The door to Koda's room clicked softly behind them.
They didn't speak.
Didn't need to.
The streets of Callestan had been quiet as they made their way back — not the usual silence of discipline or fear, but a hushed reverence. The kind that followed soldiers returning from the brink.
Inside, the room was warm. The brazier in the corner had been restoked. The water basin refilled. A fresh cloth laid beside folded linens and a pot of healing salve — as if someone in the Order had known what they'd need and left it with care.
Maia moved first. Her hands worked without hesitation, unbuckling his pauldrons, stripping away the scarred black leather with care. She didn't speak, but her fingers lingered longer than usual, tracing along bruises beginning to bloom beneath his collarbone.
She helped him sit, kneeling in front of him with the salve, and began to clean the dirt and blood from his skin. The silence wasn't cold — it was full. Like the pause between breaths.
Koda stared ahead at nothing. Then he spoke.
"It was different this time."
Maia looked up, not stopping her hands. "Greed?"
He nodded.
"I've seen the peace before. Versions of it. The quiet life. But not like that. Not with the garden. Not with you laughing in the next room." His voice faltered. "And not with… our child."
Maia stilled.
He closed his eyes.
"She ran through the hall barefoot. I didn't even see her clearly. I just… heard her laugh. That little burst of joy, full of life. It cracked me wide open."
Maia's hands came to rest on his thighs, gentle but grounding.
"It took everything I had to step away," he whispered. "And even now… it hurts. Because part of me thinks that future could be real."
"It can," she said softly. "But not if we take it now. Not if we cheat to get there."
"I know."
He opened his eyes and looked at her — really looked at her.
"I walked away from it. Not because I didn't want it, but because I do. So much it almost broke me."
Maia reached up and placed her hand on his chest, right over his heart.
"Then we build it," she said. "Together. No matter how long it takes."
He leaned into her touch, forehead pressing against hers, breath steadying.
"I'll never let it go," he said. "Not the dream. But I'll never take the lie."
Koda's fingers closed around the cloth.
He didn't ask.
He just reached forward, slowly, and dipped it in the warm basin beside them. The water had long since stopped steaming, but it still held its heat—gentle, coaxing.
Maia stilled as he brought the cloth up, her breath catching not in resistance, but anticipation. Her robe had slipped loose during her tending of his wounds, the ties at her sides gently undone, exposing the line of her collarbone and the curve of her shoulder.
He started there.
The cloth met her skin with barely a whisper, his touch slow, reverent. The dust and faint grime from the battlefield smeared lightly beneath the first few strokes. He didn't rush. Each motion was exact—meant to soothe, not just clean.
"You don't have to," she said softly, almost a whisper.
"I know," he answered, voice low. "I want to."
She exhaled, almost trembling with it. Her shoulders slackened.
He moved the cloth down her arm, following the lean line of muscle beneath her skin. Her hands had always been so precise, so confident when healing him—now they curled lightly in her lap, uncertain for the first time in a long while.
Koda let the silence hold.
His hand moved to her back.
She shivered as the cloth touched between her shoulder blades, and he paused—not hesitating, just listening with his body.
She didn't pull away.
So he continued.
The cloth slid slowly down her spine, chasing away the thin sheen of sweat and road dust. He was careful around the straps of her under-armor, working around them first, then pausing. His fingertips brushed the clasp, feather-light.
Her voice came again, low and steady this time. "It's alright."
He undid the clasp.
The garment slid forward, baring her fully from the waist up.
She didn't cover herself.
She just sat there, spine straight, chest rising and falling in steady rhythm, her skin flushed from warmth and proximity. Koda didn't gawk. Didn't falter.
He moved the cloth gently over her back again, tracing the curves of muscle that had carried more than her share of burden. Every slow pass wiped away the grit of the day, but more than that—it was a confession in motion. That he saw her not just as a comrade, or a lover, but as something he could be soft with. For.
He brought the cloth to her shoulder, across her collarbone. She shifted, letting him, and the motion drew her robe farther down, exposing the swell of her chest, the soft inner line just beneath her clavicle.
His hand trembled faintly now.
Not from lust.
From the weight of what he was being allowed to touch.
She looked at him then, finally turning her head.
Her eyes met his. No fear. No resistance.
Just permission.
He brought the cloth to her sternum, working gently, the way she had to him countless times. Her breath hitched—then calmed. He traced the cloth along her ribs, beneath the soft curve of one breast, then the other, never rushing, never pushing.
It wasn't just her skin he was cleaning.
It was the armor she never let down.
By the time he finished, the cloth hung loosely in his hand, her skin bare and flushed, clean and gleaming faintly in the firelight.
Maia didn't speak.
She simply leaned forward, resting her forehead against his chest.
He held her there, one hand at her back, the other still holding the cloth.
Maia stayed against his chest, her breath steadying. Her skin, still damp from the cloth, cooled slightly in the low firelight. Koda rested his chin lightly against the top of her head, holding her there, his arm around her back, the other hand resting lightly near her waist.
She hadn't said a word since he finished cleaning her.
She didn't need to.
Koda felt her heartbeat against him—calmer now, but no less present. The sound of it, the nearness of her, the bare curve of her shoulder brushing his, was enough to drown out everything they had just survived. Everything they would face again.
He leaned down slowly, tilting her face up with two fingers.
Their eyes met.
And she was already waiting.
He kissed her.
It wasn't soft. Not this time.
It was slow, yes—but it carried weight. Intention. A choice made with clarity.
Maia responded in kind, leaning into it, her hand sliding up along the side of his neck, fingers threading into his hair as she kissed him back. Not hurried. Not shy. But deep. Real.
Koda pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against hers again, his voice no more than a breath.
"If you don't want this…"
She interrupted him with another kiss, her lips parting his, her hands gripping the back of his tunic, tugging him closer.
Her voice was low and clear in the space between kisses. "I've wanted this… since before I even admitted it."
That was all the permission he needed.
He kissed her again, deeper now, his hand coming up to cradle the side of her face. He shifted his weight and guided her gently back onto the bed, her hair spilling across the pillow as she let herself be laid down, her eyes never leaving his.
Even now, in this, she remained present—steady, open, waiting.
Koda hovered over her for a breath, both of them pausing as the gravity of it settled in. His fingers brushed her cheek again, then traced down along her jaw, her neck, to the line of her collarbone.
She exhaled softly, her chest rising beneath him.
He leaned down and kissed the corner of her mouth, then her jaw, then the hollow just below her throat. She arched slightly, her hands sliding beneath his shirt, over the bare muscle of his sides. She pushed upward, dragging the fabric with her, until he lifted his arms and pulled it over his head.
She traced his chest with both hands, running over the new scars and the old—reading him like scripture she already knew.
He kissed her again, and this time she let her legs draw around his hips, drawing him against her. Her body was warm, alive beneath his, and every breath between them was shared.
His hand slid down the curve of her waist, thumb brushing along her ribs before tracing a path back up. She gasped when his hand reached her breast, not from surprise—but from release. The contact wasn't frantic. It was full.
He kissed her shoulder, then down again, and she sighed beneath him, one hand threading back into his hair. Her fingers gripped, tugged lightly, as his mouth explored her skin, reverent and slow.
When he looked back up at her, her lips were parted, her eyes half-lidded—but watching him still. Grounded. A storm contained behind steady breath.
He searched her eyes once more.
"You're sure?"
"I've never been more sure of anything."
Her voice was a whisper, but there was no hesitation.
Koda's hand slid down her side again, lower now, beneath the last line of cloth at her hips. He kissed her as he moved, and she moved with him, giving herself to the rhythm of their shared will.
This wasn't about forgetting the world.
It was about claiming something inside it they'd both feared might never come.
And now—it had.
And it was theirs.