After a while, I find myself speaking without thinking. “I would have really liked to see this place before it was underwater. I bet it was beautiful once.”
“I can see that,” he murmurs.
I don’t look up, but I can feel his gaze on me, and for some reason, it doesn’t feel wrong.
My eyelids grow heavy, the cold no longer biting at me. In the safety of his arms, I feel peace. As I drift into sleep, I hold tightly to the warmth he provides, even if I’d never admit it aloud.
Chapter 20
?---- Koen ? ----?
Her breathing is slow, and even now, the rise and fall of her chest brushes lightly against mine. Every time her head shifts against my shoulder, it’s like a quiet test of my will to see how still I can stay, how long I can pretend this is nothing more than a necessity.
But it doesn’t feel like just a necessity.
Her silken, impossibly soft hair spills across my arm, catching faint threads of moonlight from the cracks above. I can feel the warmth of her cheek through my leathers, and every beat of her heart is an echo in my own chest.
I should be thinking of the trial. About how close I’d come to dying, about the danger still ahead. Yet, all I can think about is how right this feels. Like something I’d lost, and finally found again.
I study the curve of her face in the dim light. The way her lashes rest against her skin, casting faint shadows. The way her lips part ever so slightly with each breath. She trusts me enough to sleep like this.
A sharp and uninvited pang hits me. I don’t even know why. Maybe it’s because I know this moment won’t last. When she wakes up, she will pull away and throw her walls back up. I’ll be just another champion in her eyes again. For now…just for now, I let myself breathe her in, memorizing the weight of her against me. Pretending, for one fragile heartbeat, that maybe she could be mine to hold.
I don’t even realize how much time has passed until the first rays of sunlight pierce through the cracks in the ceiling, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. She stirs, her breathing shifting from the steady rhythm into something more aware.
I feel it before she moves, the subtle tension returning to her muscles, the way she begins to feel distant again, even though she is still in my arms.
Her lashes flutter, and then those violet eyes open—hazy with sleep, vulnerable, and unguarded. I want to freeze the moment, keep her here, keep her looking at me like this.
“Serenya—” Her name tastes heavier than it ever has before. She is already slipping from my hold, slow and careful as if afraid of waking something dangerous. She sits up and brushes her hair over her shoulder, her expression shuttering like a door slamming shut.
“We should get moving,” she says, voice quiet but firm.
“Wait—”
She doesn’t. She won’t. Her gaze flicks past me, not at me, the way people look when they don’t want to hear what you’re about to say.
I swallow the words I want to say to her, the ones thatwould be too much, too soon.
Instead, I follow her, every step forward feeling like she is putting more distance between us than the trial’s path ever could. But I can’t stop watching her, and I can’t stop remembering how it felt to have her in my arms, even if just for a little while.
I follow her through the cold, ankle-deep water. It isn’t rushing, just sitting there like a still, endless flood stretching in every direction. The air smells of wet earth and the faint rot of whatever plants had drowned here long ago.
Serenya keeps her gaze forward, her pace steady, like she could outwalk the memory of the night before.
Last night, somewhere in that quiet, something awoke inside of me. I’m not sure when it started, but I’m falling for her. What started out as a genuine offer to keep her warm turned into me realizing that maybe I’ve just been pretending. But I don’t want to anymore. I don’t want to pretend her jabs don't secretly make me smile or that her glares don’t make my pulse spike. I don’t want to pretend I dislike her when I know damn well I don’t.
However, this morning, when her eyes opened, the walls came back. She rolled away like the warmth had been nothing—to her, it probablywasnothing—and slipped behind her armor again.
Now, every step we take is in uncomfortable silence.
I open my mouth once to say something. To tell her she doesn’t have to keep pushing me away. Before I can even get the words out, she cuts me off.
“Don’t,” she says, her voice quiet but sharp enough tostop me.
So I stay quiet.
The clouds overhead press low, thick and dark, smothering what little daylight there is. The water mirrors the gray sky, our ripples the only movement. It starts to drizzle, then a steady curtain of rain soaks us through in minutes. That’s when I spot the jagged shadow of a cave in the distance.
