She shifts again on the bed. The sheet rustles.
“You already did.”
The words aren’t sharp, but they cut anyway. They’re true, and we both know it.
I sit on the edge of the rickety chair by the door, the one piece of furniture not nailed to the floor. My boots are caked with road filth, and I kick them off without finesse. The air in here is too still, too thick. I can smell her over the rot—the salt of her skin, the leather of her armor, the faint metallic tang of old blood from a scrape on her thigh.
The cot shifts again. I hear her lie back, her breath going slow, deliberate. Not sleep. Just stillness.
I start to strip down. Slowly. Tunic first, then undershirt. The air chills my skin, but it’s not the cold that has gooseflesh rising. I fold my clothes, set them aside like it matters. The bed creaks again. She hasn’t said anything else, but I feel the weight of her eyes on the back of my neck even though I don’t look.
I don’t ask if I can lie beside her. There's only one bed. We both knew this was coming when we took the room. I ease onto the mattress like it might explode under me, but it’s already dipping under her weight. We lie back-to-back, not touching, not speaking.
The silence is a living thing.
I can feel the warmth of her just inches away. The way the blanket pulls taut between us like a boundary neither of us wants to be the first to breach. My fingers twitch against the thin pillow. Her breathing stays even, steady—but I know she’s not asleep. Not yet.
She changed in front of me like it was a challenge. Like she wanted me to look and hated me for doing it at the same time. And I looked—just enough. Not enough. I don’t know anymore.
We’re both liars, even when we’re quiet.
My muscles ache, not from the day’s travel but from holding so much in. Not just desire—something heavier. She’s a storm bottled up beside me, and I keep waiting for the thunder. The last time we were this close, her lips were on mine. Her hands gripping me like she didn’t know if she wanted to hit or hold. It hadn’t ended. Just paused. Fractured and unfinished.
I shift, just a little, and her breath stutters. Only for a second, but I hear it. She’s awake. And she’s aware.
There’s no space between us that isn’t screaming.
My body is wired, tense. Her scent curls under my nose, not perfume or anything flowery—just River. Dust and steel and sweat and a strange sweetness that sticks in the back of my throat like honey gone sharp.
I close my eyes, but sleep’s a lie tonight.
All I can think about is what she’d do if I touched her.
Not grabbed. Not pulled.
Just... reached.
My hand, on her hip. My breath, at her neck.
Would she lean into it?
Would she slap me away?
Would she break again—open and wild like she had when our mouths met in that inn room two nights back, all anger and ache?
Or would she push me off and leave?
I don’t know. And that’s the cruelest part.
I’m not afraid of her fury. I’ve seen that. I’ve faced it and matched it and wanted it like breath in my lungs. But this?—
This not-knowing, this knife-edge walk beside her in silence—it cuts deeper.
Because part of me wants more than just her skin.
I want her to want me when she’s not on fire. When the world isn’t ending. When she’s not trying to claw her way through memory just to stay upright.
But maybe that’s too much to ask.
