The room was quiet, the sounds of the inn reduced to the occasional floorboard groan or distant murmur through the walls. Their boots were kicked off and forgotten near the foot of the bed. Under the thin blanket, Maia lay tucked against Koda, her leg thrown over his, her fingers idly tracing the faint scar along his ribs.
Neither of them had spoken for several minutes. There wasn't a need to.
Until Maia shifted just slightly, her voice breaking the silence in a murmur half against his chest.
"You're really going to make me say it first, aren't you…"
Koda blinked, glancing down at her. "Say what?"
She leaned back just enough to look at him properly, her brows drawing together in mock disbelief. "We're together. We're definitely together. But I've yet to hear you say anything about… us." Her voice softened. "I've yet to tell you how deeply you've impacted me."
Koda gave her a lopsided smile, caught somewhere between bashful and unsure. His cheeks flushed the faintest bit as he met her eyes, the silence that followed heavy with implication.
He gave her a look—one that clearly said, Is that really necessary?
Maia rolled her eyes, grinning despite herself. "Yes. Yes, Koda."
He didn't answer right away, and the quiet stretched between them again, a held breath.
"Fine," she said at last, shifting closer, her hand resting flat over his heart. "Then I really will go first…"
Maia let the quiet hang for just a moment longer, like she was deciding where to start—not because she didn't know, but because the weight of the truth sat heavy on her chest. Her fingers remained pressed gently against Koda's heart as if grounding herself.
"I think it started before I even understood what it meant," she said softly, eyes drifting toward the darkened ceiling, not quite meeting his. "Back at the orphanage. You remember how it was—cold floors, colder food, too many kids and not enough blankets or patience to go around."
Koda gave a faint nod. He remembered.
"I was the smallest for a long time," she went on. "The weakest. One of the new ones no one really noticed. The older boys used to steal food from my plate, remember? Or shove me down during chores just to laugh. And you—" She smiled faintly, eyes glimmering. "You'd swoop in like it was nothing. Not just for me. For any of us. You never even got angry. You'd just… step in, take the shove, put the food back, tell them to stop—and they listened."
She exhaled, the breath catching slightly with the swell of old emotion. "You got bruises for it. More than once. I remember once, you got caught sneaking food to a sick little girl who wouldn't eat, and they beat you for it. You told the matron you stole it for yourself just so the girl wouldn't get blamed. And then, after all that, when I came to thank you, you smiled like none of it mattered. Like the bruises were nothing."
She turned to face him again fully, her eyes earnest and wide in the dim light.
"You've always been that way, Koda. Quiet and fierce. You carried everything and still made it feel like the weight was nothing. When the younger kids had nightmares, you'd sit up with them until they fell asleep. When I was sick, you skipped your chores to sit by me, even though you got locked in the cold pantry for it." She reached up, gently brushing a thumb along his cheek. "You don't talk about those years. I think sometimes you barely remember them. But I do."
Her voice softened, cracking just a little.
"I remember the first time I thought it might be more than just admiration. It was snowing. You'd torn your only coat to make extra wrappings for a kid with a fever. You gave him your shoes too. I found you later in the alley behind the orphanage, barefoot, shivering, coughing. And when I asked why—why you always gave everything—you looked at me and said, 'Because someone has to. Might as well be me.'"
She shook her head with a quiet laugh, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. "I was maybe twelve then. I didn't understand what I was feeling. Just that it made my chest ache. Not in a bad way. Just… big. Like I was seeing something I was never supposed to see."
She finally met his gaze again, her voice barely above a whisper. "I loved you even then. It just took me years to realize that's what it was."
The silence after her words was tender and fragile, the weight of her truth resting between them.
She gave him a small smile, brave but trembling at the edges. "So… your turn."
Koda didn't respond right away.
His eyes searched hers in the dimness—drawn, held, quiet. He hadn't flinched at her words, but his hands had tightened around hers, just enough to say that he'd felt every piece of what she gave him.
The moments she spoke of weren't long-lost to him. They were buried, maybe—under a mountain of pain, and battles, and blood—but not forgotten. And now, one by one, they were rising back into the light.
"I remember all of that," he finally said, his voice low and steady, a whisper meant just for her. "Not the exact days… but the feelings. The cold. The way the matron never looked anyone in the eye. The stink of mold in the lower dormitory. The way the bigger kids got mean because they were scared, and the younger ones cried until their voices went hoarse."
He paused, breathing in slow, like the words were heavier than he expected.
"But mostly… I remember you."
Maia blinked, and he went on, the weight of his words growing sharper, deeper.
"You were always this… light, even then. It didn't matter how hard things were. You found reasons to smile. To share. I remember the first time you gave your bread to a boy who scraped his knee and couldn't walk to the table. You were barely standing yourself. You always put others before you—without thinking, without expecting anything."
A flicker of warmth spread in his expression, but it was edged in something else—almost reverent. "You were the only good thing in that place that didn't ask for anything in return."
He shifted, leaning closer, their foreheads nearly touching now. "The matron hated when we laughed. Said it made us unruly. So you used to whisper stupid jokes in the dark after lights out—until someone would snort, and we'd all get punished." A soft breath of amusement slipped from his lips. "You kept doing it anyway."
His eyes glazed slightly, not with tears, but with memory. "You were the only one who could pull me back when it got bad. When I started thinking there wasn't anything in the world worth hoping for. I'd go quiet for days sometimes, remember? And you'd just sit next to me. You never pushed. You just… stayed. You were there."
He swallowed, then let the next part fall like a stone in still water.
"I can tell you the exact moment I realized I loved you."
That caught Maia's breath.
"It was right after my seventeenth birthday. You'd gotten your hands on this stupid little candle—blue, with a crooked wick—and you snuck it out to the back stairs. Said every birthday needed a candle, no matter how old we got." He smiled at the memory, but it was soft and tinged with awe. "You lit it and held it out to me like it meant something. And I looked at you, with that grin, your hair all wind-tangled, and your cheeks red from the cold… and I couldn't breathe. Not because you were beautiful, though you were. Are. But because for the first time, I understood what safety felt like. What home felt like. And it wasn't a place. It was you."
He closed his eyes a moment, letting the weight of that truth settle between them.
"I didn't say anything then. I thought… it wasn't my place to want something so good. I was already too broken, too soaked in the world's ugliness. You were meant for something more."
He opened his eyes again, meeting hers with unflinching sincerity.
"But here you are. Still beside me. Still my light."
Koda reached up, cupping her face with calloused hands far gentler than any weapon he'd ever wielded.
"And if you ever doubt it—know this: There's no future I'd fight for that doesn't have you in it."
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was full. Of past and present and the tender threads of something like forever.
Maia didn't speak at first—didn't need to.
Her eyes shimmered in the dim candlelight, wide and wet, her breath caught between awe and joy. Koda leaned in, slowly, deliberately, as though the space between them was sacred and fragile. His hands still cradled her face, thumbs brushing along her cheekbones, and when their lips met, it wasn't rushed or hungry—it was reverent.
A long, quiet kiss that said everything he had no words left to give.
Time thinned. The weight of the past melted beneath the softness of her mouth on his, the taste of shared memory and quiet promises. She kissed him back like she'd been waiting her whole life for this to be real, for the war-torn boy she loved to finally see what he meant to her. And when they finally broke the kiss, their foreheads rested together, breaths mingling.
Koda whispered, barely louder than a heartbeat, "Maia, I love you."
Maia's lips parted with a breath that trembled. She didn't hesitate.
"I've always loved you, Koda."
And they just stayed there, curled close, two worn souls bound tighter than any vow.
There were no more nightmares that night, as Koda rested body and soul. His heart free.