Aqua’s POV
Steven returned through the back door later that afternoon, the way he usually did after training.
At first, I thought Dylan must have pushed him harder than usual.
Steven had that look he sometimes carried after a difficult lesson—the one where his body was present, but part of his mind still seemed trapped somewhere between the last strike and the next correction. His shoulders were tight. His hair was a little wind-tossed. His eyes found mine, then moved away too quickly.
I set my cup down on the kitchen counter.
“Did Dylan overwork you again?”
Steven blinked, as if he had forgotten I could see him.
“No.”
The answer came too fast.
Which meant either yes, or something near enough to yes that he did not want to explain it.
I leaned one hip against the counter and studied him.
He stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the back hall, training bag hanging from one hand, shoes carrying bits of grass from the path. He looked tired, but not the way he usually looked when Dylan had beaten him into exhaustion. There was no irritated scowl. No dramatic complaint about Dylan’s unreasonable standards. No muttering about how control work was worse than running.
That alone made me suspicious.
“Steven.”
“What?”
“You answered very quickly.”
“I answer quickly sometimes.”
“When you are lying badly.”
His mouth opened.
Closed.
Then he dragged one hand through his hair, leaving it messier than before.
“I’m not lying.”
“No?”
“No.” His gaze flicked toward my hands, then away. “Training was fine.”
Fine.
I had learned that word from him.
It usually meant something was not fine, but he was hoping no one would ask the correct follow-up question.
I should have asked.
Instead, I looked at the scrape near his knuckle, the faint bruise beneath his collar, and the weariness still lingering around his eyes from the last few days.
Atlantis had not left us untouched.
Even after Orion and the soldiers were gone, the lake felt different in my memory. The old route slept beneath the water with Dylan’s ward wrapped around it, but I could still feel the shape of what had happened there.
The soldiers.
The spheres.
Orion’s face when he realized I was not being held.
Steven beside me.
Not ahead of me.
Not between me and my own voice.
Beside me.
I had not known how badly I needed someone to understand the difference until he did.
Perhaps that was what still weighed on him.
Perhaps he was thinking of Orion.
Of Triton.
Of the next time Atlantis might come.
“You are sure?” I asked.
Steven’s expression softened.
That was worse.
When Steven looked guilty, he was hiding something small.
When he looked soft, he was carrying something heavy.
“I’m sure,” he said. “Dylan didn’t overwork me.”
“That was not exactly my question.”
“I know.”
The quiet between us stretched.
Then he smiled, faint and crooked, trying to make the air lighter.
“I did almost get hit in the face with a practice staff.”
“Almost?”
“Very important word.”
“Did Dylan allow you to keep your pride?”
“No.”
“That sounds like Dylan.”
“It really does.”
I should have smiled more.
I tried.
Steven noticed that too.
His gaze moved over me slowly, searching for cracks I did not want to show. He set his training bag down near the wall and crossed the kitchen.
His hand touched my cheek.
Not sudden.
Not uncertain.
Gentle enough that my breath caught before I could stop it.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I looked up at him.
The question should have been simple.
I was alive.
I was safe.
Atlantis had come for me and left without me.
Orion would carry my message to Triton.
Dylan had warded the old route.
Steven was standing in front of me with grass on his shoes and worry in his eyes.
“Yes,” I said.
His thumb brushed once beneath my cheekbone.
“Real yes?”
My chest warmed and ached at the same time.
“Real yes.”
He nodded, but his eyes stayed on mine a second too long.
Then another.
I lifted a brow.
“Steven.”
“What?”
“You are staring again.”
His hand dropped from my face.
“No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I was checking for emotional damage.”
“That is not something you can see by staring at my face.”
“I disagree.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
He looked relieved, and that relief hurt more than I expected.
Maybe that was why I let the strange mood go for the moment. Steven was trying. Whatever sat behind his eyes, he had not yet found the shape of it. If I pulled too hard, it might only make him hide it deeper.
So I turned back to the counter and lifted my cup.
“You should wash up,” I said.
His shoulders eased.
“Because I’m a threat to the sofa again?”
“And the chairs. And possibly the rug.”
“The rug started it.”
“It did not.”
“You weren’t there.”
He sounded more like himself then.
Almost.
But as he passed behind me on his way toward the hall that led to the master bedroom, his fingers brushed the back of my hand.
Light.
Brief.
Intentional.
I looked down.
By the time I glanced back, he was already walking away.
---
The next morning, Steven watched my hand for nearly a full minute before I said anything.
I was sitting at the kitchen table, turning the page of a human cookbook I had bought from the bookstore in town. The book had too many measurements, too many steps, and one recipe that used three different spoons before anything even touched a pan.
Steven sat across from me with his mug between both hands.
He was not drinking.
He was looking at my fingers where they rested against the page.
I waited.
He kept looking.
I turned another page.
His eyes followed the movement.
“Steven.”
His gaze jumped to my face. “Yeah?”
“Is there something wrong with my hand?”
“No.”
“Then why are you looking at it?”
“I wasn’t.”
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
Then he looked at his mug.
“Maybe it was in my line of sight.”
“My hand?”
“Yes.”
“On the table?”
“Exactly.”
“That is a terrible lie.”
“It was more of a weak explanation.”
“That is worse.”
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“I know.”
Fang lifted his head from the far end of the sofa, where a patch of sunlight had found his black scales. His yellow stripes caught the light when he turned toward Steven.
Steven glanced at him.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
Fang’s tongue flicked out once.
I looked between them.
“Is Fang judging you?”
“Fang judges everyone.”
Fang settled his head back down with the air of someone who had confirmed a point.
Steven’s ears went faintly red.
That interested me.
He had been flustered before. Many times. Usually because I stood too close, or touched him unexpectedly, or asked a question he did not know how to answer without turning three shades of red.
This was different.
This was not desire alone.
Not embarrassment alone.
This was the look of someone guarding a thought with both hands while pretending he had misplaced nothing.
I closed the cookbook.
Steven straightened.
“What?”
“You are strange today.”
“I’m strange most days.”
“That is true.”
“Wow.”
“But this is a different strange.”
He leaned back in his chair, trying to look casual.
He failed.
“Maybe I’m still thinking about training.”
That was possible.
Dylan had been pushing him harder lately. Not cruelly. Carefully. The way someone sharpened a blade by refusing to rush the edge. Steven came home exhausted more often now, but he also came home steadier.
The fire under his skin no longer felt like it was always searching for a crack.
I could sense it sometimes when he stood close. Heat, yes. Always heat. But less frantic. More shaped.
Like he was learning the difference between burning and holding light.
“You have been doing well,” I said.
His expression changed.
Softened.
Then tried to hide that it had softened.
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
He looked down at his mug.
“I still mess up.”
“Everyone does.”
“Dylan makes sure I remember.”
“That also sounds like Dylan.”
Steven huffed quietly.
I reached across the table and touched his wrist.
His pulse jumped beneath my fingers.
“I am proud of you,” I said.
He went very still.
It was not the first time I had said something like that, but each time, it seemed to land somewhere in him that had not been touched often enough.
His fingers shifted around the mug.
“Thanks,” he said, low.
The word came out rougher than usual.
I looked at him for a long moment.
Steven did not carry power the way old families often did.
He did not wear it like a crown he expected others to kneel beneath. Some days, he looked almost afraid of it. Afraid of the fire. Afraid of the bloodline. Afraid of the hunger inside him that answered to things he did not yet understand.
But he still reached for control.
Not because he wanted to stand above everyone else.
Because he wanted to stop being ruled by the parts of himself that scared him.
I liked that about him.
Not the fear.
The honesty of it.
The way he did not pretend he was finished becoming someone.
In Atlantis, men had spoken with certainty even when certainty was only arrogance dressed in royal silk. Orion had been honorable, but even he had carried duty like a wall between himself and the truth.
Steven was different.
He doubted.
He stumbled.
He apologized with his whole face before the words found his mouth.
He tried again anyway.
That mattered to me more than perfection ever could.
His wrist shifted beneath my hand.
I realized I had been staring now.
Steven’s mouth curved.
“Now you’re doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Staring.”
“I was thinking.”
“About my hand?”
“No.”
His grin appeared slowly, a little too pleased. “Maybe it was in your line of sight.”
I narrowed my eyes.
He looked delighted with himself.
“You used my own terrible explanation against me,” I said.
“I’m learning.”
“From Dylan?”
“Unfortunately.”
---
The next two days passed quietly.
Or as quietly as anything passed around Steven.
He trained in the mornings, came back through the back door with grass on his shoes and sweat at his collar, and tried to look normal.
He was very bad at it.
The first evening, he sat beside me on the sofa and brushed a strand of hair behind my ear three times in the space of ten minutes.
The first time, I thought it was sweet.
The second time, I thought he was distracted.
The third time, I caught his wrist.
Steven froze.
I looked at him.
He looked at his captured hand as if he had not realized it belonged to him.
“What is all this attention for?” I asked.
His throat moved.
“I can’t give you attention?”
“You can.” I tilted my head. “You are simply doing it like someone who has been caught committing affection.”
His mouth parted.
Then he laughed.
Quietly.
Breathlessly.
Like the words had startled him into being himself again.
“Committing affection?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds illegal.”
“With the way you are acting, perhaps it should be investigated.”
He leaned back against the sofa, but he did not pull his hand from mine.
“I’m not doing anything strange.”
“Steven.”
“I’m being attentive.”
“You are being very attentive.”
“Maybe you deserve attention.”
That should not have warmed me as much as it did.
But it did.
The words settled beneath my ribs, soft and dangerous.
I lowered his hand slowly but did not let go.
His fingers turned under mine, palm to palm.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Fang lay coiled on the back of the sofa, pretending to sleep. His head was turned just enough that I knew he was listening.
Steven glanced at him.
Fang did not move.
Steven looked back at me.
Something unspoken crossed his face.
There, then hidden.
I squeezed his hand once.
“You may tell me when you are ready,” I said.
His eyes softened.
“I know.”
“And you may also not tell me, if it is something harmless and you are simply being strange.”
His mouth twitched.
“That sounds generous.”
“It is.”
“Suspiciously generous.”
“I am capable of mercy.”
Fang lifted his head.
Steven looked at him. “Do not disagree.”
Fang slowly rested his head back down.
I laughed before I could stop myself.
Steven watched me when I did.
Too closely.
Too warmly.
Like the sound was something he wanted to keep.
My laughter faded, but not because I was unhappy.
Because his face had gone soft again.
Because his fingers were still threaded through mine.
Because whatever secret he carried, it did not feel sharp.
It did not feel like a wall.
It felt like something fragile he was afraid of dropping.
That night, he stared at me in bed.
Not constantly.
That would have been easier to confront.
He was more careful than that.
We lay in the master bedroom with the lamp low and the curtains drawn against the night. The house was quiet around us, kitchen and living room resting in the middle of the home, the other bedrooms dark on the far side. Fang had settled somewhere in the living room, though I suspected he would claim he was guarding rather than sleeping.
Steven lay on his side facing me, one arm folded beneath his pillow. His other hand rested near mine on the blanket.
Every so often, his gaze moved over my face.
My hair.
My mouth.
My hand.
Always my hand.
Finally, I turned my palm upward.
“Would you like to inspect it properly?”
Steven blinked.
“What?”
“My hand,” I said. “You keep looking at it.”
He went red so quickly I almost felt bad.
Almost.
“I’m not—”
“Steven.”
He shut his mouth.
I lifted my hand between us.
He stared at it for a second like I had offered him something sacred and terrifying.
Then, slowly, he took it.
His fingers wrapped around mine with careful warmth. His thumb traced over my knuckles once, then stopped, as if he had realized what he was doing.
“Is something the matter?” I asked softly.
His eyes flicked to mine.
“No.”
The word was quiet.
Not false exactly.
But incomplete.
I let him have it.
For now.
He lifted my hand and pressed his lips to my knuckles.
The kiss was soft.
Brief.
It still traveled through me like a current.
My breath caught before I could hide it.
Steven noticed.
His eyes lifted to mine over our joined hands.
For a moment, the room seemed to grow smaller around us.
His thumb moved again, gentle and slow.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered.
The words were not smooth.
Not practiced.
They sounded like they had escaped him before he could decide if he was brave enough to say them.
My heart tightened.
“You are being very bold this week,” I said.
His mouth curved, shy and crooked.
“Is bold bad?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I studied him.
“You are also being very mysterious.”
His smile weakened.
Only slightly.
“Is mysterious bad?”
“It depends.”
“On?”
“Whether it is hiding danger.”
His hand tightened around mine.
“No.”
That answer came quickly.
Strongly.
Enough that I believed it.
Whatever Steven was hiding, it was not danger.
Not the kind that stalked through lake tunnels or wore a general’s armor.
I moved closer until our knees touched beneath the blanket.
“Then I can wait,” I said.
His gaze searched mine.
“You can?”
“Yes.” I smiled faintly. “I am a princess. I have endured many boring ceremonies. Waiting is one of my lesser talents.”
A laugh broke out of him, soft enough not to disturb the quiet.
“I’ll try not to make it boring.”
“You are rarely boring.”
“That might be the nicest thing anyone’s said to me.”
“It was not meant to be that nice.”
“Dylan seems to have rubbed off on you.”
His eyes widened slightly after he said it, like he had surprised himself.
I noticed.
“Is that a bad thing?” I asked.
“No.” He answered too quickly, then looked at our joined hands. “Not bad. Just… something I keep noticing lately.”
“What do you notice?”
His thumb moved once over my knuckles.
“You both do that thing where you see too much and then say it like it’s obvious.”
My mouth curved. “Perhaps it is obvious.”
“To you.” He gave me a look. “To normal people, it’s alarming.”
“Are you calling yourself normal?”
“That was not the important part.”
“It was to me.”
His mouth twitched, and some of the tension in him eased.
“I just mean,” he said more quietly, “you and Dylan both grew up with all this duty around you. Expectations. People watching. People deciding things before you could. I guess sometimes you notice things the same way.”
I held his gaze for a moment.
There was no mockery in his voice.
Only thoughtfulness.
“Maybe we do,” I said.
“Still makes it terrifying when you both look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I have already confessed and just haven’t realized it yet.”
I smiled.
“Then perhaps you should confess faster.”
He laughed again, but it was softer this time.
After he fell silent, I kept thinking about the way he had said Dylan’s name.
Not with irritation this time.
Not rivalry.
Not even embarrassment.
Something easier.
Something that sounded dangerously close to trust.
Their budding friendship had not arrived all at once. It had built itself between practice strikes, corrections, bruises, dry comments, and the stubborn way Dylan kept showing up even when Steven complained. Steven did not call him a friend yet. Not often. Maybe not at all.
But I had eyes.
Steven trusted Dylan enough to listen.
Dylan respected Steven enough to tell him the truth.
That was not nothing.
And somehow, that too made Worthington feel more like home.
Not because it was quiet.
Not because it was safe from everything.
Because we were beginning to have people here.
People who noticed.
People who stayed.
People who stood beside us when the lake opened and Atlantis came through.
Steven’s breathing slowed eventually.
He did not fall asleep quickly, but he grew calmer. His hand remained around mine until sleep loosened his fingers.
I watched him for a while.
The faint lines of worry at his brow softened in sleep. His mouth parted slightly. His hair fell across his forehead.
He looked young.
He was young.
So was I, in the ways that mattered.
That thought should have frightened me more than it did.
In Atlantis, youth had been treated like something to polish out of me. Princesses did not get to be uncertain. Princesses did not get to be unfinished. Princesses were prepared, arranged, presented, promised.
A finished future had waited for me there.
Polished.
Elegant.
Locked.
Steven offered nothing so polished.
Some days, he could barely offer a sentence without tripping over it.
But he offered something real.
An unfinished life.
A kitchen with mismatched cups.
A sofa Fang pretended not to love.
A training field that left grass on Steven’s shoes.
A house where my flowers glowed on the windowsill and no one told me where to place my hands.
Maybe that should have felt smaller than a palace.
It did not.
It felt wider than the sea.
---
On the third afternoon, Steven returned through the back door with one hand buried in his pocket.
At first, I almost smiled.
It reminded me, strangely, of Dylan.
Dylan often stood that way, hands hidden away as if the world had not earned the right to know what they were doing. It suited him. Reserved. Controlled. Mildly irritating.
It did not suit Steven.
Steven’s hands were never quiet.
They fidgeted with sleeves, curled around mugs, sparked when he was startled, reached for me when he forgot to be careful, and betrayed every feeling his mouth tried to hide.
So when he walked into the kitchen with one hand shoved deep in his pocket and the other holding his training bag too tightly, I noticed.
“Training went well?” I asked.
His eyes found mine too quickly.
“Yes.”
One word.
Too quick.
Too neat.
I set the towel in my hand down slowly.
“Did Dylan give you something?”
Steven froze.
Only for a breath.
But I saw it.
“What?”
“Dylan,” I said. “Did he give you something for training?”
His shoulders eased by such a small amount that I almost missed it.
“Oh. Training. Right.” He cleared his throat. “No. Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?”
“It’s complicated.”
“With Dylan, that means yes.”
Steven gave me a helpless look.
I almost laughed.
Whatever it was, he was not ready to tell me.
That should not have caught me off guard as much as it did.
Everyone kept secrets. I knew that. Atlantis had been built on polished words, closed doors, and truths folded so neatly beneath duty that no one called them lies.
But Steven was different.
Not because he told me everything perfectly.
He did not.
Sometimes the truth came out crooked. Sometimes he stumbled over it, apologized before he finished speaking, or looked at the floor as if the right words might be hiding between his shoes.
But he usually tried.
Steven was, in many ways, an open book with several pages smudged, torn, or written in handwriting even he could not read.
So seeing him hold something back on purpose made me look twice.
Still, it did not feel like a secret meant to hurt me.
It did not feel like a wall.
It felt like something small and breakable cupped in both hands, something he wanted to carry carefully until he knew how to show me.
By evening, I was less certain it was training.
Steven was tired, yes, but not in the usual way. When Dylan pushed him too hard, Steven became sore and irritable and tried badly to pretend neither was true.
This was different.
This was quieter.
He kept touching his pocket when he thought I was not looking.
He started sentences, then swallowed them.
Twice, I caught him looking at my hand.
The second time, he looked away so quickly that Fang lifted his head from the sofa and stared at him with what I could only describe as judgment.
I had almost asked again.
Then Steven sat beside me on the sofa, one hand still suspiciously close to his pocket, and said, “I was wondering something.”
I closed the book in my lap.
“That sounds serious.”
“It’s not serious.” He paused. “Well. Not bad serious.”
I waited.
He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand.
“I thought maybe we could finally have that picnic on the hilltop tomorrow.”
My chest warmed before I could stop it.
“The one with the blanket, tea, and pastries?”
“Yeah.” His eyes flicked to mine, then away again. “That one.”
“I would like that.”
His shoulders eased slightly, but not completely.
“There’s another reason,” he said.
I tilted my head. “Another reason?”
He looked almost embarrassed.
“We’ve been dating for about a month now.”
I blinked.
“And humans sometimes celebrate milestones in relationships,” he said quickly. “Not always. Sometimes. It might be cheesy. I don’t know. I wasn’t sure if I should ask because I didn’t want to make it weird.”
For one moment, I only stared at him.
Then understanding settled over me so gently I nearly smiled.
That was why he had been acting strangely.
Not because of Atlantis.
Not because of Orion.
Not because something terrible waited beneath the surface of his silence.
Steven had been gathering courage to ask me to celebrate a small human milestone.
A laugh rose in my chest, but I softened it before it reached my mouth.
Not because it was funny in a cruel way.
Because it was unbearably sweet.
“I did not know humans celebrated one month,” I said.
“Some do.” His face reddened a little. “Some probably think it’s stupid.”
“I do not.”
His gaze lifted.
“You don’t?”
“No.” I let my fingers brush against his hand. “I think it is sweet.”
Steven stared at me for half a second too long.
Then he looked away, clearing his throat. “Good. Great. Then I’ll handle everything.”
“You will?”
“Yes.”
“The picnic?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
His mouth opened.
Closed.
Then his expression turned far too careful.
“I will make sure everything is there.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That was not the same sentence.”
“It was a better sentence.”
“Steven.”
“I can place food in a basket.”
“You once forgot a spoon for soup.”
“That was one time.”
“You also forgot cups when we made tea outside.”
“That was a separate incident.”
“And napkins.”
“You are keeping a list?”
“I am observant.”
He sighed, but his mouth curved. “I’ll remember the spoon, the cups, the napkins, and the blanket.”
“And the pastries?”
“Definitely the pastries.”
I smiled. “Then I would love to celebrate our one-month dating anniversary with you.”
His expression softened at the words, as if I had given him more than an answer.
“Yeah?”
“Yes, Steven.”
He breathed out slowly.
“Okay,” he said. “Tomorrow, then.”
Tomorrow.
The word settled between us, warm and quiet.
I thought I understood now why he had been so nervous.
A human tradition.
A hilltop picnic.
A small celebration of something that had somehow become precious to both of us.
Still, when Steven looked down at my hand resting near his, his thumb brushed over my knuckles with such careful tenderness that something inside me paused.
Maybe I understood most of it.
Not all.
Not yet.
Whatever Steven was carrying, he was carrying it carefully.
Not like a secret meant to keep me out.
Like a question he was waiting for the courage to place in my hands.
I did not know what it was yet.
But when he asked me to meet him on the hilltop, something inside me answered before my voice did.
Yes.
I wanted to go.