Chapter 23

Raeve trails the injured Kaan down Beluhn’s burrow stairs, fixating on the five bloody pin-holes in his robe—wounds taken for her. He refuses help, and they collect Roan and Pyrok before Siharna leads them into a gated courtyard and her hall, promising supplies to remove the pins. Kaan insists the place is safe despite Raeve’s reflexive reach for weapons.

Inside, Siharna struggles with late pregnancy while Korie cries upstairs, unable to sleep since her father Zior’s death. Siharna explains Zior’s nightly lullabies and produces his white-wood lute. Kaan asks to try, accepts the instrument, and climbs to Korie despite his pain.

On the mezzanine, Kaan sits, plays, and sings “Tune of the Lifting Star,” his baritone soothing Korie to drowsy peace. Raeve watches, struck by the tenderness and steadiness beneath Kaan’s war-scarred exterior, and by the ache the scene opens in her.

Overwhelmed, Raeve leaves the hall and rushes into the cold courtyard, fighting the surge of her Other. As the pressure peaks, instead of shifting, a vivid memory breaks through: alone with Kaan’s lute and sheets, she once placed a paper lark and his málmr on his pillow, leaving him to protect his life despite loving him.

Reeling, Raeve recognizes her hard-kept walls eroding; the lake of memory within is lowering, and the past will keep rising until she reckons with it—and with her love for Kaan.