The Feather

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Raven and I never sat down and decided how any of it was going to work.

There wasn’t another long conversation beside the fire about carefully dividing our responsibilities. We never declared which days belonged to whom or which hut Shade ought to return to at the end of each day to sleep. After everything we had finally said to each other, it seemed as though there were some things that we were both tired of discussing.

Everything simply found its rhythm again.

Shade stayed with me in the hut most nights. Raven had asked him where he wanted to sleep, and after glancing between us as though it were obvious, he chose his own bed.

Raven took his answer easier than I’d expected. She still spent her nights with Echo, but she’d drop by nearly every morning, usually before Shade and I had finished eating. Sometimes she brought food. Other times she would sit close to the fire and steal pieces from my bowl while insisting that she wasn’t hungry.

On the mornings I worked with Bone, Shade would stay with Raven. On the days Raven went hunting, he would remain with me. Whenever both of us had somewhere to be, Echo would watch him, although she had started making it a point of sighing heavily whenever we arrived at her hut together.

It became our routine faster than I’d thought possible. Considering how disastrous the first few days had been after Raven’s return, I’d expected more resistance from her.

There were still awkward moments, of course. Times when the two of us would reach for the same bowl, bump hands, and then recoil as though the other had burned us. Times when Shade called for one of us, and we’d both answer. Times when Raven stood in the doorway of the hut with a distant look in her eyes, caught somewhere between what the place had been before and what it had become.

But she’d never stay away for long.

Eventually, little pieces of her started appearing around the hut.

Her hunting cloak lay folded next to Shade’s bed. Her spare knife had found a place near the door. A small pouch of dried herbs appeared among the food stores, followed by a wooden comb that was left in one of the baskets several days later.

I noticed each new item that appeared.

I never asked her whether she’d intended to leave them.

At first, I assumed that she’d just forgotten them. Raven came and went frequently enough that it made sense for a few small things to be misplaced. Each time she came back, however, she’d walk past them without so much as a glance.

Once, I found her comb lying on the bed and set it beside her hunting cloak so it wouldn’t get lost in the hides. The following morning, it’d been placed back in one of the baskets.

After that, I decided to leave it alone.

The hut felt different with her things inside of it. Not crowded, exactly. Just more lived in.

That shouldn’t have come as any surprise. The hut had been her home before it’d ever become mine. The bed had once belonged to her. The baskets had held her things. She had cooked beside the same fire and slept under the same roof, back when the body I wore still belonged to the man she married.

Sometimes that thought would make the life I was living feel borrowed again. Then Shade would come running through the entrance with snow clinging to his legs and Raven following closely behind him, and the feeling would pass.

I told myself we were doing it for him.

Shade was happier with both of us around. He no longer seemed to be afraid that Raven might vanish again or that I might send him away. He’d carry messages between us like we were living on opposite ends of the village, rather than spending most of each day together. Sometimes it was to inform me that I’d forgotten to eat. Other times, it was because Raven had forgotten her hunting knife.

We were doing this for Shade.

That was what I told myself whenever I’d catch Raven smiling at me from across the fire or found myself listening to her footsteps outside. We were learning how to care for him together. Nothing more.

If she began sitting a little closer to me in the evenings, it was simply because that’s where the fire was the warmest.

If I started setting aside the better portion of meat for her, it was because hunting had left her hungry.

If something else was left behind inside the hut, it was because carrying them back and forth from Echo’s would have been too much of a hassle.

There was always a reasonable explanation for all of it.

At least, until I found the feather.

I’d found it lying in the snow on my way to Bone’s hut. I had almost stepped on it when a faint glimmer of color made me stop in my tracks. When I lifted it into the light, shades of blue and green moved across its black surface.

I turned it between my fingers.

It reminded me of Raven’s eyes.

That shouldn’t have been any sort of reason to keep it, but I wound up tucking it under the strap of my pack anyway.

Bone noticed it almost immediately.

“What’s that?” he asked, turning a half-carved handle between his fingers.

His eyes weren’t on me. They were focused on the feather.

I glanced down at it and shook my head. “Nothing.”

Bone’s gaze slowly lifted to mine. “Doesn’t look like nothing.”

I shrugged as I began pulling my pack down from my shoulder. “It’s just a feather.”

Bone let out a grunt in response as I set the pack beside the front wall of his hut, turning it so the feather was no longer facing him.

He watched me do it.

For several seconds, he didn’t say anything, returning his attention to the handle in his hands as he scraped another thin curl of wood from it.

“What kind of feather?” he eventually asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Where’d you find it?”

“Out on the path.”

“And you decided to keep it?”

I tried to make myself look more invested in the buckle to my pack. “I liked the colors.”

Bone let out a low hum.

I tried to make myself look busy by removing the rest of my things from my supply bag. There wasn’t much inside – my knife, a sharpening stone, some dried meat, a length of spare cord, and a scrap of cloth for cleaning tools – but I took my time arranging each item beside it.

When I looked up again, Bone was still working on the handle, but the corners of his mouth had begun to pull up.

My eyes narrowed. “What?”

“Nothing,” Bone replied, shaking his head.

“That doesn’t look like nothing.”

Bone’s mouth twitched again.

I frowned at him, settling beside him at his workbench, and reached for the piece of wood I’d been shaping over the course of the past couple of days. One end was finally starting to resemble the spoon I’d intended to make while the other still looked like something a beaver had gotten tired of chewing.

Bone had assured me that it was improving.

He had also laughed for nearly a minute when I’d pointed out that it wasn’t supposed to be crooked.

For a while, the front of the hut was filled with nothing except for the steady rasp of stone against wood.

Then Bone spoke again.

“You’ll ruin it, carrying it that way, you know.”

My hand stopped as I examined the wood in my hand. “Ruin what?”

Bone smirked. “The nothing sticking out of your pack.”

I turned towards the feather, and I noticed where the tip had been bent slightly from the strap pressing against it.

Setting my work aside, I carefully pulled it free, its colors shifting as it turned in the light. Green to black to blue, then back to black again.

Bone held out his hand.

I hesitated before finally passing it to him.

He examined the feather much more carefully than I was expecting, running a long black claw along its hollow shaft without disrupting any of the finer strands. His hand stopped at the bend in it before he leaned towards one of the baskets next to the work bench and pulled out a narrow strip of softened hide.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Saving it,” Bone replied.

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“No, you were going to carry it around like that until it broke.”

He wrapped the hide tightly around the bottom of the shaft, leaving the rest of the feather itself untouched. Once he’d covered the more fragile portion, he tied the hide off and trimmed away what remained, creating a small grip around the base.

When Bone handed it back to me, the feather no longer bent when I held it.

“There,” he said.

I turned it between my fingers, examining it a bit more thoroughly than I would have cared to admit.

“Thank you,” I responded, sighing slightly.

Bone let out a soft grunt before reaching for his carving again.

Footsteps approached us before either of us could get back to work.

Echo stepped up without announcing herself, carrying a shallow basket against her hip. She stopped when she spotted me.

“Oh,” she piped up, “You’re here.”

“Yeah,” I said, glancing up at her, “I usually am.”

Bone’s eyes remained firmly fixed on the handle in his hands.

Echo shot me a playful smirk, “Well, you never know where Raven’s mate might wander off to.”

The stone knife in my hands slipped and nearly caught my thumb.

“I’m not her mate.”

The words came out more quickly than I’d intended.

Echo looked at me, then looked over at Bone. Her brows raised slightly.

Bone looked back at her as one corner of his mouth gave a slight twitch.

Something passed between them. I wasn’t sure what, but in the span of a few seconds, I felt like I had missed an entire conversation.

“Of course not,” Echo finally said.

She stepped over and set her basket next to Bone, earning her an exasperated huff from him. Whatever she had brought him to be worked on was suddenly forgotten the moment she noticed what I had resting next to me.

“What’s that?” she asked.

I tried to play dumb as I lifted up the piece of wood in my hand, “It’s supposed to be a spoon.”

“Not that. That .”

She pointed down towards the feather.

My head turned slightly as I glanced over at it. My cheeks began to warm.

“It’s nothing,” I said.

A choking sound erupted from Bone’s throat.

I shot him a glare as he covered his mouth with his hand, then turned to cough into his shoulder.

Echo crouched down beside me.

“Looks like a feather,” she commented.

I tried to focus on my spoon, “Uh-huh…”

“A pretty one.”

“I suppose…”

“Where did you get it?”

“I found it.”

Bone’s shoulders began to shake.

Echo glanced up at him before returning her attention to me, “And Bone wrapped it for you?”

I shrugged, “He said I was going to break it.”

“You were,” Bone managed to choke out.

I reluctantly watched as Echo reached for the feather and let the sunlight bounce off of it. Her expression changed as the colors caught in her eyes.

I bristled with unease as I watched her mouth curl into a smile that mimicked Bone’s.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Echo replied, shaking her head.

Yup. Way too similar to Bone.

I held out my hand.

Echo did not return the feather.

Instead, she analyzed the hide Bone had wrapped around its base.

“This is terribly plain,” she said, “Looks unfinished.”

I blinked, “It’s not supposed to look like anything.”

Echo’s eyes narrowed as that mischievous smile of hers spread across her face.

Before I could stop her, she leaned over and began digging through one of Bone’s baskets on the workbench.

Bone made no attempt to stop her.

Echo came back up with a length of dark cord and several small wooden beads. Most were plain and undecorated, but one had been stained a deep brown. With practiced ease, she threaded it onto the cord, tied the cord around the hide, and let the ends hang loosely beneath the feather.

“There,” she sighed, holding it up, “Better.”

It was still simple. The bead barely stood out against the dark cord, and the wrapping Bone had added remained visible underneath it, but it no longer looked like something I had just picked up off of the path.

It looked like something meant to be given.

I stared at it.

Echo stared at me.

Bone had stopped pretending to work entirely.

The warmth building in my cheeks intensified.

“I was only going to show it to her,” I said quietly.

Echo’s smile widened as Bone lowered his head, trying to hide one of his own. It was only then that I realized neither of them had mentioned Raven.

“It reminded me of her eyes,” I added, “That’s all.”

That did not help me in my situation.

Bone’s face broke into a toothy grin as Echo held the feather out to me.

Heat exploded across my face as I snatched it from between her fingers.

“You two are unbearable,” I grumbled.

“So we’ve been told,” Echo said cheerfully as she folded her arms across her chest.

I tucked the feather inside my pack, being careful to ensure that nothing pressed against it. When I turned and looked back up again, Echo had moved. Now she stood next to Bone, shoulder to shoulder, as they both watched me with the same poorly concealed amusement.

I directed a finger at both of them. “If either of you says anything to Raven–”

“About what?” Bone asked, tilting his head slightly.

My face grew incredibly hot, “The feather.”

“What feather?”

Echo blinked innocently as she lifted her hands and shrugged, “I haven’t seen any feathers.”

I narrowed my eyes.

After several agonizingly long moments, the two of them stopped staring at me. There was still amusement dancing in their expressions, though.

Echo stayed long enough afterward to explain what she had brought to Bone in the basket. It was the broken frame to a drying rack. Apparently, Raven had been the one to ask her to bring it to Bone.

Echo stood over him as he was inspecting it, offering several unnecessary suggestions for the repairs, and earning her several increasingly impatient grunts from him in response.

Before she left, Echo glanced over at my pack. Then at me. Then back at the pack again.

I scowled at her as I directed the blade of my knife towards the main path.

Echo barked out a laugh, the sound ringing in my ears long after she had vanished out of sight.

I spent the next several minutes carving the same section of my spoon without making any noticeable difference as I became painfully aware of the feather hidden inside of my pack. Every time I shifted, I found myself checking to make sure nothing had fallen against it. Every time Bone went near it, my attention snapped towards him.

He didn’t say anything more about it.

Somehow, that put me more on edge about it than if he had.

The sun had barely begun to dip in the sky when Bone suddenly set down his carving knife.

“That’s enough,” he said plainly.

I looked up from my spoon. “Enough of what?”

“Work.”

I waited for him to elaborate.

He didn’t.

“It’s not even that late,” I pointed out.

“I know.” Bone pushed himself up from the workbench and began cleaning up the curls of wood around his feet. “Go home.”

I blinked, trying to search for an explanation. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No.”

“Then why are you throwing me out?”

“I’m not throwing you out. I’m telling you we’re done for the day.”

“Usually we work until the evening meal.”

“Not today.”

I studied Bone’s face. He refused to look directly at me, directing all of his attention into sweeping wood shavings into his palm and tossing them into the fire.

I continued to search my thoughts, running through the day’s events over in my head.

My eyes narrowed as I recalled the bizarre exchange of glances Bone had with Echo earlier.

“Did Echo say something to you?” I asked.

“No,” Bone answered curtly.

“The two of you were looking at each other earlier.”

“I look at many people.”

“Not like that.”

Bone raised a brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know,” I said, narrowing my eyes further. “That’s why I’m asking.”

“Then perhaps you should stop.”

I continued to stare at him.

Letting out a sigh, Bone reached down and placed my unfinished spoon inside of my pack. He followed it with my knife, sharpening stone, cord, cleaning cloth, and whatever was left of the dried meat that I’d brought.

A flash of panic surged through me as he pulled the flap closed.

“The feather,” I said, catching his wrist.

Bone’s eyes lifted to mine as his grin threatened to return.

Without a word, he shuffled through my supplies and moved them carefully to the side. He tucked the feather where nothing would press against it, closed the pack, and held it out to me.

“Go find something else to do,” he said, planting his free hand on his hip.

“Like what?” I asked.

A smile pulled at the corners of Bone’s mouth again. “I’m certain you can think of someone.”

“ Something… ”

Bone snorted, “That too.”

“You’re terrible at this,” I commented, snatching my pack from his hand.

“At what?”

“Pretending.”

Bone gave an innocent shrug that looked even less convincing on him than it had on Echo.

I slung the pack over my shoulder and began making my way towards the main path. When I glanced back over my shoulder, Bone had already settled himself back at the workbench again, carving knife in hand.

I stopped.

“I thought you just said we were done for the day,” I said, crossing my arms.

“We are,” Bone responded.

“And yet, you’re still working.”

Bone lowered his head back over the handle. “I said we’re done.”

I stood there for another moment before finally giving in and stepping back onto the path.

The cold air did little to cool my face as I started toward the hut, grumbling under my breath about how my spoon wasn’t finished, there was still plenty of daylight left, and how certain friends needed to learn how to mind their own business.

I had made it halfway across the village when I saw Raven coming from the opposite direction.

She wasn’t carrying her bow or any hunting supplies. Shade wasn’t beside her either. Her arms were folded tightly against her chest, and judging from how high her shoulders were raised and the scowl that had settled on her face, she appeared to be just as irritated as I was.

She noticed me a moment later.

Both of us slowed.

“You’re done early,” she stated as I approached.

“So are you,” I pointed out.

“I wasn’t doing anything.”

“Neither is Bone, apparently.”

Raven looked around me toward his hut. “What happened?”

Raven walked beside me as we continued on along the path.

“He said we were finished for the day,” I continued, “He packed my things, handed me my pack, and told me to go find something else to do. Then the moment I started walking away, he went straight back to work.”

Raven made a quiet sound beside me.

I glanced down at her.

She had lifted one hand over her mouth, doing little to conceal her smile.

“What?” I asked her.

Raven shook her head. “Nothing.”

“That doesn’t look like nothing.”

Her smile widened.

I looked ahead again, sighing. “I’ve already had this conversation twice today.”

A laugh escaped her.

I frowned. “What is so funny?”

“You.”

“What about me?”

Raven lowered her hand. “ He used to do that.”

My steps slowed and the warmth left my face almost as quickly as it had arrived.

Raven seemed to realize what she’d said. Her smile faded, though it didn’t disappear entirely.

“Thorn did,” she added gently. “Whenever Bone would pick on him.”

I looked down at the path. “Oh.”

“He’d walk away muttering about him. Never loudly enough for Bone to hear everything, but never quietly enough to hide that he was doing it.”

“I wasn’t trying to sound like him.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t even realize—”

“David.”

I stopped.

Raven stopped with me. There was no fear in her expression. No suspicion. She looked almost fond.

“It wasn’t a bad thing,” she said. “He wasn’t angry when he did it.”

“I imagine he sounded angry.”

“He wanted to sound angry.” A trace of amusement returned to her voice. “Mostly, it gave him somewhere to put his embarrassment after Bone had made a fool out of him.”

I thought back to the way Bone grinned at me. “He seems to enjoy doing that.”

“He does.”

“So Thorn would just complain afterward?”

“Usually.” Raven’s eyes softened. “Sometimes he’d keep going until he ran out of things to complain about. Other times, he would make up new things Bone had done so he could keep going.”

I couldn't help but smile. “Sounds a little dramatic.”

“It was.”

We began walking again.

I adjusted the strap across my shoulder. Suddenly, I became very conscious of every movement I made.

“How could you tell?” I asked.

Raven glanced up at me. “Tell what?”

“When he was actually angry.”

Raven’s smile vanished. Her pace slowed slightly.

“If Thorn was truly angry, everyone knew.”

Her voice had changed. Not cold, but it was clear that the memory behind it was no longer a pleasant one.

“He either became loud, or very, very quiet.”

My brow furrowed. “Quiet?”

“Silent.” Raven’s attention remained fixed on the path as she continued. “When he shouted, at least you knew where he stood. He wanted the entire village to hear him. He’d pace. Bare his teeth. Knock things over. Sometimes he would keep shouting long after he’d lost his voice.”

Her arms tightened across her chest.

“But when he went quiet…” She paused. “That’s when you had to watch him.”

“Why?”

“Because he was thinking.”

Something cold settled inside me.

Raven’s shoulders raised slightly.

“He would stop moving. Stop answering. Sometimes he’d stare at one place for so long that I wondered whether he could still see it.” Her voice softened. “You never knew what he had decided until he moved again.”

I didn’t have to ask what sometimes happened when he did. The answer was written in the way Raven held herself.

I looked down at one of my hands. “Do I do that?”

Raven turned toward me. “Do what?”

“Get quiet like that.”

She studied me for a moment.

“No,” she said.

The answer came without hesitation.

“You go quiet when you’re frightened, or when you think you’ve upset someone.” Raven explained. “Sometimes you do it when there are too many things happening around you and you don’t know which one you’re supposed to fix first.”

Her expression softened as she rested a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “That’s not like him.”

I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

Raven bumped her shoulder lightly against my arm. “And you grumble when Bone embarrasses you.”

I looked down at her. Her smile had returned.

A smile tugged at my face. “I do not grumble.”

“You were doing it as you were approaching.”

“I was making an observation.”

“Several observations, apparently.”

“And they were all justified.”

Raven tried to stifle a laugh behind her hand. It wound up escaping her in a bout of muffled giggles.

I tried to glare at her, but the sound robbed the expression of whatever strength it might have had.

“Wonderful,” I muttered. “Now there are three of you.”

That only made her laugh harder.

I gave her a moment to recover before glancing along the path behind her.

“Where is Shade, anyway?” I asked.

“With Echo,” Raven replied with a huff.

“You left him there?”

Raven’s expression tightened again. “She insisted. Then she told me she needed privacy.”

My face twisted with confusion. “Echo needed privacy, but she kept Shade?”

“Apparently, she only needed privacy from me.”

Sounded about as suspicious as a certain hunter I knew who had said we were done for the day, then immediately went back to work.

The same unpleasant realization seemed to reach us at the same time.

“They planned this,” I said in a low voice.

Raven’s eyes narrowed. “Echo and Bone?”

I described the suspicious look I'd seen the two of them exchange. The one that made it seem like they had held an entire five-minute conversation in five seconds using nothing but their eyes.

So, Echo had told Raven that she needed privacy, and to not come back until the evening meal.

Bone had told me that we were done for the day.

A silence settled between us.

For a moment, neither of us moved. Villagers passed around us while we stood there, apparently dismissed from our usual routine until the evening meal.

Then Raven looked towards our hut.

“We could go home,” she suggested.

Home.

She said it without hesitation.

The word settled somewhere inside my chest, warm yet uncomfortable, though in a way I didn’t entirely dislike. It no longer brought the same clenching ache of homesickness it once had.

I adjusted the strap of my pack. “Yeah. We could.”

The walk back should have felt ordinary. We had returned to the hut together plenty of times over the past several days.

It didn’t.

The feather inside my pack seemed to grow heavier with every step.

I had intended to give it to her. At least, I thought I had. When I’d first picked it up, the idea had been simple. I would show Raven the colors, tell her they reminded me of her eyes, and hand it over.

That was before Bone had wrapped it.

Before Echo decorated it.

Before both of them looked at me as though I’d done something far more meaningful than just pick a feather up out of the snow.

Now it felt like the pack contained some sort of confession.

By the time we reached the hut, I had decided not to mention it.

Raven lifted the hide covering the entrance and stepped inside. I followed, removed my pack, and placed it against the wall next to the doorframe.

Then I moved it closer to the storage baskets.

Then farther away from them when I realized something might fall on it.

Raven crouched beside the fire and glanced over her shoulder. “Is something wrong?”

I shook my head as I shifted the pack again. “No.”

“You’ve moved that three times.”

“Just making sure it doesn't get in anybody's way.”

“It's not.”

I left it where it was and began feeding wood into the fire.

Behind me, Raven settled onto the hides.

I could feel her watching me.

I stared into the fire.

All I had to do was reach into the pack.

That was it.

I had fallen through a frozen lake. I had awakened in another world inside someone else’s body. I had killed rabbits and grouse with nothing but my hands and teeth. I had confessed that I wasn’t her husband.

Surely I could handle giving Raven a feather.

I remained beside the fire for several more seconds before pushing myself to my feet.

Raven's eyes followed me as I crossed the hut back to my pack and crouched beside it. I loosened the flap, carefully moved the sharpening stone and dried meat aside, and found the feather where Bone had placed it.

My hand closed around its wrapped base, then I stopped.

This was ridiculous.

“What are you doing?” Raven asked.

“Nothing.”

The word left my mouth before I could stop it.

Raven’s eyes narrowed.

I silently cursed Bone.

Then I pulled the feather from the pack.

The colors shifted in the firelight as I stood. Blue became green, green faded into black, and the bead beneath it swung gently from the cord Echo had tied around the base.

Raven’s suspicious expression gave way to surprise.

That almost made me put it back.

“I found this on the path,” I said, turning to her. “While I was on my way to Bone’s.”

She looked from the feather to me. “All right…”

Raven waited.

I swallowed as I held it awkwardly between us. “Bone wrapped it because he said I was going to break it.”

Her gaze dropped to the strip of hide around the shaft.

“And Echo added the cord and the bead,” I continued. “I didn’t ask her to. She just did it.”

A faint smile touched Raven’s mouth.

I felt like I was just making this worse.

I rolled the feather between the tips of my thumb and my forefinger. “I was only going to show it to you.”

Raven tilted her head. “Why?”

The feather suddenly felt very small between my fingers, the answer far too large to say aloud.

I looked at the feather instead of her. “The colors.”

“What about them?” she asked.

My grip tightened around the hide.

I could still put it away. I could say it reminded me of the lake, or the sky over the mountains, or some bird I’d seen back home. She might not believe me, but it would at least spare me from saying what Bone and Echo had already dragged out of me.

Instead, I forced myself to meet her eyes.

“They reminded me of you.”

Raven went still.

“Your eyes,” I specified. “They're a deep grey, but they look blue sometimes. Then the light changes and they look green. The feather did the same thing, so I picked it up for you.”

I nearly choked on those last words.

Warmth spread across Raven’s face as I extended the feather toward her.

“Here… If you want it.”

For one horrible moment, she didn’t move.

Then Raven carefully took it from my hand.

Her fingers brushed mine.

Neither of us pulled away immediately.

She studied the feather in silence, turning it toward the fire and watching the colors move across its surface. Her thumb passed over the dark wooden bead before tracing the wrapping Bone had placed around the base.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

Relief loosened the knot that had been building in my chest.

“Echo added most of that,” I admitted, gesturing towards the cord and bead.

“She made it look prettier.” Raven ran her thumb over the wrapping before lifting her eyes to mine. “You’re the one who saw it and thought of me.”

The relief in my chest twisted into something warmer and far less manageable.

I looked down. “Yeah.”

There was something almost playful in her voice when she answered.

“I thought so.”

I looked up again.

Raven was smiling.

Not the small, uncertain smile she sometimes gave me from across the fire. This one reached her eyes. The same eyes I had apparently started feeling a need to collect things for.

She lifted the feather and tucked its wrapped base into one of the narrow braids beside her ear. The cord hung against her jet black hair while the blue and green shimmered near her temple.

My heart fluttered.

Raven’s eyes lifted up to mine. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

Her smile widened. “You’ve been staring.”

The feather shifted in the light.

Bone and Echo had been right. It did look better on her.

“It suits you,” I admitted.

Raven’s hand rose to touch it again. “Thank you, David.”

Hearing my real name while she wore something I had chosen for her nearly finished what the smile had started.

I returned to the fire before my face could betray me any further.

Behind me, Raven gave a quiet laugh.

After prodding the logs a couple of times, I chose to settle on the hides next to her. She shifted closer to me. Closer than she usually did.

I told myself it was because that’s where the fire was the warmest. That explanation had always worked before.

Now, I wasn't so sure if it was just that anymore. 133Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGeLtDoGupU

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