It's marriage season again.

Kuirah was lucky enough to slip the net last time. That was back when he was just a guy who followed the crown princess around. That was before he'd taken a bullet to the ribs and saved her life. Back when people didn't take him seriously, in simpler words.

He almost misses it.

The stack of cherry-colored envelopes on the desk is twice as tall as yesterday. The letter opener's getting dull, which is a problem that had not once crossed his mind before this month had rolled in and brought its own kind of hell with it. Guarding Milagra during this time is more taxing than ever, and of course the respite's brief when he comes home to all this. And on top of that, his mentor thinks he's slacking off.

He's tempted to show the old man what slacking really looks like. If it wasn't his best friend's life on the line, he'd probably fake illness until the season had passed.

He sits down and reaches for the letter opener.

Two hours later, his hand's cramping, his eyes won't focus properly, and his temples ache quietly with every heartbeat.

Alright. He's not getting anywhere like this.

He locks the door and clicks off the lights. Pulls on the boots he so recently kicked off.

Then he eases the window up, slips out onto the thin outcrop of shingle below it, and lowers it down again until there's only a slim crack left, barely enough to insert a fingernail.

One might think a grown man would have no need to sneak out, but his parents worry less if they aren't aware. And their worry is the last thing he needs.

His family's home sits cozily snuggled by the forests on the outskirts of Daera-Li. Not a very desirable location for one of their species, but there is the one advantage of a quick way to the surface. Here, above the firs, high into the earthen ceilings, there are tunnels ribbed in the roots of the mountain trees. Tunnels that lead directly up into the wooded slopes. And from there, to the swath of ocean they border.

The faintest of breezes caresses Kuirah's skin. His fingers hook into old grooves in the stone-packed earth. Once upon a time, when he was barely old enough to walk, these grooves had torn skin from the same fingers that now gripped them with the ease of a sniper pulling the trigger on a perfect shot. Once upon a time he'd struggled, fallen, and at last clawed his way to a ledge, and then all the way to the top. Soaked in blood, sweat, and tears the whole time.

Now his flesh itself is armor.

There's something about the climb--which once grieved him so--that settles the restless, hollow burn behind his sternum. Maybe it's the memory of the old man urging him onward, as always, telling him to keep on, or else his dessert will go to his brothers instead. (Not the best motivator, since he always gave his dessert to them anyway.) Maybe it's the familiar stretch and pull of muscles most people aren't even aware they have. Whatever it is, he welcomes it. Whatever it is, he hopes it will last.

The breeze strengthens, heavy with the scent of salty sea and the leaf-mulched forests. A thin pour of moonlight envelopes him. He can hear the songs of the nightbirds, mingled with quiet psithurism. The distant wash of the surf.

All of that's to be expected. It's the tickle of a different smell, a different sound that makes him suppress his breath. The pair of them together tug at his memory--knock around in his mind like a phantom icepick, searching for a crack that'll split loose a recollection of whatever time they were familiar to him. The pair of them together make the somnolent wood feel alive, aware, and hostile.

The pair of them together--the warm, rich scent of blood in overdrive and the rough, hitching scrape of lungs heaving for air--tell him he's not alone.

Still he pulls himself, silent as the currents in the deep of the ocean, from the tunnel.