Eve’s POV
She woke up late.
Later than she had woken up in months, the sun already high outside the window, the estate noisy with its morning routine, the sll of coffee drifting up from the kitchen. She lay in Damian’s bed and stared at the ceiling and waited for the familiar pull in her chest.
It wasn’t there.
Not Varek. Not the throne calling for her. Not the anxious incomplete feeling she had been carrying for three weeks without fully understanding what it was.
Just...nothing. Warm and quiet and nothing.
It took her a mont to recognize that feeling.
Peace. That was what it was. She had forgotten what it felt like.
Damian was already gone from the bed. She could hear him sowhere downstairs, his voice low, talking to soone. Silas probably. They had their morning routine, coffee and correspondence and quiet conversation before the rest of the house woke up, and even yesterday, even after everything, so things stayed the sa.
She lay there for a few more minutes just letting herself exist without anything pulling at her.
Then she got up.
Damon was in the kitchen when she ca downstairs.
He was sitting at the table with a bowl of cereal and his phone and the relaxed posture of soone who had nowhere to be and was enjoying it thoroughly. He looked up when she walked in and his face did that thing it did...warm and imdiate, like she was the best thing that had walked through a door all morning.
"She lives," he said.
"I slept for ten hours," she said.
"You needed it." He pushed the chair across from him out with his foot. "Sit. I’ll make you sothing."
"You’re eating cereal," she said.
"That’s ," he said. "You get actual food."
She sat down while he got up and moved to the stove, and she watched him pull things out of the refrigerator with the easy comfort of a man in his own kitchen. He moved the sa way he moved everywhere, like he belonged there, like the space arranged itself around him naturally.
She had noticed that about him early. Long before she had understood what she felt about him.
"How are you feeling?" he asked without turning around.
"The pull is gone," she said. "The thing in my chest. I woke up and it wasn’t there."
He turned around to look at her. "Gone gone? Or just quiet?"
"Gone," she said. "Completely. Like..." She thought about how to describe it. "Like a tooth that’s been aching for weeks and then one morning it just stops. You keep waiting for the pain to co back and it doesn’t."
Damon looked at her for a mont. "That’s good," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"Does it feel weird? Not having it there?"
She considered that honestly. "A little," she said. "I got used to it. It was uncomfortable but it was also proof that sothing was there. That the throne was real and waiting." She paused. "Without it I keep checking, expecting to find it."
"But it’s done," he said.
"It’s done," she said.
He turned back to the stove. "Then let it be done," he said. "You don’t have to keep checking."
She looked at his back.
He was right. He had a way of saying things that were completely simple and completely correct at the sa ti, with no effort at all, like the truth was just obvious to him and he didn’t understand why it wasn’t obvious to everyone else.
She loved that about him.
"Damon," she said.
"Hm?" He didn’t turn around.
"Thank you," she said. "For yesterday. For being there. For..." She paused. "For being you. Specifically."
He was quiet for a second.
Then he said, "You already thanked yesterday."
"I’m thanking you again," she said.
He turned around. Looked at her across the kitchen with the egg in one hand and the spatula in the other and his expression doing the open unmanaged thing that he didn’t try to hide.
"You don’t have to keep thanking ," he said. "I was always going to be there. That’s not sothing you thank soone for. It’s just..." He stopped. "It’s just what you do for the person you love."
Eve looked at him.
He turned back to the stove like he hadn’t just said sothing that settled sowhere deep in her chest.
She didn’t say anything else.
She didn’t need to.
***
Silas found her in the library after breakfast.
She had gone there without really deciding to, just wandered through the estate the way she had been doing all morning, relearning the feel of it without anything urgent pulling at her. She ran her fingers along the spines of books she had never read and looked out the windows at the grounds and let herself just exist in the space.
She was standing at the window when he ca in.
He didn’t say anything at first. Just ca and stood beside her and looked out at the sa grounds she was looking at. The dogs were out there, Brynn’s newest ones, the ones nad after Court nobles, tumbling over each other near the far hedge.
"You slept," he said finally.
"Ten hours," she said.
"Good." He glanced at her. "You needed more than that but ten is a start."
"Thank you for that," she said.
"You’ve been running on empty for months," he said. "Your body knows what it needs. Let it rest."
She looked at the dogs.
"Can I ask you sothing?" she said.
"Yes," he said.
"What do you want?" she said. "Not about the throne or the Conclave or any of it. Just...for yourself. What do you actually want now that this is done?"
Silas was quiet for a mont. She had learned not to rush his silences. He wasn’t avoiding the question. He was actually thinking about it, giving it the sa careful attention he gave everything.
"This," he said finally.
She looked at him. "This what?"
"This." He nodded toward the window. The grounds. The estate settling into its ordinary Tuesday. "I want this to be the main thing. Not the crisis managent. Not the border disputes and the correspondence and the threats." He paused. "I want the pack to be safe and the estate to be ho and the people I love to be in the sa building." He looked at her. "That’s what I want."
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