He wasn’t wrong.
“You know they’ll kill me too if you’re found someplace off-limits.” She jerked her chin toward the boulder. “And this”—she swept a hand toward the carved rock face—“definitely qualifies.”
“I’m only caught if you tell on me.” He turned, facing her fully now. “And you won’t.”
Her eyes closed as she struggled not to strangle him.
But. Again. He wasn’t wrong.
It’s just self-preservation, she told herself. If he went down, she went down with him.
“Fine.” Her arms dropped, boots crunching as she stepped forward to join him.
His scent threaded into her lungs, earthy, like dew on leaves at dawn, thick with shadows and something harder to name.
“What is all this, anyway?” She looked at the strange markings etched across the boulder’s surface.
Her fingertips reached for one of the symbols. But the moment her skin met stone, a bite of cold leapt into her fingers. Jerking back, she rubbed her palms together.
Beside her, Kazuma tapped two fingers against his chin, eyes never leaving the symbols.“I haven’t the faintest,” he said softly—then bumped his hip lightly against hers. “But if I had to guess…maybe don’t touch the ancient mystery rock.” A sliver of a smirk tugged at his mouth.
Stepping back half a step, she tamped down the warmth his touch stirred.
“You risked both our lives on a random mystery rock?”
But…his trail hadn’t wandered. He’d known exactly where he was headed.
“I don’t buy it. You didn’t stumble across this place.”
His brow furrowed, and he cut her a glance from the corner of his eye. “You can’t feel it?”
She clamped her lips shut, the muscle in her cheek twitching.
“No awareness of Mana. No elemental tethers, either.” His teeth closed lightly around the inside of his lip, the motion small, absent. “Clothing that doesn’t match any region on the continent. And endurance that should require Mana, or at least elemental anchoring, to sustain.”
He turned to face her fully. “And then there’s the very interesting way you reacted to my blood.”
Aimee froze as Kazuma’s hand lifted and pushed a loose strand of hair away from her face. The braid he’d tied three days ago was starting to unravel.
“Who are you, Aimee?” His fingers lingered along her cheek. “And why—despite every instinct I’ve honed to recognize and manage a threat—does the idea of hurting you, of leaving you, feel like it might break something I can’t afford to lose?”
Her pulse jumped loud in her ears. And her hand lifted, hesitating between batting his away and drawing it closer.
Then—crack.
A snap of wood sounded behind them.
“Who’s—” she started, barely catching sight of the bolt of darkness whistling overhead.
She ducked as it crashed into the rock face above the cave, but the ledge was already collapsing.
Kazuma slammed into her. Her feet left the ground, spine jarring as she hit a nearby patch of gravel. His weight followed, crushing the air from her lungs, shielding her.
Stone thundered around them. Dust rose.
Aimee blinked against it, vision blurring just as a rock, the size of her head, tumbled through the air straight for them.
“Kaz—!”
