The golden dawn light filtering through the crumbling chamber made Cel's face look younger. Softer. Like the weight of being Seraphina Vance's sister had lifted, even if just for a moment.
She touched my chest again, checking my ribs with the kind of clinical detachment I'd expect from a healer, not a princess who'd just kissed me like the world was ending. Which, technically, it had been. Her fingers pressed gently against the regenerator brace still wrapped around my torso.
"Can you walk?" she asked.
"Can I walk? Princess, I just killed a ten-thousand-year-old tree god with a baseball bat. Walking's easy mode."
Her periwinkle eyes narrowed. "Stop calling me that."
"Which part? Princess or easy mode?"
She punched my shoulder again, lighter this time.
