(Kaelen)
I pick the wrong moment to ask.
We're in the kitchen again — it's become the place where real things happen between us, I've noticed, more than the study or the bedroom or anywhere with weight attached to it. Something about the ordinary business of coffee and morning light makes the guards come down without either of us deciding to.
He's reading something at the counter. I'm sitting at the table with both hands around a mug, and the question has been sitting in my chest since yesterday in the training yard, since he told me about Aela in that flat, careful way that told me he'd never said those words out loud to anyone before.
I should let it go. I know I should let it go.
"Can I ask you something," I say.
He turns a page. "You're going to anyway."
"Aela." I keep my voice
