He just watches me walk ahead with the map, his expression unreadable, his steps falling back in line a moment later, closer than before, close enough that I feel the drag of his presence like a warm, unspoken challenge just behind my shoulder.
Poppy lingers several steps behind us, her breath coming out in tiny excited huffs as Ares drags the hem of his shirt up to wipe the condensation from his face. The fabric rises just high enough to expose the hard line of muscle along his abdomen, the faint crescent of another tattoo curling over a rib, and the moment I catch even a glimpse of it, my gaze jerks away so sharply it almost aches in my neck. It’s humiliating how instinctive the reaction is, how quickly I force myself to stare at the trees instead, as if bark and shadows can scrub away whatever heat that single glance sparked.
Behind me, Poppy makes a soft, breathy sound, the kind someone tries to disguise as clearing their throat but fails miserably at. Any fear she had earlier, any lingering hesitation about murder or Shadeborne men, seems to have dissolved instantly at the sight of Ares’s stomach. I can practically feel the swoon radiating from her like warmth off a fire. It makes me want to roll my eyes, but I don’t trust myself to look back at him long enough to do it.
The deeper we walk into the forest, the heavier the air becomes. Moisture clings to my skin, making every breath feel like I’m inhaling syrup. Ares walks ahead with that maddeningly calm stride of his, map in hand, as if this place belongs to him and not to the creatures and spells hidden in its underbrush. Poppy scrambles to keep up. I force my stepsinto something steady, though my pulse refuses to follow the same command.
“I was never going to hurt you,” Ares says, his voice drifting back to me like a slice through the quiet.
The tone is stripped of anything soft. No apology. No remorse. No attempt at comfort. Just a fact he tosses out carelessly, as if expecting me to accept it simply because he said it. I feel the irritation coil tightly in my chest, and a scoff cracks through my composure before I can swallow it back.
“Then why threaten me?” The words leave me sharper than intended, but there’s no taking them back.
For a while he says nothing. His boots keep moving, crunching through wet leaves, but there’s a shift in the air around him...a pause, a weight, a moment where I can tell he’s deciding whether or not I deserve an answer. When it finally comes, it’s in a voice so level it makes the explanation sound like simple arithmetic.
“They wouldn’t have let you speak to me if I hadn’t.”
It hits harder than I expect, and yet it only complicates everything.
We walk again without speaking. The forest thickens, swallowing sound and light. Branches knit together overhead, turning the narrow trail into something that feels carved from dusk. Mist curls around our ankles. The smell of moss deepens, earthy and cold. Even Poppy quiets, glancing between us as if afraid to interrupt something she can’t quite name.
Ares’s presence feels larger in the dark, an anchor point in the shifting shadows. Every time he shifts his weight, I feel the movement like a pull. Every time he lifts the map, the faint scrape of parchment seems too loud. And though I refuse to look at him again, my senses map out the space he occupies with painful clarity.
The steady roll of his shoulders.
The slight hitch in his breath from the cold.
The residual heat radiating from him in the damp air.
We continue forward in a silence that doesn’t feel empty. It feels weighted, dense with unfinished arguments and unspoken confessions neither of us is willing to give voice to.
Poppy eventually drifts ahead, humming under her breath in an effort to break the tension, but Ares remains impossibly aware of everything behind him. His stride slows just enough that I keep pace without effort. His head turns slightly as though he can feel my attention darting between his back and the uneven path.
No one speaks again.
Ares never glances back.
He doesn’t need to.
He already knows I’m watching him, even when I try not to.
“It’s not much farther.We should all take a break for a moment,” Poppy murmurs, already sagging against a stump tucked into the brush just off the trail. She downs her water parcel in a series of desperate gulps, then bends forward, plucking small forest flowers with shaky fingers as though the simple act steadies her nerves.
I follow her, lowering myself to the grass at her feet. The cool blades press against my palms, grounding me while I tilt my head back and study the tops of the pines. Their needles hang in a strange transition, no longer vibrant green, but not yet fully dead, a slow sickening pale creeping over them as the forest folds deeper into itself. The air here feels thick, like it’s settling over us instead of moving through.
Ahead of us, Ares lifts his own parcel to his lips. His throat works hard around the swallow, the tense bob of hisAdam’s apple making it seem like he hasn’t had water in hours, or like he never learned to drink without bracing for something worse. The sight pulls at me unexpectedly. I reach for the strap at my side, fingers brushing the fabric of my tunic.
Nothing.
“Fuck.” The word slips out before I can rein it in. My hand drags over my forehead, pushing damp hair back as I try to calculate where along the trek the parcel must have fallen. The exhaustion already crawling through my limbs makes my heart sink further.
Before I can push myself to stand, a hand appears in my periphery, Ares’s hand, holding out his own water, arm extended without flourish, without impatience, without expression. Just an offering. He stands quietly, the line of his body steady in a way that contradicts the sharp edges of his reputation. He simply waits.
I hesitate only a breath before taking the parcel from him. The water floods my mouth in cool, slow waves, a relief so instant it feels like a spell. I force myself not to drain it entirely. When I’ve had enough, I twist the cap back on and extend it back up toward him, my fingers brushing his for the briefest moment.
“Thank you.” The words leave me soft, sincere. Too sincere.
His gaze meets mine, cool and unreadable, but not dismissive. Something passes between us, an unspoken question, a quiet pull. My own curiosity rises before I can swallow it back.
