Page 359 of Elemental Becoming

“Yes, sweetheart, he was,” Garrick says soothingly, rubbing a hand down her back. “Maybe eat some of that stew first. I think you’re hungry, not actually angry with Kieran. Right, love?”

Lyra narrows her eyes at Kieran, then grumbles something that might be agreement before returning to her food.

The table settles into the soft clatter of spoons and the low murmur of conversation. Somewhere behind us, laughter erupts from another table.

Sera starts braiding her hair in between bites. Garrick’s telling a story no one asked for. Lyra snorts into her cup.

One of the things I admire most about Thane is that he chooses to sit with his soldiers after training. He doesn’t disappear behind rank or retreat to a private chamber. He’s here.

While the rest of us are already seated at one of the long tables in the soldiers’ mess hall, plates of food in front of us and steam rising from metal bowls, Thane is still moving through the room.

I watch him as he makes his way between the tables, exchanging quiet words, listening more than he speaks. Sometimes I wonder if he knows how much they trust him. How much I do.

He says very little, but they feel it. The consistency of his presence. The confidence he inspires. The simple fact that he sees them as people first and soldiers second.

But I also know what still lingers beneath that calm exterior.

The curse.

At least, that’s what I still call it. I don’t know what else to name it anymore, and the word doesn’t quite fit the way it once did. We just don’t have enough information. Maybe finding the ledger will help us understand what truly runs through Thane’s veins.

Even now, after everything, there are nights when I feel it moving beneath his thoughts, like a shadow he can never quite leave behind. He worries about what lives inside him. About what it could become and the consequences if he ever losescontrol.

Most of all, he worries about the people who trust him.

About me.

But when I look at him, I don’t see a monster waiting to emerge. I see a man who leads with his heart as much as his power. A man who chooses his people again and again, even when no one is watching.

He stops at each table he passes, speaking to soldiers in low tones, nodding, offering a few words or a brief smile. He rests a hand on a shoulder here, gives a clasped forearm there. He pauses to check on a young fire wielder nursing a burn and crouches beside two scouts from the outer range to ask about their patrol.

It’s not for show. Most people probably wouldn’t notice.

But I do.

Every time.

When he finally reaches our table, he doesn’t say a word. He simply slides onto the bench beside me and reaches for his bowl as though he’s been here all along. As he sits, his hand finds my shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze.

I reach for him through the bond, a gentle breeze brushing against his shield of fire. He lets me in without so much as a glance, as though the door was never closed. We’ve been communicating this way for a few weeks now, and it feels effortless.

“You are a light. In the truest sense of the word.”

His hand slips beneath the table and settles on my leg.

“Only because you see me that way,”he replies.

My heart belongs to this man.

To the one who still sees himself as cursed. Who can’t quite believe he’s worthy of love, of peace, of anything untouched by the shadows he carries. The one who mistakes a single part of himself for the whole.

So he carries the burden himself, believing he has to work twice as hard, love twice as fiercely, and be twice as strong just to make up for what he thinks he lacks. And gods help me, I love him all the more for it.

Thane’s hand slips away, returning to his bowl without a word, but the warmth remains.

A flash of movement draws my attention away from Thane. A soldier approaches, moving with enough urgency that my stomach sinks. He leans down and murmurs something in Thane’s ear, his voice too low for me to hear.

Thane goes still.