Torin looks back at me as I shiver at the thought. “I don’t want a horse.”
“You need your horse,” Torin says. “You heard what Conquest said. You’re draining yourself because you’re away from your horse. I wonder if the stains will stop once you find him. When… When the former Death died, his horse stood by his body for days… then one day he was just gone.”
“He’s in the realm the god is in,” I mumble, slumping down on Mickey. “I don’t want a horse.”
“You met him?” Torin asks curiously.
I think back to that familiar tug I’d felt while I followed those chains. And the way I desired to go with him… and that pull I felt when I left through the Door. “I don’t know… I just know he’s in there. I could hear these chains… something guided me to the other Door.”
“Your horse?” Torin asks.
“Fuck if I know. I don’t want a horse. Can’t it be like a kitten or something?”
“The four kittenmen of the apocalypse definitely doesn’t sound as cool,” Mickey says.
“Shush it, Mickey. No one wants your input,” I mutter. When we reach the house, Joy tells us she’ll bring our food through the Door when it arrives, so for now, we head through to Torin’s palace on our own.
Feeling defeated and exhausted, I set the bow down on the closest flat surface and aim for the stairs, but Torin has a strange expression on his face as he grabs my hand.
“What?”
He slides his fingers between mine, and I’m fixated on them while he tugs me toward the door that leads out to the garden. Torin looks elated as he rushes outside and quickly runs past the fountain to where a small fence divides the garden from the world beyond it. Feeling overwhelmed, I look out at the stretch of beautiful flowers beginning to bloom where the ground was last left in a petrified state.
I stare at them in disbelief while the hand on mine tightens.
“Does this mean your power is back?” I ask, feeling hopeful.
“Not all of it… but my strength is definitely coming back.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say as I look out past where his magic reaches and think about the wasteland beyond it—the wasteland caused by the being who once held the same power I do. It makes me feel uneasy, but Torin’s smile draws me back to the present.
“Eh,” Mickey mutters from where he’s come up behind us. “If there are plants, there’s lawn work and weeding and… not my thing.” He’s obviously not impressed as he heads off.
I raise an eyebrow while I question how anyone couldn’t find the field before us beautiful. “Pretend we don’t know him.”
“Joy brought food!” Mickey shouts.
“I would, but… it sounds like he has food,” Torin says as he eagerly points toward the palace.
I offer him a smile as I try my best to pretend that everything is the same as before. “We’ll kind of know him. Definitely strangers, though.”
Torin grins at me. “Yeah… we’re strangers with Mickey… but what are we?”
“We’re ‘Riley,’” I tease. The words he’d murmured in that alley come back to me… the way he told me he loves everything about me. It leaves me in this strange turmoil where I want to tell him what I’m feeling, but these waves of guilt keep me silent.
Torin’s expression softens while he leans down and sets his forehead against mine. “I love being ‘Riley.’”
I feel anxious that he’s going to wake up and realize that I really am the being who ruined everything. What if I suddenly remember what happened? What if I lose myself as my magic returns to me? What if I destroy the first relationship I’ve ever had? All my life, I’ve felt alone. I felt like something was missing. And when I met Torin, he filled a hole I didn’t even know I had in my heart.
His fingers slide into my hair, his forehead still resting on mine. “We’re going to accomplish so much together.”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
“With you by my side, right?”
I nod, not trusting myself to say it. Everything is so overwhelming that it feels hard to even breathe. But the manstanding before me is keeping me strong, giving me everything I need to fight for this… forus.
“I’ve never had anyone to rely on… and right now… I really need you or I’m not sure I can do this,” I say.
