Aarav clears his throat, aiming for offhand. “So. You going to tell me why the soldiers are chasing you?”

  Seren doesn’t glance his way. “No.”

  He exhales a short sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “Just ‘no’?”

  “I do not know you,” she replies, voice level, calm as if talking to a child.

  It hits deeper than he thought it would. He saved her and this is thanks he gets? He masks it with an exaggerated lift of his brow. “Fair. But I did save you. Twice, if we’re keeping score.”

  Her eyes slide to his, the starlight catching along her cheekbones. Whatever sharp retort she’d been reaching for softens at the edges. “Thank you,” she says quietly. “Twice.”

  He lets out a dry little chuckle. “Right. There it is. Debt repaid in full. Strangers fleeing for their lives together remain strangers, permanently. That’s the rule.”

  “I am not accustomed to speaking of such things,” she says. “Especially with someone who cloaks truth in jest.”

  Aarav tips her a crooked smile. “Plain talk’s overrated. You’d miss the sparkle of my charming commentary.”

  Her eyes narrow, the hint of a frown pulling between her brows. “Not everything is meant to be a joke.”

  He leans back on his hands, the firelight edging his fingers. “You’re right. Saving your life wasn’t.”

  She goes very still, that small line between her brows easing as her attention snaps fully to him. Aarav lets the words sit there, feigning nonchalance, as if he hasn’t just nudged at something tender. Inside, though, he notes the shift. The hesitation, the brief lowering of her guard. That’s what he’s angling for. Not confession, not yet. Just a fracture in the armour. Trust rarely arrives all at once. It’s coaxed, chipped free bit by bit, until the other person forgets you’re the one working the blade.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” he says, tone smooth enough to pass for casual. “Just seems people don’t usually bolt from temples unless something went very wrong.”

  Her head snaps toward him, sharp as a whip. “How do you know I was in a temple?”

  “I saw the robes,” he answers, shrugging like the whole thing’s obvious. “You wear the stars of a priestess. And you talk about constellations the way most people talk about the folks who raised them.”

  A small tight and deliberate pause before she replies. “You see more than you pretend to.”

  He gives an easy nod. “Comes with the life. You either learn to watch, or something worse might see you first.”

  He lets it drop there, stretching back like the conversation’s already fading from his mind. But his eyes stay on her, quiet and calculating, measuring the seams of her composure the way a thief maps a lock. So far she’s given him nothing, yet nothing stays sealed forever. Pressure finds a way.

  He plucks at a loose thread on his sleeve, feigning idleness. “I grew up in Solmaris if you're interested. The lower quarter but people there call it the Tangle.”

  “I would not know it,” Seren says, composed again. Her tone carries that exacting temple precision. “We rarely left the grounds, and I never left Highmarrow.”

  He huffs a crooked smile. “Figures. Too much truth outside those walls. Breathe it in and it ruins the illusion that the world is kind.”

  She studies him then, head tilted just slightly. “Is that what happened to you?”

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  His grin flickers, weakened but still standing. “Maybe.”

  She doesn’t look away. “What was it like?”

  Good. She’s reaching now. He leans back on his hands, letting the past settle into his voice, rough around the edges. “Loud. Fast. Ugly. Everything hits you before you even get a chance to brace. You learn to run before you can walk. Lie before you can read. My parents tried. They really did. Moved us out to Marrow eventually, but it wasn’t exactly paradise. I ended up running with a gang for a bit. Learned how to steal, how to take a punch, how to sleep on rooftops without rolling off.”

  She doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t appear to judge. Her silence is steady, open in a way he hadn’t expected. Listening intently. So he lets it spill further, just enough. Because the more he offers, the more she is likely to open up herself.

  “I used to think I’d grow up to be someone important,” he murmurs. “Then I figured I already was. At least to myself. Nobody else was going to keep me alive. But life has a way of beating you down, until all that is left is survival.”

  Her hands tighten in her lap, the smallest shift but unmistakable. “There are worse reasons to survive,” she says softly.

  He studies her face in the thin wash of starlight, tracking every small shift, the flicker of hurt that crosses her features like a shadow. “What about you? Family?”

  She pauses long enough for him to notice. “Gone. A long time ago.”

  “The temple raised you then?”

  “Yes. They took me in. I owed them everything.”

  He lets that breathe for a moment, then softens his tone, just enough to slip past her defenses. “Then why are you running?”

  The question drifts between them like smoke. He frames it as concern, but it’s the pressure he’s been angling toward, the weight meant to loosen something inside her. Her gaze lifts, following some invisible trail across the sky.

  “The stars shifted,” she says finally. Her voice sounds far away, almost hollow. “I did not choose to leave… but I was no longer meant to stay.”

  Aarav narrows his eyes, recognising that mix. Grief knotted up with guilt, both pulling in opposite directions. He’s worn that expression himself. He lets the silence settle before offering a small nod.

  “I get that,” he murmurs. “Didn’t have much in the way of choices in my life either.”

  She turns toward him, and for a heartbeat they simply exist in the same quiet, staring at one another while the night hums around them.

  Aarav clears his throat, rubbing the back of his neck like he needs to chase off the weight of the moment. “Well. This has been pleasant. As far as quick meals and cryptic stargazing go.”

  Her mouth twitches, just barely, but it’s there. “You talk too much.”

  “Probably.” His grin reappears, lopsided. “But you can’t pretend it doesn’t make for good company.”

  A small laugh escapes her, quick, unguarded, gone almost as soon as it arrives. It is a pretty smile, much better than her constant frowning.

  He leans back against the oak, arms folding loosely across his chest. “You should sleep. We’ll have to move early, and you look like you’re about to keel over. I’ll keep watch.”

  Her brow creases. “Why?”

  “Because you’re exhausted,” he says, blunt as stone. “And you’re terrible at hiding it.”

  “I can take half the night,” she insists, sitting straighter like posture alone can conjure energy.

  He lifts a hand, dismissing the notion without hesitation. “I said I’ll watch. It’s fine.”

  “No,” she cuts in, firmer this time, the word landing with a weight he hadn’t expected. “We both need rest, and we both need to be alert tomorrow. We share the watch.”

  He holds her gaze, measuring the steel in it. This isn’t stubbornness for its own sake, not the puffed?up pride he’s used to sparring with. It’s principle, anchored deep. She won’t budge. And gods help him, he almost respects it, though he’d sooner swallow sand than say so aloud.

  “Fine,” he says eventually, exhaling through his nose. “Half each. But I start.”

  She gives a small, satisfied nod, the kind that announces victory without needing a single word. Then she folds into her cloak, drawing it around herself like a shield against the cold. In moments her breathing evens, and the hard edges of her expression soften into sleep.

  Aarav watches her longer than he intends to, tracking the slow rise and fall of her shoulders, the way the firelight brushes gold across her hair. Something unfamiliar stirs in his chest, restless and uninvited. Dangerous, he warns himself. That sort of thing never ends well.

  He tears his gaze away, shoving the feeling down where it can’t trip him. He looks to the sky instead. The endless scatter of stars, bright and remote and lets the rhythm of the night settle over him, cold and steady as a promise of a quiet night.