“You’re not allowed to die, River. Not now. Not after all this.”
“I’m not planning to.” My voice breaks. “But it hurts, Kragna. Gods, it hurts.”
He shifts beside me, long limbs folding awkwardly as he leans in and wraps his arms around me. Not tight. Careful. Protective. One hand still tangled in my hair, the other stroking my back in slow, steady lines.
“I got you,” he says. “Ain’t no one gettin’ through me.”
I press my face into his chest. He smells like sweat and blood and the damp leather of his vest. But underneath, there’s something else. Something raw and earthy and alive. The scent of old forest and beast bone and thunder. It fills my lungs, anchors me.
“I used to think I’d die alone,” I murmur. “That one day, I’d just bleed out in a ditch somewhere, and no one’d even know my name.”
He pulls back just enough to look at me. There’s a softness in his eyes now that doesn’t match the rest of him.
“You ain’t dyin’ in a ditch,” he growls. “You’re gonna live long enough to drive a dagger through Laertiez’s black heart. Then we’ll see what comes next.”
“What if there’s nothin’ next?” I ask, voice small. “What if I don’t know who I am without this fight?”
He tilts his head. “Then we figure it out together.”
His fingers trace the edge of my jaw, rough pads soft on skin that’s rarely been touched like this. I want to tell him everything. I want to ask if he’s as scared as I am, if he wonders what comes after the blood and fire. But I don’t need to. Not really.
I can see it in his face.
He’s never done this either.
Never loved someone enough to sit through the night just to hear them breathe.
And gods, that’s what this is, isn’t it?
He loves me.
The thought is terrifying and holy all at once.
I shift against him, every movement slow and aching, and he adjusts without complaint, tucking me closer like I’m something precious. The fire crackles low beside us. The sounds of the forest creep in—rustling leaves, distant chirps, the low rumble of one of his beast-friends circling the camp.
He hums something then, soft and strange—a guttural rhythm, more vibration than melody. It’s old. Trollish. A lullaby, maybe. Something ancient and full of teeth.
It’s beautiful.
“Singin’ to me now?” I murmur.
“Don’t get used to it,” he grumbles, embarrassed. “It’s just… you look like you needed it.”
I smile, eyes drifting closed.
“Don’t stop.”
And he doesn’t. Not all night. He just holds me and hums and watches the dark like it’s something he can fight off for me.
And maybe he can.
The trees don’t move like the ones I grew up with. They breathe here.
Massive, gnarled things with bark like armor and roots thick enough to trip gods. Moss grows up their sides in shaggy coats, and something always rustles just out of sight. But I’m not afraid.
Not anymore.
Kragna’s territory stretches wild and wide through the northern woods, a place so tangled and ancient not even the dark elves bother patrolling it. They call it cursed. Hexed. Haunted.
