Chapter 127 – The Released Weight.

The banquet dishes were washed by Kael and Aurelia-Elysia shortly before midnight.

The Bastion manor gradually fell quiet, with the bedroom doors along the hallway closing one by one as the exhaustion of rich food and mana wine took its toll on the squad.

Diana went up to the master bedroom at the end of the hall.

She closed the oak door, slid the latch, and took off her black leather coat, hanging it on the wooden coat rack. She removed the Crown of Arcane Sovereignty from her brow, setting the metal circlet and its purple diamond upon the nightstand beside the pine lamp.

Diana changed into a loose gray cotton shirt and soft trousers, sitting down on the edge of the wide bed.

She ran her right hand along the base of her obsidian horns, massaging her scalp where the weight of the circlet had rested all day.

The silence of the room was the same comfortable silence as the night before the expedition, but Diana's mind was not sketching battle plans. For the first time in weeks, her thoughts were clear of damage calculations and dungeon routes.

The door latch gave a faint click.

The brass handle turned without a sound from the hinges, driven by the precision of 109 Agility.

The door opened slowly.

Rhea stood in the doorway.

The girl wore a simple white cotton nightgown reaching down to her knees, her long silver hair falling loose over bare shoulders. She held a feather pillow under her left arm, her wolf ears slightly drooping to the side, looking at Diana with amber eyes devoid of any teasing or the jealousy from the dining table.

There was only a raw, gentle, and unmistakable need in the girl's gaze.

Diana did not ask what she was doing there.

She made no sarcastic remarks about the door lock and invented no technical justifications.

The Commander simply extended her right hand, pulled the thick linen blanket toward the open side of the mattress, and looked calmly into Rhea's eyes.

***

Rhea closed the door behind her with a tap of her bare foot, walked across the wool rug without a sound, and slipped into bed.

The wolf girl did not linger on the edge of the mattress.

She slid to the center of the bed in that very second, wrapping both arms around Diana's waist, pulling the Commander's body close until they were both lying on their sides across the low pillows.

Rhea buried her face directly into the crook between Diana's chin and shoulder, looping one leg over the Commander's legs and drawing the blanket over them both with her free hand.

A continuous, deep, relaxed purr began vibrating in Rhea's chest, filling the silence of the room.

Diana slid her right arm beneath the nape of Rhea's neck, drawing the wolf girl's head closer against her chest, while her left hand settled firmly on the girl's back, feeling Rhea's warm breath against the collar of her shirt.

Neither spoke for the first ten minutes.

They simply lay there in the dark, listening to each other's breathing and letting the warmth of physical contact wash away the remaining exhaustion of recent days.

***

Rhea curled her fingers into the fabric of Diana's shirt, her voice coming out in a muffled whisper against the Commander's skin:

“I was afraid, Diana...”

Diana kept her hand resting on the wolf girl's back, without interrupting.

“When you shouted my name from the other side of that ice and the floor broke...” Rhea spoke softly, her amber eyes staring into the room's gloom, “...I looked down into that dark hole for hours. I thought you were gone forever and that I would have to live in this house without you.”

Diana closed her eyes slowly, feeling the soft texture of Rhea's silver hair against her chin.

The Commander remembered the darkness of the fall into the abyss. She remembered the pain of broken ribs and the suffocating loneliness of eating cold bread in a tavern full of strangers in the Circle of Gluttony.

She had spent her whole life believing she needed no one to draw breath.

Yet having Rhea's arms around her waist on that soft mattress brought a relief that no attribute point and no gold coin could ever buy.

“I'm not going anywhere without you, Rhea,” Diana said in a low tone, her gentle voice resounding in the wolf girl's chest. “That cave-in was an accident. But tomorrow we all head down together through the worm tunnel. The Bastion down there is ready to welcome the faction.”

Rhea lifted her face a few inches from the pillow, looking into Diana's dark eyes with golden rings just inches away.

The wolf girl reached out and touched the side of Diana's face with the tips of warm fingers, feeling the cool Archdemon skin and the base of the black horns.

“Do you promise?” Rhea asked softly.

“I promise,” Diana replied firmly.

***

Rhea offered a small, sweet, relaxed smile, touching her forehead to Diana's for a moment before resting her head once more in the crook of her friend's neck, closing her eyes.

Diana began running her fingers through the golden highlights along Rhea's back, gently and rhythmically stroking the base of the girl's silver ears.

Gradually, Rhea's purring grew softer and further apart.

The wolf girl's tense muscles eased entirely beneath the linen blanket, and in less than five minutes the girl drifted into a deep, peaceful sleep, her calm breath warming Diana's chest.

Diana stayed awake for a few minutes more, looking up at the room's dark wooden ceiling and listening to the early morning wind lightly brush the Bastion's windows.

She pulled the blanket up to cover Rhea's shoulders, drawing her friend close against her own frame, and slowly closed her eyes.

The Commander was home. The team was united.

And with the certainty that she would never again march alone through this Hell, Diana let sleep carry her away until dawn.