Chapter 35: Saga 35: Claire’s Turn
"Absolutely not," Claire said, for the third time, arms crossed so tightly it looked almost painful.
Harriden, leaning against her doorway with the particular patience of someone who had already decided he was winning this argument regardless of what she said next, simply waited her out.
"I don’t do dates," Claire continued, pacing a tight circle in her small dorm room. "I don’t do relationships. I do spellwork, naps, mildly terrorizing ogres, and eating an unreasonable amount of sweets. That’s the whole list. That’s the entirety of Claire’s Approved Activities."
"I didn’t ask you on a date."
That stopped her mid-step. "Then what’s with the flowers?"
"These are for my mother’s grave. I’m visiting on the way, and I thought I’d rather not go alone this year." He shrugged, shadows pooling faintly at his feet the way they always did when he was uncomfortable, which he almost never let anyone see.
Claire stared at the modest bouquet of white starlilies in his hand, then at his face, searching for the joke, the deflection, anything familiar to hold onto. There wasn’t one. Harriden almost never joked about his mother. In three years of knowing him, Claire could count on one hand the number of times he’d mentioned her at all.
"Oh." Some of the fight went out of her all at once. "I didn’t know—I mean, I knew she’d passed, but I didn’t realize today was the day. You should have said something sooner."
"I don’t usually tell anyone. It’s not something I like people fussing over." He looked away, toward the window, toward nothing in particular. "Thought maybe I wouldn’t go alone this time, though. Figured you’d understand better than most, given your own family history."
Claire didn’t say anything clever, for once in her life. She just grabbed her coat off the hook by the door.
The cemetery on the outskirts of the dark elven quarter was quiet in a way that felt deliberate, almost sacred, moss-softened headstones arranged beneath ancient black-barked trees that never seemed to lose their leaves regardless of season. Harriden knelt before a modest, unassuming marker and set the starlilies down without ceremony, brushing away a season’s worth of fallen leaves from around its base with careful, practiced hands.
"She died protecting people who called her a monster for what she could do," Harriden said, quiet, staring at the worn engraving. "Same shadow techniques everyone praises me for now, calls me a prodigy for. Funny how that works out, isn’t it. Fear and admiration separated by nothing but which side of a fight you’re standing on."
"People are idiots," Claire said, crouching beside him. "Present company excluded, obviously. Mostly."
"Obviously."
They stood there a long while, the silence comfortable rather than heavy, filled with the distant sound of wind through ancient leaves. On the walk back through the quiet streets, Claire’s hand found its way into his, and this time, Harriden didn’t pull away, didn’t make it into a joke, didn’t do anything except let it happen, let his fingers curl gently around hers like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"This doesn’t mean I do relationships now," Claire said, staring straight ahead like the admission might be less real if she wasn’t looking at him.
"Of course not."
"I mean it. This is a one-time exception. Grief-adjacent hand-holding only."
"I heard you the first time." But he was smiling, small and real, the kind of smile Claire had only glimpsed maybe twice before in all their years together. She decided that maybe the whole "not doing relationships" thing could be revisited later. Much later. Possibly next week. Possibly sooner, if he kept smiling like that.
"You’re staring at me," Harriden said.
"I’m allowed to stare. It’s a rare sighting. I might never see it again."
"You will."
"Promise?"
He didn’t answer with words, just squeezed her hand a little tighter, and somehow that was answer enough.
They stopped at a small tea stand on the walk home, the kind of unremarkable place neither of them would have bothered with on any ordinary day. Claire ordered far too much for two people, out of habit more than hunger, and Harriden let her, watching her with an expression she’d have called soft on anyone else.
"Tell me something about her," Claire said, once they’d settled at a corner table. "Your mother. Something that isn’t about how she died."
Harriden considered the request for a long moment, turning his cup slowly in his hands. "She used to hum while she cooked. Off-key, badly, deliberately I think, because it always made me laugh when I was small. She said a house wasn’t a home until someone in it could laugh at something stupid."
"That’s a good memory."
"It’s the one I try to keep closest. The others get harder to hold onto without the ending creeping in."
Claire reached across the table and took his hand again, no hesitation this time. "Then hold onto that one. I’ll help you remember it, if you ever need reminding."
"You’d do that?"
"Apparently I do relationships now. Grief-adjacent hand-holding included. Don’t make it weird."
Harriden laughed—a real laugh, rare and unguarded—and for the first time in longer than she could remember, Claire thought maybe some wounds really could soften with enough patience and the right company.
They stayed at the tea stand until the vendor started politely hinting at closing time, neither of them in any particular hurry to return to the safehouse and the inevitable questions waiting there.
"They’re going to interrogate us the second we walk in," Claire said, gathering her coat.
"Let them. I don’t particularly care what Yuki has to say about any of this."
"You say that now. Wait until he starts making kissing noises every time we’re in the same room for the next month."
"I’ll handle Yuki."
"Please don’t actually maim him. We need him functional for the festival committee."
"No promises." But Harriden was smiling again, and Claire decided she could live with the teasing if it meant seeing that particular expression more often.
They walked back through streets slowly emptying of evening traffic, lanterns flickering to life along the main thoroughfare, and for once, Claire didn’t feel the need to fill every silence with chatter. Some quiet, she was discovering, felt better shared than alone.
"Same time next year?" she asked as they reached the safehouse door.
"I’d like that. Assuming we’re both still around to keep the tradition going."
"Don’t jinx it, Harriden. We just survived Sumbiya. We’re due for a break from anything trying to kill us."
He didn’t answer, but something in his expression suggested he wasn’t quite as confident about that particular assumption as she was.
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End of Chapter—
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