were drachmae.

He pushed off the canvas and crossed to the fire in a few silent strides, scooping Stella up in one arm. Pebblepants dangled dramatically between them, but Stella didn’t stir—she just head-butted his collarbone in her sleep and drooled on him for emphasis.

He deposited her beside Dionys with unnecessary gentleness, tucking her small body against his side.

Dionys stiffened—startled, affronted, and unbearably soft—then he exhaled once through his nose, relenting as Odrian spread a spare blanket over them.

“Guard duty,” Dionys repeated, and Odrian raised his hands in surrender, settling onto the nearby bedroll without a word.

He stretched out on his back, one arm pillowed behind his head, and stared up at the tent ceiling. The scent of herbs and sweat and them filled the small space, rich and familiar in a way that made his chest ache.

Alessia’s breathing had already evened out—exhaustion claiming her despite the pain. Dionys shifted beside her, his arm still a possessive band across her waist.

His free hand found Odrian’s in the dark.

Their fingers tangled together over Alessia’s sleeping form, knuckles brushing in silent understanding.

He fell asleep to the rhythm of their breathing, and for the first time in years, he didn’t dream of war.

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