Kion's POV

  Seraithe’s home, Windward Garden, Kesherra Basin

  Warmth pressed against his face the second time he surfaced from sleep.

  He lay still for a moment, letting the sensation anchor him.

  The tether was still coiled tight around his ribs, a quiet vise. Not flaring, not slicing through him like yesterday, just... holding.

  The ache in his chest hadn’t eased, but it felt muted, distant, as though padded by a thin layer of cotton.

  Maybe the tether had decided he deserved mercy.

  Maybe the sedation hadn’t fully worn off.

  He couldn’t tell, and he didn’t have the clarity to try.

  His body felt heavy, but not the dead weight it had been last night.

  He managed to lift an arm, sluggishly, and shielded his eyes from the sliver of morning light sneaking through the wooden lattice window.

  A voice cut through the haze. “Oh. You’re awake.”

  Kion turned his head. Slowly, carefully. He found Jura walking toward him with a basin cradled in both arms. Jura’s earth-rough hand smoothed itself as he approached, coarse grit softening into workable clay before he touched Kion’s forehead, a gesture he’d done often enough that Kion didn’t flinch from it.

  Kion muttered, “Jura…”

  The name came easily. Too easily for someone he wasn’t used to seeing in Seraithe’s home.

  “That’s me,” Jura said lightly.

  He set the basin down and wrung a towel over it, then brought the cool cloth to Kion’s face. “How do you feel?”

  “Hell,” Kion muttered. “I feel molted.”

  Kion shut his eyes again, letting the cold water sting him awake.

  “No wonder my body felt like stone,” he added, cracking one eye open.

  “Well, that’s me too,” Jura replied with a half-shrug, wiping down Kion’s arm next. “Seraithe made me promise I’d stay and keep watch after she left this morning. And I wasn’t taking any chances with you trying to bolt. This place is halfway to the sky.”

  Kion let out a faint breath of amusement. It hurt, but not as sharply as before.

  Jura dipped the towel back into the basin. “Think you can sit up?”

  Kion felt the invisible weight begin to lift, Jura pulling back his magic.

  He braced for the pain to follow, for the sharp bite of the tether’s retaliation, but nothing struck him. Just a faint pressure.

  Carefully, he pushed himself upright.

  The blanket slipped down to his lap, exposing his chest, and the red, raised lines raked across it. Dozens of them. All his own doing.

  He blinked at them in muted disbelief. Beneath the blanket, he checked, quietly grateful his pants were still intact.

  “You did all that yourself, by the way,” Jura said, twisting the towel again as if wringing the memory out of it. “We tried to dress you, but you kept ripping the shirts off.”

  “Me?” Kion stared. “Ripping clothes?”

  He didn’t remember that.

  Didn’t even think he could do that. Not with the way he usually handled shirts like they were made of gold leaf.

  Jura moved behind him and wiped his back in steady, practiced circles. “Yep. Seraithe was so pissed she declared you didn’t deserve clothes anymore after you destroyed the third one.”

  “Don’t tell me it was her late-brother’s.”

  “Oh, it was,” Jura said, and Kion could hear the grin in his voice. “You’re doomed.”

  Kion slowly turned his head to glare weakly at him. “I’m not getting out of here alive, am I?”

  “Surely won’t.” Jura clicked his tongue dramatically. “She’ll toss you out with your wings glued together. Prepare yourself.”

  A small shiver ran through Kion. Jura chuckled at that.

  “You want to borrow my clothes?” Jura asked.

  “Nah. I’ve got a shirt in my bag.”

  “Shame your rabid self couldn’t tell Seraithe that.”

  Kion groaned into his palm. “Ugh. Easier if she just left me in that room. Why drag me all the way up here if she’s planning to throw me off the branch anyway?”

  Jura laughed again. Quiet, but warm.

  He grabbed the pitcher on the small table beside the sofa, poured water, and handed Kion the cup. “Any pain anywhere?”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Kion drank half of it in one go. The coolness grounded him enough to breathe deeper.

  He tested the tether. Gently, mentally nudging it.

  It didn’t lash at him this time. It stayed curled around his torso, like a too-tight corset cinched wrong.

  Unpleasant, but bearable. A far cry from the violent contraction yesterday.

  He rolled his shoulders, neck, arms. Everything responded sluggishly.

  “None,” he murmured. “I feel... numb. Did anyone cast anything?”

  He fisted his hand, feeling the dulling effect in his joints.

  “Leta did. Pain killer.” Jura drank from his own cup. “She tried handling you alone at first, but you trashed so hard she had to call for me. I stunned you after you nearly clawed her eyes out.”

  Kion winced. “...I did?”

  “Yup.” Jura eyed him carefully. “You don’t remember?”

  Kion shook his head. “No. It was too... intense, I guess.”

  “Mhm.”

  Jura fetched Kion’s bag and dropped it beside him. Kion rummaged through it, found a plain white shirt a size of his palm. It enlarged to his size after several seconds, then he slid it on.

  Jura watched him with a quiet, measuring focus, as if cataloguing every movement.

  “Man,” Jura muttered, “I’d kill for that bag.”

  “You’ve told me that at least fifty times,” Kion said, managing a small laugh.

  “Who knows?” Jura shrugged. “Maybe one day you’ll nag your human friend into making one for me.”

  “Your wish,” Kion snorted. “Nag her yourself. She won’t bite.”

  “Nah. I avoid getting involved with humans. More than what Seraithe requires me to, anyway.” Jura pointed vaguely at Kion, the house, the morning light. “That’s why Seraithe’s the one dealing with your human friends right now.”

  Kion paused. “That’s her chief bloodline talking.”

  “Agreed.”

  “But... why is she going there?”

  “You skipped work yesterday. No notice.” Jura raised a brow pointedly. “So your human friends asked Seraithe to find you. Thought you were frolicking somewhere. Hard to blame them.”

  Jura paused, then grinned. “Since we spent all day containing you, Seraithe’s only telling them now.”

  Kion blinked. “...All day?”

  Jura nodded. His eyes never left Kion. Watchful, waiting.

  Kion’s gaze drifted to his forearms. Scratches everywhere. Some deep. Some shallow.

  All foreign, as if made by someone else’s hands.

  The gap in memory felt like a hole punched clean through him.

  Writ must have felt like this, he thought dimly, the time he wove illusions on her skin and she couldn’t recall how the markings appeared.

  He pressed a palm to his chest. Pain flared, sharper this time.

  He soothed the tether with a hesitant, silent apology.

  “Did you tether a human, Kion?”

  His hand froze.

  He’d forgotten Jura was still here.

  Forgotten that not every fairfolk was like Seraithe. Patient, flexible.

  Forgotten that tethering a non-fairy was forbidden. Maybe worse than a solo tether.

  He forced himself to meet Jura’s gaze and shaped a thin smile. “Why do you think so?”

  “You have no reason to be in that room,” Jura said quietly. “Your human friends didn’t even know you went there.”

  "I just...," Kion kept the smile in place. “...find that room comfortable, that’s all.”

  Jura’s eyes narrowed. “Really? Then where’s the owner of the room? It’s clearly occupied. Or it was.”

  Kion couldn’t answer. The expression stayed fixed on his face, brittle.

  The silence that followed was suffocating.

  Jura stared at him long enough Kion felt the scrutiny drilling through his skull.

  “That’s how my mom acted when my dad had his accident,” Jura said quietly. “The tether lashed back at her.”

  A beat.

  “Watching you yesterday felt like déjà vu.”

  Kion’s eyes widened. “...That’s not how it should be, is it?”

  “No.” Jura shook his head. “A tether should detach cleanly after death. That’s what happens to most tethered pairs. Including mine.”

  “Then why—”

  “Her theory was that it’s because they modified the spell,” Jura said, stepping closer. “Tried to keep it from flaring at the start.”

  His expression hardened. “Did you?”

  Kion opened his mouth. Closed it.

  His eyes drifted down to the blanket pooled over his lap.

  “...Yes,” he whispered.

  “I see.” Jura nodded, and returned to sit beside him on the same sofa.

  His expression softened, surprisingly gentle. Strained, almost sorrowful. “My condolences. It must be hard knowing your tethered breathed their last right after your birthday.”

  Kion’s lips trembled. “She’s... still alive...”

  “Oh.” Jura blinked, eyebrows lifting. “Sorry. I thought—”

  “No, it’s fine.” Kion rubbed the back of his neck, throat tight.

  “Why, then?” Jura asked quietly. “Did you two fight? Though I doubt it’d be violent enough to trigger... that.”

  Kion twisted the corner of the blanket between his fingers, restless. “Did Seraithe mention anything?”

  “She didn’t. Said it was your story to tell.”

  Relief flickered briefly in Kion’s chest. He didn’t answer, only swallowed hard.

  Something clicked in Jura’s expression.

  He slapped the sofa beside Kion, eyes widening. Kion flinched.

  “Impossible,” Jura whispered. “Did you—”

  He cut himself off, words scrambling inside his mouth.

  Kion braced for it.

  For the accusation. For the truth laid bare.

  For the one thing he wasn’t ready to have said aloud by the only community that still tolerated him.

  “You know what,” Jura muttered, exhaling sharply. “Don’t tell me. Not if you’re not ready.”

  Kion’s gaze dropped to the blanket again, shoulders unclenching just a little.

  A breath slipped out of him. Quiet, shaky, relieved.

  Jura scrubbed a hand over his face. “So that’s why Seraithe insisted I be the one to watch you.”

  Kion’s fingers twined together, thumbs rubbing anxiously. He didn’t lift his eyes.

  Jura watched him for several seconds, then sighed.

  He reached out and tapped Kion’s shoulder. “If you ever need someone to talk to... nudge me. I’ve mediated more tethered pairs than I like to admit. Even before we moved here.”

  Kion forced the words out past the lump in his throat. “I’ll... keep that in mind.”

  Jura stood, stretching once before turning back with a faint grin. “Besides, we’ve already broken enough taboos by living here among humans and taking an exile into our fold.”

  He ruffled Kion’s hair. “What’s one more to the pile?”

  Kion looked up at him, startled.

  The disbelief on his face made Jura huff a laugh as he headed toward a row of human-sized jars half-filled with snacks.

  “Cookies?” Jura offered.

  “Yes please.”

  Jura opened a jar, grabbed two cookies, and handed one to Kion. They ate in a comfortable, quiet rhythm.

  Kion spoke only once, barely above a whisper. “Thank you.”

  Jura answered without looking away from his cookie. “Anytime.”

  But Kion felt the words settle anyway, soft as a hand over a bruise.

  Then the tether shifted. A faint pull, warm and wrong and familiar all at once.

  Writ’s emotion bled through with it. Her confusion, the crushing pressure, the fear edging toward dread.

  She didn’t want him near.

  She didn’t want him following.

  But the tether, stubborn as ever, still held on.

  And he...

  He didn’t know how to let go.