*CHAPTER 52:
ALESSIA
Morning came heavy with the weight of everything we had left unsaid at the table yesterday, and I knew the moment Axel didn’t walk out to the training grounds that today was going to be worse than yesterday. He stayed, and he moved, and he placed a plate in front of me with porridge that was still warm like the rest of the hall wasn’t breathing and watching, and the way his hand lingered near mine for half a second was deliberate, possessive, a claim he wasn’t saying out loud but expected everyone else to hear.
I didn’t touch the food because I couldn’t, not with Asher’s eyes burning into the side of my face from across the room and Azriel sitting between us like a blade held upright to keep us from cutting each other. I love all three of them equally, I had told t
