Page 61 of Unravelled
Her breath caught "You were listening,” she breathed.
“Of course I was,” he said. “I said I’d be there.”
She let out a slow breath. “Thank you.”
Tharion didn’t speak. He just nodded once, already moving toward the bed with quiet familiarity.
Mira turned away, heading into the washroom. The door clicked shut behind her, muffling the sounds of the city still humming outside the window.
She washed the disguise from her body and donned a simple nightgown. The cotton slip was loose against her skin, a stark contrast to the silk and shadowlace she’d worn hours earlier. No pretense. No performance. Tharion had removed his boots and lay stretched on his side of the bed, one arm tucked beneath his head. His breathing was steady, slow. Asleep, or close enough.
Mira hesitated. There had been a time when sharing a bed with him was effortless. Those moments felt far away now, dulled at the edges, unreachable. But not gone. She wasn’t sure if they could ever get back to what they had been. But as she stood there, watching him sleep in the soft hush of the room, she knew. She would try. Because he was worth the effort.
She climbed in beside him quietly. The mattress dipped under her weight as she settled under the cover. For a moment, she simply listened to the waves, to the steady rhythm of Tharion's breath. She let the exhaustion pull her under, the night folding around them like the tide.
15
The morning sun broke through the lingering mist in beams, casting a golden glow over the cliff side paths below Seacliffe. The tide had drawn back just far enough to reveal a stretch of black-stone pools and salt-slicked rock. Each pool held tiny reflections of the sky, glimmering mirrors nestled in stone.
Mira adjusted the shawl over her shoulders as the wind swept up from the sea. The temperature had dropped overnight. Not enough to bite, but enough to make her skin prickle. Summer had ended. Autumn had crept in on swift silent feet, brushing the air with its cooler breath.
She inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the scent of salt and seaweed and something deeper, older, the damp, briny smell of earth meeting the ocean.
Below the cliffs, she spotted movement. Tharion crouched near one of the larger tide pools, fingers skimming just above the surface. Not touching. Just observing. She made her way down the narrow path toward him, boots crunching softly over worn stone and sea-glass fragments. The closer she got, the more the noise of Seacliffe faded.
Tharion didn’t look up as she approached, but his voice carried over the soft hiss of waves.“This was my favorite place,” he said. “When I was a boy.”
Mira stopped beside him, letting her eyes fall to the tide pool. Tiny fish darted between shadows. A crab scuttled backward into a crack in the rock. Water shimmered, touched by gold. “Ren hated the cold,” Tharion continued, “but he came anyway. I’d stay out here for hours. Just... watching.”
He shifted slightly to the side, making room for her. She knelt next to him, her shawl slipping down her arm as she reached to trace the edge of a barnacled stone. “Still remember what most of these are called,” he said, quieter now.
They moved from one rock pool to the next, unhurried. Mira pointed out the faint glimmer of a sea snail clinging to stone. Tharion nodded. She found a starfish in another pool, pale pink and curled tight. For a moment, they just watched it, the sea lapping gently in and out around their boots. There was peace here, not perfect, notcomplete, but real. Mira glanced over at him. The lines in his brow had softened. He wasn’t smiling, exactly. But he looked… lighter.
“We should come back here more often,” she said, voice soft, breaking the stillness.
Tharion didn’t hesitate. “Yeah,” he said. “We should.”
A familiar voice echoed from above. “Mira!” Torvyn’s shout carried over the wind, roughened by the sea air.
She turned to see him standing farther up the bluff, hands cupped around his mouth, his silhouette framed against the pale sky. He waved an arm, motioning them up the path. Tharion exhaled through his nose, just shy of a laugh.
“That would be your brother,” he muttered, already heading up the path.
Mira moved to follow, but something caught her eye, a gleam of color hidden beneath a tangle of sea grapes at the edge of a tide pool. She crouched, brushing the slippery greenery aside. There, half-buried in wet sand and stone, was a piece of sea glass. Not the pale green she usually found, but a deep, striking blue. The blue of ocean depths. It was just larger than her palm, smooth to the touch, and as she lifted it into the light, it shimmered faintly, just for a moment, as if it had caught something more than just the sun.
Mira blinked. The shimmer faded. Just glass again. But she held it for a long second before slipping it into the folds of her shawl. She turned, climbing after Tharion toward the sound of her brother’s voice, the wind tugging at her cloak.
???
Brahn and Torvyn walked together, their voices low but firm, deep in conversation. Brahn’s stride was measured, steady, arms crossed over his chest as he listened. Torvyn gestured with sharp precision, speaking in the clipped tones of a man who had long since run out of patience for bureaucracy. Mira caught only fragments. Trade disputes. Fragile alliances. The upcoming council session.
She wasn’t listening. Not really. Her eyes were on the streets. Worn, uneven stone. People thinner than they should be, wrapped in patched clothes that had seen too many winters. Children sat on doorsteps, their eyes curious. A woman sold dried fish and bread from a near-empty stall. Seacliffe had been built to endure. That didn’t mean it wasn’t struggling. Tharion stepped quietly into place beside her, his gaze moving with hers. He saw it too. The poverty. The quiet strain.
After a long moment, he spoke. “Seacliffe wasn’t built to thrive.”
Mira turned to him. “What do you mean?”
Tharion slid his hands into the pockets. “This place was never meant to be a jewel of the kingdom. It was a stronghold first, a city second. A last line of defense carved into the cliffs.”
