Tiny Raven

Dionys didn’t put Alessia down.

He didn’t look at Nomaros. He nodded at Odrian, a single jerk of his chin that said I’ve got her and I’ll kill anyone who follows in the same motion.

She was lighter than she should have been. Lighter than his shield, lighter than his armor, trembling harder than a sapling in a gale. He could feel the wet warmth seeping through the grey chiton against his forearm. Fresh blood, meaning she’d torn Askarion’s stitches, standing there pretending to be made of stone.

Her breath hitched, shallow and fast, against the side of Dionys’s neck. Her fingers remained locked around the silver signet, the edges digging into his shoulder where her hand had gone slack.

He turned his back on the Council.

His boots hit the packed earth outside, pace fast but steady, eating the ground between the command tent and the healers’ quarters. The camp blurred at the edges of his vision, soldiers scattering from his path like he was carrying wildfire. He tucked her closer, his hand cupping the back of her head, his forearm braced under her knees, keeping her ribs immobile.

She whimpered, just once, barely audible, swallowed immediately like she thought he’d drop her if she made a sound.

“Nearly there,” he growled, not looking down. His voice was gravel and broken glass. “Don’t fade on me.”

Askarion was already tearing out of his tent before Dionys reached the flap, drawn by the commotion or some healer’s sense for catastrophic bleeding. He took one look at the crimson bloom spreading across the grey linen and went pale.

“What did you fools do to her?” he snapped, but he was already clearing the cot, already reaching for the shears to cut the chiton away.

Dionys laid her down, gentle, like placing something that might not hold together. His hands stayed on her shoulder, fingers digging in just enough to keep her tethered, to keep her from drifting wherever shock was trying to take her.

He didn’t let go.

Not when Askarion peeled back the bandages with a curse. Not when Patrian appeared with a needle and thread. Not when Alessia cried out, sharp and sudden, as they probed the reopened wound.

He stayed.

─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─

Odrian entered the healer’s tent with the force of a man who had been pacing for far too long. His hair was wild, his tunic askew, and there was a smear of ink across his cheek from where he attempted to draft contingency plans.

He stopped at the foot of the cot, staring at her. Checking the color of her cheeks, the rise and fall of her chest, the bandages that were finally clean and dry, he exhaled sharply through his nose, a sound caught between relief and residual fury.

“You,” he said, his voice rougher than he intended, “are the most infuriatingly stubborn creature I have ever encountered. And I once had a mule that tried to eat my maps.”

He dragged a stool closer with his foot and sat heavily, elbows on his knees, leaning forward until she could see the exhaustion etched into every line of his face. There was no theater in him now. No smirk.

“You made him blink,” he said quietly, picking at a loose thread on his chiton because looking at her directly felt too dangerous, too revealing. “Aurelis. He doesn’t blink. I’ve seen him stare down a charging cavalry without so much as a twitch. But you—” he huffed, something between a laugh and a groan. “—You looked him in the eye and called him a bastard while bleeding out. Do you have any idea how many people have died for less?”

Alessia managed a weak smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, too exhausted to summon her usual sharp edges.

“Next time,” she rasped, her voice rough as gravel, “remind me that antagonizing the demigod-prince-of-mass-murder is bad for my stitches.”

She shifted slightly against the pillows and forced herself still again, one hand resting gingerly over the fresh bandage at her ribs.

“I didn’t make him blink. I just… refused to look away first. There’s a difference.” Her fingers found the silver signet where it rested on the cot beside her, tracing its familiar edges with a thumb that still trembled slightly.

She tilted her head to look at Odrian properly, taking in the ink smeared across his cheek and the wild disarray of his hair. “Your maps were probably terrible, anyway. The mule had taste.”

He snorted and dragged a hand down his face, smearing the ink further. “My maps are masterpieces,” he informed her with wounded dignity, but there was no heat in it. His gaze dropped to where her fingers traced the signet, and something complicated flickered across his features before he schooled them back into weary exasperation.

“Refused to look away first,” he repeated, rolling the phrase around like he was testing its weight. His eyes met hers, sea-blue and bloodshot, stripped of their usual theatrical armor. “That’s the part that matters, isn’t it? Not the winning. Just the not yielding.” He shifted on the stool, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the edge of the cot, close enough she could smell the sea salt and parchment on him.

“Walus saw you as a possession.” He picked at the loose thread on his chiton again, not looking at her. “Nomaros sees a resource.” He glanced toward the tent flap, “Half that tent would call you mine.”

His jaw worked. He reached over and straightened the blanket at her side.

“They’d be wrong.”

His hand found the signet on the cot, resting beside hers without claiming it. “Keep that. For now. Until you don’t need collateral to feel safe anymore.” He stood, the stool scraping softly, and moved toward the tent flap. “Rest. I’ll make sure Dionys doesn’t actually throttle anyone who asks about your ‘status.’ And if Stella tries to stage a jailbreak with Admiral Snip…” He paused, glancing at her with a ghost of his usual smirk. “I’ll send word.”

Alessia traced the signet in her palm as he stood to leave, the silver warmed from her body heat. The weight of it felt different now, less hostage token, more like an anchor. Something solid in a world that had been shifting sand under her feet for seven years.

“Hey,” she called out, wincing as the movement pulled at her stitches, softening her voice so she didn’t wake the healers snoring in the corner. “If I’m gonna be terrible for your blood pressure, you should invest in better wine, The stuff you’ve been feeding me tastes like vinegar and regret.”

She shifted her gaze from the tent flap back to the ceiling, counting the water stains in the canvas like they were stars she could navigate by.

“…Thanks. For the signet. For… not standing in the back of the room like the others.”

Her fingers curled around the ring tight enough to hurt, grounding herself.

“I’ll keep it. Until I’m sure I won’t need to poison anyone to keep Stella safe. Which means you’ll get it back when we’re both eighty and she’s running the kingdom.”

She paused. She didn’t look at him when she spoke again, her voice dropping to something rough and raw.

“I’ve been property since I was twelve. Being… useful… is better. Even if I bleed on the furniture.”

She forced a grin, sharp-edged and tired.

“Next time, though? Remind me I don’t need to antagonize a demigod to prove a point. These stitches cost extra.”

Askarion pushed through the tent flap without announcement, a clay bowl steaming with some foul-smelling tisane clutched in one scarred hand and a fresh roll of linen tucked under his arm. His eyes found her immediately. Awake, talking, bleeding internally or externally, or both. He exhaled through his nose like a bull preparing to charge.

“Still breathing,” he grunted, setting the bowl down on the crate beside her cot with a ceramic clack that threatened to crack it. “Disappointing. I had money on you expiring before the Council adjourned.”

He jerked the stool closer with his foot and sat, already reaching for the bandages. His fingers probed the fresh stitches with impersonal efficiency, though his touch was lighter than his voice implied.

“Tore three of them clean through.” He peeled back the dressing, peering at his handiwork. “Tried to pour your guts out onto Nomaros’s sandals, did you? Foolish. If you’re going to die at a war council, at least have the decency to do it before I sew you up. Wastes perfectly good catgut, otherwise.”

He dunked a cloth and pressed it to the wound without warning, his other hand already pinning her shoulder down.

“Hold still. Drink that when I’m done. It’ll keep the fever down.” He didn’t look up from his work. “You’ve got until sunrise to prove you won’t fester.”

His eyes flicked to her face, assessing the pallor, the tremor in her hands, the way she clutched the silver ring like it was the only thing keeping her heart beating. His scowl deepened, but his voice dropped slightly, losing its surgical edge.

“Child’s outside. Tried to bribe me with a rock to let her in.” He snorted, securing the bandage with a sharp tug. “Named it Lieutenant Pebble. Terrible negotiator, your daughter. Almost as bad as you are at staying upright.”

He stood, gathering his tools, and paused at the tent flap.

“Sleep. For real this time. Not the theatrical ‘I’m resting but really planning to stab someone’ sleep you’re so fond of. Or I’ll strap you to the cot and dose you with poppy myself.”

He didn’t look back.

“You did well enough in there, for a woman who bleeds like a stuck pig.”

Alessia hissed as the tisane burned, her fingers spasming around the signet hard enough to leave indentations in her palm. She didn’t jerk away, but she did fix Askarion’s retreating back with a glare that could curdle milk.

“Next time,” she called after him, her voice rough as sand, “warn a girl before you try to drown her wound in swamp water.”

She shifted against the pillows, trying to find a position that didn’t feel like the stitches were trying to stage a prison break, and hauled the clay bowl closer with her free hand.

The steam hit her face—sharp, herbal, and utterly foul—and she wrinkled her nose.

Lieutenant Pebble. Of course. Stella had already promoted Stonebelly to General, and Admiral Snip was running the navy.

She craned her neck toward the tent flap, even though moving made the room spin slightly, grey canvas blurring at the edges. She wanted to call out for Stella, to see her face and verify she was still whole, still breathing… but Askarion was right. She didn’t need to see Alessia like this again. Not the bleeding and the shaking. Not Mama looking like a slaughtered deer on a cot.

“Tell her…” she started, then stopped, swallowing against the bile that rose when she shifted too fast. The signet bit into her palm, grounding her. “Tell her Lieutenant Pebble made Captain for innovative bribery. And that Mama’s resting. Like a good patient.”

She lifted the bowl, staring into the murky liquid that smelled of yarrow and something sharp. It looked like piss and pond water. Probably tasted worse. She drank it anyway, grimacing at the bitter slide of it down her throat, feeling the poppy-drag already pulling at her eyelids. Her hand opened, palm up, the silver signet sitting heavy and warm in the center, Odrian’s collateral. A king’s promise that she wasn’t property anymore, just… useful. Terrifyingly, precariously useful.

She curled her fingers around it again, closing her fist tight.

Eighty years old, she’d said. Running the kingdom.

She let her eyes fall shut, the signet pressed against her sternum, and for the first time in seven years, she didn’t keep one eye open. She didn’t listen for footsteps, She didn’t plan the next escape route.

She just… slept.