“Leave it to you to come to the realm of dragons and find yourself bound to the most precious one,” Brenton said, eyes on my boots before he looked at me, his attention sweeping over my face. He dragged a hand over the back of his neck before he dropped it to his side. “Have the tent,” he said. His voice wasn’t sharp, but it wasn’t soft either. Careful, maybe. “I’ll sleep outside.”
“No.” With my throat scraped raw, the words came out rough. “I’m staying with Everly. I can’t sleep in a tent where your scent lingers on everything.”
He flinched, cupping his jaw that tensed the longer he watched me. He didn’t know I’d snuck in earlier to pull out the same shirt and shorts I’d been wearing every night. I was so angry when I remembered I’d washed it only this morning, and his scent was no longer as strong.
Brenton shifted on his feet, scuffing the dirt with the bottom of his boot. “Lolli . . .”
My heart stumbled. I should’ve turned away. Should’ve shut him down from ever calling me that again.
But neither of us moved.
He huffed, defeat laced in his breath and across his features.
“Fine,” he said, watching the way I ran my fingers over the small crystals on my bracelet. I forced my hands to still, to fall to my sides. “I’ll take the tent.”
“Good,” I said, although nothing about this felt good.
We each stared at the other, two people bound by magic and fate that used to feel like belonging but now trembled, tattered with bruises.
He finally turned and ducked into the tent without looking back. And even though I tried to pretend I didn’t care, the sound of the fabric rustling as he moved wrapped around my lungs until I couldn’t breathe.
Because the one person who could hurt me this deeply was still here. And I still wanted him.
Everly stepped around to face me, and as absorbed as I was in my own misery, I’d forgotten about her. Her lips pressed in a soft, tired smile. “Short hair fits you,” she said lightly, as if my world hadn’t just shattered around me.
I didn’t answer.
Everly’s hand settled on my shoulder, giving me a quick squeeze that didn’t ask anything of me.
“Do you want me to stay out here with you?” she asked.
I blinked back the tears that rose suddenly and managed to shake my head. “I’ll go to bed later.”
She left. I didn’t watch Ashara rise to follow Hoshiko back to their cave. The emptiness they left in their wake made my heart squeeze.
I sat there long after the fire burned down to embers. Long after the camp stilled into an uneasy quiet. My body felt both heavy and weightless. As if the day’s events had weighed me into the ground but left my soul adrift.
When everything around me fell silent, I rose and walked to the spot where Brenton had stood. His boot prints were pressed into the dirt and grass. I knelt beside them and pressed my fingers against the print.
I stayed there, tracing it for a long time before I turned my attention to my bracelet. Running my fingers over the smooth crystal beads, I stared at the pretty, dried flowers that livedinside each one. Maybe hours passed. I wasn’t sure. Time had become meaningless after the boy had taken his final breath.
A soft snap broke the silence, and the cord that held my bracelet together came undone between my fingers.Vith.
The crystals spilled onto the ground, scattering across the dirt like fragments I couldn’t piece back together.
And didn’t that fit my fractured state right now?
I didn’t cry. I didn’t have a single tear left in me to give.
My hands trembled as I picked them up, one by one, holding the crystals in my shaking palm as if they were fragile pieces of a world where I no longer belonged. A world where I still believed in healing. In hope. In us. I tucked them carefully into the pocket of my pants, staring at my naked wrist. It looked wrong.
Eventually, with quiet steps, I went to Brenton’s tent. I didn’t open the flap but walked to the side where I knew he slept. I sank onto the earth close enough that I picked up his scent that hung to the canvas, where I could hear his uneven breathing and the spike of his pulse. Close enough to feel him without being able to reach him.
I closed my eyes and pressed the back of my head against my arm.
Even if he was the one who broke me, I needed to be near him.
Because being close hurt less than being away.
