Chapter 30: The First Night

Astrid

The day’s exercises finally ended, and exhaustion settled into me differently than anything I’d felt back at the academy, deep in my muscles, dirt caked into my boots, leaves tangled somewhere in my hair I hadn’t bothered untangling yet.

"Tomorrow I’m developing a wolf that hates exercise," Ivy announced dramatically as we walked back toward camp.

"That’s not how wolves work," I said.

"Then wolves are poorly designed."

I laughed, and we found our way to the fire, where students were already gathering, someone strumming an acoustic instrument nearby, conversation drifting easily around the flames. For once, nobody talked about classes or grades or royal gossip.

It felt strangely, wonderfully normal.

I noticed Reed and Xander seated with a group of seniors a short distance away, and something about them looked different out here. Reed’s shoulders had lost their usual formal rigidity. Xander was laughing loudly at something one of the seniors said, head thrown back, entirely unguarded.

I watched them for a moment longer than I meant to.

"You’re staring," Ivy said.

"I’m not."

"You absolutely were."

"I was looking at the fire."

She glanced toward the twins, unimpressed. "The fire is apparently six feet tall and has dark hair."

I nudged her hard enough to make her laugh.

Xander spotted me a moment later. "Astrid! Come settle an argument."

I pointed at myself. "Why me?"

"Because you’re the only person here who hasn’t already picked a side."

I approached cautiously, and it turned out the argument was about whether Xander had cheated during the day’s competition, which he insisted was slander of the highest order, gesturing wildly at anyone who dared suggest otherwise.

I sided against him without hesitation.

He looked personally betrayed. "I thought we were friends."

"We are."

"Then why are you attacking me?"

"Because you’re wrong."

The seniors around us burst out laughing, and Xander clutched his chest like I’d wounded him fatally. I found myself grinning wider than I had all day.

Someone suggested everyone share an embarrassing childhood story, and I tried immediately to slip away from the fire before it reached me, edging toward the tree line like I had somewhere urgent to be.

Xander blocked my path. "Absolutely not."

"I don’t have stories."

"Everyone has stories."

"She’s right," Reed said quietly.

I looked at him, surprised. "Thank you."

"She’s probably hiding them."

I glared at him. Xander burst out laughing.

The twins ended up sharing first, Xander describing some disastrous childhood incident involving an accidental shift in front of their mother that ended with half a room destroyed, complete with dramatic hand gestures to demonstrate the size of the wreckage. Reed added a dry correction partway through that somehow made the whole story funnier, the two of them bickering easily over the details like it was a familiar routine, one they’d clearly performed for an audience before.

Watching them like that, I saw brothers instead of princes for the first time since arriving at Moonshade.

Eventually someone turned to me, waiting expectantly.

I froze. I couldn’t tell them about the brothel, or my mother’s death, or the night I’d fled the only home I’d ever known.

Instead I gave them something safer, a small memory of getting into trouble with my mother once, sneaking into a market stall together and nearly getting caught by an angry vendor who’d chased us three streets down before we lost him laughing. I kept the details vague, warm around the edges.

Talking about her, even like that, brought an unexpected smile to my face.

It faded almost as quickly as it came.

Reed noticed. He didn’t ask about it in front of everyone, and I was grateful for that more than I let on.

The fire gradually thinned as students drifted off toward their tents, one by one disappearing into the dark until only a handful of us remained. Ivy went to bed not long after, leaving me sitting near the flames with Reed on one side and Xander on the other, nobody teasing me for once, the three of us simply existing together in the quiet.

"You know," Xander said eventually, "you’re less terrifying when you’re tired."

"You’re more annoying when you’re awake."

"Fair."

Reed laughed, quiet and brief, and I looked at him, startled by how rare that sound was.

"You laughed," I said.

He immediately straightened. "No, I didn’t."

Xander pointed at him. "I heard it."

"You imagined it."

I laughed, the sound easy and unguarded.

Xander eventually wandered off to help the other seniors clean up, leaving Reed and me alone beside the dying fire.

"Do you like it here?" Reed asked.

I considered it honestly. "More than I expected."

"Even without your phone?"

I smiled. "I didn’t have one to begin with."

He looked at me, and I realized what I’d just admitted. He didn’t push for an explanation. Instead he simply said, "You seem happier tonight."

I looked toward the fire. "Maybe I am."

A pause stretched between us, comfortable rather than heavy.

"I haven’t had many nights like this," I admitted.

He didn’t ask why. He just said, "You deserve more of them."

That landed somewhere deep, deeper than I knew how to respond to. I didn’t try.

Exhaustion finally caught up with me as I sat there, the flames blurring slightly at the edges of my vision, the murmur of conversation around the dying fire fading into something soft and distant. My eyes drifted shut without my permission.

When I woke briefly, the fire had burned lower, embers glowing dim against the dark. A blanket had been wrapped around my shoulders, and I realized I’d leaned slightly against Reed, who hadn’t moved away.

"Did you put this on me?" I asked, voice thick with sleep.

"You were cold."

"Thank you."

He simply nodded, and I closed my eyes again, letting myself drift back under.

This time, I didn’t feel the familiar urge to stay half-awake, to keep one ear open for danger the way I always had. I let myself fully sleep instead, surrounded by people I no longer felt the need to protect myself from.

I didn’t know what Reed felt. I didn’t know what Xander felt. I didn’t even fully understand what I felt myself, only that something in my chest had loosened tonight in a way it hadn’t in longer than I could remember.

But something was shifting, quietly and undeniably, somewhere beneath everything I’d built my life around protecting.

And tomorrow, the academy planned to take us even deeper into the wilderness, further from the fire, further from anything resembling safety.