Chapter 85: 13.1.2
The gray dawn bled into a pale, watery morning. Gabriel lay perfectly still, Koen a dead weight of muscle and bone pinning him to the mattress. Every breath was a careful negotiation with his bruised ribs. He’d managed some basic mending magic on himself—a whisper of light that stitched the worst of the internal bleeding, leaving behind a deep, colorful ache. It was enough to function. Functioning was all he needed right now.
Koen’s face was still buried in his neck, his breathing slow and even. He hadn’t moved for hours. Gabriel waited another twenty minutes, until the sun was properly up and the birds outside were in full, raucous chorus, before he tried to shift.
“Koen,” he whispered, gently nudging the shoulder draped over him. “Come on, big guy. I need to breathe. And the chickens are staging a revolt.”
A low, displeased grumble vibrated against his throat. Koen’s arm tightened.
“I’m serious. We’re getting up.” He pushed a little harder, wriggling out from under the solid weight. Koen made a noise of profound protest, a sleepy, canine whine, but allowed himself to be rolled onto his back. He blinked up at the ceiling, his orange eyes foggy and unfocused. They tracked Gabriel slowly as he sat up, a faint line of confusion between his brows.
“You with me?” Gabriel asked, leaning over him. He brushed a knuckle along Koen’s cheekbone.
Koen’s response was to capture Gabriel’s wrist with startling speed. He didn’t squeeze, just held it, pressing Gabriel’s palm flat against his own chest, over his heart. The steady, strong beat thumped against Gabriel’s skin. It was an answer, of a sort. I am here. This is me.
“Good enough,” Gabriel said softly. “Now, up. We’ve got a mess downstairs you made, and livestock to appease.”
Getting Koen vertical was a process. He moved with a drugged slowness, his coordination just off. He stumbled after Gabriel down the stairs, his hand finding the back of Gabriel’s tunic and holding on to a fistful of fabric like a toddler. He stared, blank and bewildered, at the wreckage of the main room—the splintered table, the flour-ghost footprints. A faint, distressed crease appeared on his forehead.
“Don’t worry about it,” Gabriel said, already moving. He raised a hand, his fingers tracing quick, precise sigils in the air that shimmered with a gentle, gold light. With soft whispers of energy, the table reassembled itself. The flour lifted from the floor in a reverse snowstorm, pouring itself back into the torn sack, which stitched itself shut. Quill fragments flew together. It was efficient, clerical magic—restoring order. Within minutes, the room was whole, if still smelling faintly of adrenaline and spilled ink.
Koen watched it all with silent, wide-eyed fascination. When it was done, he looked at his own hands, then back at the room, as if trying to reconcile the chaos he remembered with the tidy reality before him.
“Chickens,” Gabriel reminded him, heading for the back door. “You’re on latrine duty later for the flour incident, by the way.”
The cool morning air hit them, smelling of damp earth and pine from the nearby woods. The small, rickety coop stood at the edge of their vegetable patch, from which a chorus of indignant clucking and scratching emanated. Gabriel fetched the scoop of grain from the shed.
Koen lingered on the back step, watching. His posture was looser than the night before, but the higher-level awareness Gabriel was used to—the dopey commentary, the easy smile—was still submerged. This was a simpler Koen, one who processed the world in immediate sensory terms.
Gabriel unlatched the coop and scattered the grain. A flurry of russet feathers and beady-eyed outrage poured out. The hens descended on the food, their complaints momentarily silenced.
One, a plump buff Orpington with a particularly serene disposition, wandered closer to the step, pecking at a stray seed. Koen’s gaze locked onto it.
He moved not with predatory intent, but with a pure, captivated curiosity. He sank into a crouch, his movements slow and deliberate. The chicken, accustomed to his generally harmless presence, ignored him. Koen reached out, his fingers—those same fingers that had shattered oak and could casually bend a horseshoe—extending with infinite care.
He didn’t grab. He simply let his hand rest on the hen’s back.
The bird paused, twisted its head to look at the foreign object, then decided it was irrelevant and went back to pecking.
A soft, wondering sound escaped Koen’s lips. He gently stroked the feathers from head to tail. His touch was feather-light. The hen fluffed up slightly, enjoying the attention.
The hen fluffed up slightly, enjoying the attention. Then, with a fluid motion that echoed his vault over the table hours before, Koen scooped the bird up. He cradled it against his chest with immense, careful pressure, one hand supporting its feet, the other a cage of fingers over its wings.
He stood up, holding the chicken like a sacred offering. The bird let out a soft, conversational bruck-bruck and settled in, its head tucked under his chin.
“Alright, very cute,” Gabriel said, dusting his hands off. “You’ve made a friend. Now put Bertha down so she can lay her egg in peace, not in your shirt.”
Koen looked at him. He did not put the chicken down. He turned his body slightly, shielding Bertha with his shoulder. A low, possessive rumble started in his chest, the same sound he’d made over Gabriel’s wrist.
“Oh, don’t you start that.” Gabriel stepped closer, hands on his hips. “Koen. That is livestock. It is not a teddy bear.”
In response, Koen nuzzled the top of the chicken’s head with his jaw. Bertha closed her eyes, utterly content in the warmth radiating from the half-demon. Koen’s internal furnace, usually just a background note, was in full swing after the metabolic trauma of the night.
“She’s a living animal with a job to do,” Gabriel tried, using his reasonable voice. “She needs to peck things and wander. You can’t just… keep her.”
Koen began to walk, a slow, deliberate patrol of the vegetable patch with his new feathered companion. He was careful not to step on any sprouts. He hummed, a tuneless, vibrating sound that made the chicken puff up even more.
“This is ridiculous.” Gabriel followed him along the fence line. “You are a grown man—demon—whatever. You punched me through a table last night. You can’t be carried by a chicken.”
“Bruck,” said Bertha, smugly.
“See? She agrees with me.” Gabriel reached out, aiming to gently extract the bird. His fingers brushed Koen’s arm.
Koen froze. His head swiveled, and the look he gave Gabriel was pure, uncomplicated warning. The orange in his eyes deepened. It wasn’t malicious, but it was immovable. Mine.
Gabriel retracted his hand, exhaling a frustrated, fond breath. He recognized the texture of this stubbornness. It was the same as when Koen got a notion in his head about a bounty’s path or refused to admit a book was too complicated for him. That single-track mind, currently operating at the intelligence of a spoon, was fully engaged on chicken custody.
“Fine.” Gabriel surrendered, throwing his hands up. “But you’re in charge of explaining to the others why she’s getting special treatment. And if she poops on you, that’s your problem to clean. I did enough magic for one morning.”
Koen’s expression cleared, the warning look replaced by a slow, soft blink of approval. He resumed his patrol, his bare feet quiet on the damp earth. Gabriel leaned against the fence post, watching the six-foot-tall nightmare of the local underworld gently rock a chicken in his arms.
The sun climbed higher, burning off the mist. After another circuit of the garden, Koen finally stopped near the back step. He didn’t put Bertha down. He simply sat, folding himself onto the ground with a graceless thump, and arranged the chicken in his lap. He stared out at the woods, his fingers idly stroking feathers.
Gabriel sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. The contact made Koen lean into him, his head coming to rest against Gabriel’s arm, the chicken now sandwiched warmly between them.
“You’re going to be so embarrassed about this,” Gabriel said quietly, his voice full of affection. “I’m never letting you forget it. ‘Remember the Chicken Tyranny of ’23,’ I’ll say. You’ll get all flustered and red.”
Koen made a small, huffing sound. He understood the tone, not the words. He turned his face, pressing his nose into Gabriel’s sleeve and breathing deeply. He was cataloging scent, reaffirming safety, building his world back from the sensory ground up.
Bertha was a warm, feathered loaf in the nest of his arms.