“From anywhere.”
I stop packing. That lands differently than I expected. Not a leash, he said. But not freedom either. Something with teeth that works both ways.
“And if I just don't get into danger? If I'm very careful and boring and nothing ever tries to eat me? Does the oath just... wait? Forever?”
His expression shifts. Not quite a smile, but the ghost of one, gone before it fully forms. “You climbed into a ditch full of blood to save a stranger twice your size. I don't think careful and boring is available to you.”
I cinch my pack closed and stand. The blister on my heel has evolved from screaming to a sort of wet, grinding agony, and my back has locked solid overnight. Every muscle aches. I slept maybe two hours, curled against the far wall while he sat in the opposite corner, still as stone, watching the door.
He didn't sleep. I know because every time I stirred, those amber eyes were open. Fixed on the darkness. Waiting for something that never came.
I have to crane my neck back to meet his gaze. The angle sends a spike of pain down my shoulders. “So I'm stuck with you.”
“Until you need saving.” That half-expression again, barely visible. “Given your complete absence of survival instincts, I expect that won't take long.”
“That's rude.”
“It's accurate.”
I want to argue. Can't, really. I did climb into a ditch to save a dying monster I'd never met, in open defiance of every rule that's kept me breathing on these roads.
He pushes off from the beam and takes a step toward the door. His leg buckles. Not completely, but enough. I see the way his weight shifts, the way his body betrays him, and I'm moving before I can think better of it.
I duck under his arm. Shoulder against his side, bracing, trying to take as much of his weight as my frame can manage. Which isn't much. He's heavy in a way that defies the normal rules of mass, dense with muscle and bone and whatever makes a Bogatyr something other than human. The pressure drives my boots into the packed dirt floor and forces the air from my lungs in a sharp huff.
He goes rigid.
Every muscle in his body turns to iron. I feel it happen under my hands, and for a heartbeat I think he's going to throw me off. Shove me away. Rebuild that careful distance he's been maintaining since the moment he woke up in the ditch.
“Don't.” The word sounds like it's being dragged out of him through broken glass.
“You'll fall.”
“I'll heal.”
“Not if you tear those stitches open. Not if you land wrong and drive a broken rib into your lung.” I adjust my grip, tryingto find a position that doesn't feel like being slowly compressed into the earth. “I didn't spend all those hours putting you back together to watch you undo my work in three seconds.”
“You should keep your distance.” His voice has gone tight. Controlled in a way that speaks of effort, of something being actively held back. “I'm not safe.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it's true.”
His skin is hot against mine, even through the leather of his armor. The fever hasn't broken. Might be getting worse. Some clinical part of my brain is calculating how high his temperature must be running, whether this is normal for his kind or a sign of something going badly wrong.
The rest of me is noticing other things. The way his arm feels across my shoulders, heavy and hard. The way I fit under it. The way his chest moves against my side with each careful breath, the expansion and contraction of something massive trying very hard to be still.
I look up at him. His jaw is clenched so tight that I can see every tendon in his neck standing out. His eyes are amber, not gold, but something moves in their depths. Fear, not anger.
“You had a chance to hurt me on the road. And again while I slept last night,” I say. “When you woke up. Your hand was right there.” I gesture at my throat. “You didn't.”
“I almost did.”
“Almost doesn't count.”
“It should.” He's looking down at me now, really looking, and I can see the weight behind his eyes. Years of it. More than I can guess. “You don't understand what I am. What I can do. What I've done.”
“Then tell me.”
