The pressure builds in long, grinding waves. I drive deeper, her hips rolling against mine, her thighs tightening around me, skin slapping against skin in an intoxicating sound that has the world fading around me. Then she tears her mouth from mine and grabs both my shoulders, her fingernails biting into my skin. A loud moan breaks from her and her thighs shake hard against my hips, her insides clenching around me in tight, rhythmic pulses.
The sensation rips through me. I bury myself deep and groan from somewhere low in my chest, releasing into her with three final, forceful thrusts, my arm locked around her hips.
We stay like that with no intention of moving. Her forehead is tipped against my shoulder, both of us breathing hard. The forge fire has burned down while we weren't paying attention.
Then her hands flatten on my chest and push.
I step back. She slides off the table and moves to her clothes without looking at me, dressing quickly, efficiently. When shestraightens her eyes travel to the blades on the table, then at the forge, then at the wall beside me.
"You have to go," she says.
Her voice is steady. Every wall back in position, mortared in place before I can say anything to stop it.
I pick up my shirt from the floor and say nothing.
13
EDRIA
Iwake up before the forge fire and lie there staring at the ceiling beams.
My hair is still loose around my face. I find the tie on the pillow beside me and braid it back before I get up, moving quietly past Papa's door and down to the kitchen. The water in the basin is cold. I splash it on my face and stand there dripping, and try to think practically.
It doesn't entirely work.
Last night was—I don't have a clean word for it. Good doesn't cover it. Complicated covers it better, but complicated was already true before anything happened. What it actually was, stripped of everything else, was something I wanted. I've known that since the almost-kiss. The wanting isn't the problem.
The problem is everything the wanting sits inside.
Nyrius governs this region. I forge illegal weapons for smugglers who supply rebel factions. He knows about the second part and hasn't arrested me, which makes him either principled or reckless, and I'm not sure which one is better for my situation. A relationship between us—if that's even what this is—draws attention I can't afford. It makes Malrec moresuspicious. It makes Nyrius more visible in Oxwood, which makes everything I do here more scrutinized.
And I don't even know what he wants from me beyond last night.
I dry my face and go light the forge.
He comes by mid-morning.
Papa is out pricing timber, and Finn is running grain to the Pelley farm, so it's just the two of us. Nyrius steps into the forge without the edge he usually carries in with him—no provoking remarks, no deliberate baiting. He leans against the door frame and watches me work with his arms loose at his sides.
It's more unsettling than the provocation.
"How's the Henley order coming?" he asks.
"Done yesterday." I fit a bolt to the hinge I'm assembling. "You're not here about the Henley order."
"No." A pause. "I'm leaving Oxwood again. Today."
I keep working. "How long this time?"
"Hard to say. There are things that need my attention elsewhere."
I nod, turning the hinge over to check the alignment. He watches me do it without filling the silence, which is new. When he first arrived he'd have filled it with something designed to get a rise out of me. Now he just stands there, and the quiet between us is different—not comfortable exactly, but honest.
"Edria." His voice drops just slightly. "Stay out of trouble while I'm gone."
I tip my head back to look at him. He's not smiling, but there's something behind his eyes that isn't entirely serious either.
"I'm not making any promises," I say.
