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The fire at camp had burned low, its glow soft and gold against the deep velvet of the night. Smoke rose in thin, lazy ribbons, snagging in the cool breath of the night before vanishing into the dark for good. The others had long since retreated, their laughter and rustling bedrolls fading into silence. Only the quiet crackle of embers remained, and the faint hiss of wind coming through the tall grass.
She sat beside Gale, knees drawn close, forearms looped loosely around them. Her gaze was fixed on the heart of the fire, where the last coals pulsed and dimmed. The hush should have been a balm. Sitting next to him should have been a balm. No monsters, no strategy, no interruptions — just the two of them. But the quiet pressed too heavily this time, and the warmth could not quite reach the hollow it found in her.
It had been gnawing at her since earlier in the evening, listening to him speak of Waterdeep. He’d told the story in that warm, unhurried cadence he saved for things he cherished — painting the bustle of markets, the scent of fresh ink and parchment in bookshop where the owner always saved him rare volumes, the shaded alcove of a tea house tucked between two apothecaries that brewed his favorite blend. Names and streets had fallen from his lips as if they lived there still, just behind his teeth. And with each one, she’d felt the distance between his world and hers widen.
She had smiled as he spoke, even teased once or twice, but the image clung stubbornly: Gale in that city of light and learning, moving with the easy familiarity of someone among his own. She could not picture herself there — not as she was now, mud-streaked and travel-worn, her skills sharpened for survival rather than salons and spell debates.Hells, she was barely keeping up with everything fate had thrown at them now.
And then there were the small, deliberate things he did without thought: fingers deft in unfastening the stubborn buckles on her armor, the way he sat a hot drink in her hands before she’d even notice she was cold, waiting until she had eaten before taking his own portion, curling toward her in sleep as though she were his shelter. All of it left her wondering, not for the first time, why. What in the gods’ name could he possibly see in her?
“You’re quiet tonight.” His voice came low, as if unwilling to disturb the stillness more than necessary. A faint crease had settled between his brows. “Did I…say something earlier?”
She blinked toward him. “What?”
“You’ve seemed distant since this afternoon,” he went on, eyes searching her face. “If I’ve done something–”
“You haven’t,” she cut in, quicker than she meant to. Her hand found his, squeezing once as if she could press the reassurance through skin and bone, though she wasn’t sure for whose benefit.
He studied her for a long moment, his thumb brushing the back of her hand as though tracing a thought. “I would know, you realize, if you were lying.”
A reluctant smile touched her lips despite herself. “It’s not you. Not…exactly.” Her fingers closed more firmly around his. “I just—“ She exhaled, eyes falling to the threadbare leather at her knees. “I don’t know what you see when you look at me. Especially now.” She gave a small, self-conscious laugh, sweeping a hand at her travel-stained clothes, her wind-tangled hair. “I’m tired, half-feral at this point, and you speak of life so far from this that I can’t imagine belonging in it. I’m not clever enough. I’m not…” she trailed off, shaking her head. “…enough.”
The words sat heavy between them.
Gale shifted, the fire’s dim light catching in his eyes until they looked almost molten and unblinking. “You think my feelings are swayed by your polish or whether you could charm a room of scholars?” There was no anger in his words, only quiet astonishment. “By gods, is that truly what you think of me?”
She shook her head, though the knot in her chest only seemed to pull tighter. “I just think you deserve someone who–”
“Stop,” His voice carried no sharpness, only a certainty that stilled her. He eased his hands from hers, but only so he could lift both to her face. His palms were warm, his thumbs resting along the curves of her cheekbones. The gesture usually steadied her, but tonight it set her heart stumbling. In the flicker of the embers, his deep brown eyes caught gold.
“I am in awe of you,” he said, as though the words had been sitting on his tongue for a long time. “Do you understand? Not for who you might be in an imagined life, but for who you are here. Now. Every moment I have known you.” His hands cradled her more securely. “You astonish me.”
His thumbs brushed lightly across her skin. “You think you’re less because you haven’t walked my streets? Those streets would be poorer without your shadow in them.”
Her throat felt too tight for an answer. The truth in his voice was undeniable, yet the knot inside her did not yield. She managed a faint smile, though he watched her with a kind of measuring stillness. Then the crease returned to his brow, as if some idea were prying its way into his thoughts.
“Gods,” he breathed, almost to himself, his gaze flickering over her face as though committing it to memory. “If only you could see what I see…you’d never doubt again.” His eyes narrowed slightly in consideration of some private decision. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, tapping a finger at his temple, “our unwelcome passengers might serve some purpose beyond threatening to turn us into mind flayers.”
Her breath caught. “You want to use the tadpoles?”
His jaw set, a shadow passing over his expression. “I despise them,” he admitted, the words quiet but edged. “The thought of anything inscribing itself into my mind — or yours — turns my blood. You know that.” His hands lingered against her cheeks a heartbeat longer before falling away. “This would not be my first choice.”
“Couldn’t you just…use the Weave?” Her voice barely disturbed the air between them, a breath of sound more than a question. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“I could,” he admitted with a nod, his tone edged with reluctance. “But the Weave is still my hand on the lens. Polished edges, softened shadows. Truth, yes, but arranged for your eyes. A vision you stand apart from.”
“You’ve felt what the tadpoles can do,” he continued. “How raw it is. No veil, no pretense or polite distance between thought and feeling. This–” He tapped two fingers lightly to his temple again. “This would be different. Unfiltered. You wouldn’t just watch from the shore – you’d be in the current.”
Her pulse stumbled. “That’s…not exactly a light thing to offer.”
“No,” he agreed softly. “Which is why I offer it only because I need you to know – without the smallest shadow of doubt – what you are to me. Not just my words, but the marrow of them. If it takes a parasite’s thread to bridge that distance, then so be it.”
The wind stirred the loose hair at her temple, and for a moment all she could hear was the soft weave of his breath with hers. She gave a small, steady nod.
He closed the remaining space between them. His knees brushed hers; his hands rose to cradle her face once again, warm against the cool night. His forehead lowered until it touched hers, and the world narrowed to the heat of his palms and the slow, measured rhythm of his breathing. She let her eyes fall shut, tilting forward to meet him – and opened herself to the connection.
The link flared to life between them in an instant.
It wasn’t just sight, it was his breath filling her lungs, the thrum of his pulse drumming steady and strong in her veins. She tasted the sharpness of night air as he tasted it, felt the faint ache in his fingers when he longed to reach for her and didn’t. She was him in every moment he remembered.
The first memory unfurled like warm silk: her laughter, bright and ringing after one of his puns by the fire. She’d rolled her eyes, trying to smother a smile, but inside him the moment felt different. In his chest, joy surged up so fast it was almost dizzying – the sharp, breathless thrill of being the reason she smiled. Beneath it all, there was the quiet hunger to see that look again, to draw it from her a hundred more times, and the whispered fear that perhaps he never could again if fate turned cruel.
The firelight then faded into darkness. The Shadow-cursed lands, the stench of rot and damp earth in the air. She moved, her daggers in motion. She moved through enemies like a dance, each strike precise, each turn a piece of living art. In him, she felt the veneration – sharp and electric – flare in his chest. She was the breathless admiration, the quiet disbelief that someone so fierce could also be so gentle with him. She lit the darkness simply by existing within it, the only point of brightness in a world that seemed built to snuff such light out. Underneath the awe lay something heavier: the fierce, almost panicked hope that she would survive this. That he would not have to watch her brilliance vanish into the dark.
Then – starlight. The conjured kind spun for her alone. He’d sat there for so long, weaving every strand of magic to create it as if it were a prayer. She felt the ache in him – that terrible pull between what Mystra had demanded of him and the desperate will to make this night unspoiled, perfect. The thought that it might be his last night alive, every glance and word was chosen with care, as though he could press them into memory so vividly that even death wouldn’t erase them. The pounding of his heart before he leaned in was almost unbearable, thick with nerves, sharpened by urgency. And then – the soft press of her mouth to his. The certainty that poured through him in that instant, burning away all resignation. His life had just shifted, irrevocably, and the will to live – for her – blazed into being with just a kiss.
Another memory flickered, earlier than the others. The Weave crackling around them, tugging them closer in its gravity. And then — she shared a vision of the two of them. Not just playful illusion, but with the kind of detail and tenderness that told him it hadn’t been conjured from nowhere. In that instant, she felt his pulse stumble, his breath hitch — the dawning realization that she might think of him that way. It was fragile, like the first flare of a burning star in the night sky, but it was the beginning – the crack in the careful, cordial distance he had kept between them. Behind that moment sat his unspoken vow to guard that fragile light until he could be certain it was real.
The weight shifted again – heavier now. The moment he told her about the orb. In his chest, she felt the press of guilt like an iron brand, squeezing until the words nearly died in his throat. The sick curl of dread in his stomach. Shame biting deep, for the hiding, for endangering her, of knowing he could destroy them all. He had braced for her to turn away, sending him away for the severing of trust. He would have understood if she had. But she hadn’t. She’d stayed. More than that — she wanted to help. And she’d meant it. Relief flooded him so fiercely it hurt, like breathing again after being held under too long. Gratitude swelled, tangled with disbelief and something larger still: the terrifying, humbling realization that her loyalty was not conditional, and that perhaps he had found someone who would not abandon him even when she should.
The memories poured, one after another, spilling into her until she couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. Her bent over a torn sleeve by lamplight — his pulse catching with the urge to touch her and not break her focus. Standing by the river, dawn washing over her, wind threading through her hair — his lungs tightened at the sight, the aching need to memorize every detail. Her slipping an apple into a tiefling child’s hand – his heart pulling taut with the quiet proof of her kindness.
Each memory swelled until they pressed against her from the inside, his love saturating every inch of her. Not a flimsy infatuation, but something rooted deep, unshakeable. It filled her until it felt she might split from the sheer amount of him inside her.
The connection loosened like the slow unspooling of breath, yet it didn’t vanish. It drifted back from the forefront, slipping gently from her skin, leaving threads of him woven into her in ways she didn’t want to unravel. Her heartbeat returned as her own, but it carried a faint echo of his, a phantom drum that thudded in her chest unwilling to leave. Every inhale brought with it the lingering warmth of him, the shimmer of how he had looked at her in those memories – with an unguarded devotion that had nearly undone her. It was a keepsake left in the hollow of her chest, something she would carry gladly and guard fiercely.
Her breath trembled, breaking against the sudden flood in her chest. Tears welled and spilled freely, hot against the cool air, from the sheer enormity of what she now held inside. She had felt him – all of him – and the weight of it was almost too vast to carry.
“Gale,” she whispered, the sound barely holding together under its own softness. “I felt it. Gods, it’s…so much.”
His lips curved in something between a smile and a surrender, eyes glinting wet in the fire’s glow. “It is,” he murmured, and the words came with a reverence that curled through her. “It’s everything.”
Before she could think, she was kissing him – her hands curling into his shirt, clutching as if she might fall away without him. His response was immediate, his hands sliding into her hair, threading through it with a conscious care, holding her as though she were something sacred and breakable all at once.
His mouth pressed into hers, tasting of relief, promises unspoken, every moment they had just shared without words. Her lips parted under his, and it was like breathing each other in, each inhale carrying the faintest trace of conjured starlight. She could taste the faint sweetness of tea from the little shop he’d spoken of, smell the phantom paper-dust of that Waterdeep bookshop. She saw flashes of streets and the city’s pulse, not as a place apart from her, but as though she had walked it beside him all her life.
The world she’d once thought belonged only to him – that glittering, unreachable life she could never quite picture herself in – now felt like hers, too, stitched into her as surely as the memories of battle and road-dust. In that moment, it wasn’t just his life anymore…it was theirs .
When they parted, he stayed close, his forehead resting lightly against hers. “Promise me something,” he said, and though his tone was soft, it carried the weight of something he could not take back.
Her throat ached. “What?”
“That you’ll never doubt again. Not after this. You’ve changed me in ways I will spend the rest of my life thanking you for – and I don’t speak of forever lightly.” His finger lightly brushed the line of her jaw. “You are my constant. My anchor. My choice, always.”
Her answer caught in her chest, but she managed a small nod. He leaned in, pressing a slow kiss to her temple, another to her cheek, then her lips – each one lingering, sealing the words between them like vows. The knot that had lived in her chest for hours finally loosened, unraveling in a rush of heat and ache as he drew her close. His arms wrapped around her, not just holding but keeping her, and she folded into him as if there had never been anywhere else she belonged.
They stayed like that for a long time, the fire dying to embers, until eventually moving to his tent, his arm snug around her waist as they settled down. Even then, the remnants of the connection lingered in her body like scattered embers inside her, each touch from him fanning them back to life.
When his fingers traced absently along her arm, she felt a flicker of his awe from that night in the shadow-cursed lands. When his knee brushed against hers, warmth bloomed in her ribs, echoing the quiet joy she’d felt in him by the river at dawn. When he murmured her name in that drifting place between waking and asleep, she felt the catch in his breath from their first kiss.
Long after his breathing deepened, she lay awake in the curve of him, each rise and fall of his chest against her back a reminder: he loves me, he loves me, he loves me. She finally drifted into dreams with that truth burning low and constant in her, as a flame she would feed for the rest of her days.