“You awake?” Carys called from across the room.

Bri craned her neck up to peer at her. Her thick braid draped over her shoulder as Carys finished lacing up her boots. She turned to the pile of discarded clothes beside her and chucked them into the wicker basket. It was one of the many benefits of staying in a palace: they didn’t have to wash their own clothes. With the scorching sun of the Western Court, she bet they’d be clean and dry again by nightfall.

“How was the run? Didn’t get eaten by any crocodiles, I see.” Bri snickered. “I’ve heard to steer clear of the rivers around Swifthill.”

“I wasn’t too adventurous.” Carys laughed, buckling her weapons back around her waist. “I just ran the main road into the city and stopped in the markets. I found a place that does the best fried bread.”

“You went for a run to go get fried bread?” Chuckling, Bri propped herself up on her elbow as the midday sun battled through the shrouded windows. “I’d expect no less from a Southerner.”

The Southern Court was the home of the green witches, where the food was divine, the drinks flowed freely, and the parties never ended.

“I got a few trinkets for the kids too,” she said, holding up three little figurines. The miniature dolls were made of flax and dressed in tiny scraps of the woven textiles customary to the West.

Ever since Carys found out about her halfling sister, Morgan, she’s brought toys back for her niece and nephews on all of her travels. Carys and Morgan were instantly close, in a way that only siblings could be. Bri tried to turn her mind from Talhan, but the harder she tried to focus on something else, the more his image flashed behind her eyelids.

Bri tossed her feet over the edge of the bed and stretched. “You spoil those three.”

“That’s what aunts are for,” Carys replied with a smile.

“You just wait for how Morgan repays you with your own children.” Bri laughed.

Carys unbraided her hair and combed her fingers through her straight blond locks. “I don’t need to worry about that because I’m not having children.”

Bri twisted to face her. “Why?” she asked, waving toward Carys. “Because of that? You still bleed, worse than anyone I know.”

“No, not because of this,” Carys muttered, nodding down to her body. The leather cord in her mouth muffled her words. Her fingers made quick work of weaving her hair into a tighter, neater braid that she tied off with the cord. “The life of a soldier doesn’t suit children, anyway.”

“And what if you become the Eastern Queen?”

“Then I will name one of Morgan’s children as my heir,” she said with a shrug. “Besides, it’s more fun to spoil them than to teach them to be good people.”

Bri guffawed. “True.”

Bri knew one day she wanted to have children, though she hadn’t decided which route she would take to make a family for herself. The world was in too much chaos to consider it anytime soon, but the thought sat there in the back of her mind—a seed that one day would become an entire family tree.