Chapter 68: Would you ever fall in love with someone else

Azura’s POV

The fog had thinned enough to see again.

The sounds of fighting were long gone behind us. Miles back, swallowed by the Wraithfen as if they had never happened at all. Now there was only the forest and the quiet and the two of us moving through it with no idea where the others were or if they were still alive.

Rhydor walked ahead. He always walked ahead. Silent, scanning the trees, watching for anything that moved wrong. I followed because my body had nothing left except the habit of putting one foot in front of the other.

The sky above the branches was turning grey. That pale, flat grey that meant morning was coming whether anyone wanted it or not. A brand new day in the Wraithfen. Wonderful.

We walked for what felt like hours. Time moved strangely in this place, like the forest was holding onto it, stretching it out just to watch us suffer.

Then my legs stopped.

No warning. No stumbling. They simply quit on me, like they had made a decision without asking. I slid down against a silver tree and landed on the cold ground and I did not get back up. My whole body felt like cloth that had been wrung out too many times.

Rhydor kept walking for three steps before he noticed. He stopped. Turned around. Looked at me sitting there against the tree like a pile of bones that had given up on existing.

"We need to keep moving," he said.

"I know that."

"Get up."

"No."

He stared at me. That flat expression that never told me anything.

"Azura."

"I have not slept all night." My head fell back against the bark. "I have been running and fighting and crying and being dragged through a cursed forest by a man who hates me. I am taking a nap. You can stay or you can go. I genuinely don’t care anymore."

"We don’t have time to..."

"I don’t care."

I closed my eyes.

The silence stretched long and thin. I thought he would leave. I thought he would say something sharp and walk away and I would wake up alone in the Wraithfen and probably get eaten by something that didn’t even have a name. That felt about right for how my life had been going.

Then I heard footsteps. Coming toward me instead of away.

I opened one eye.

He was crouching in front of me. Looking at me with that face I had never once been able to read properly. Then he turned around and crouched lower, his back right there in front of me.

He glanced over his shoulder. Once. That look carried an entire sentence without using a single word.

Get on.

I stared at his back for a long moment.

Then I moved.

I climbed onto him. Arms around his neck, legs around his waist. He stood like I weighed absolutely nothing and started walking like this was a normal thing people did. Like carrying a half-dead, completely exhausted girl through a cursed forest at dawn was just a Tuesday for him.

Neither of us said a word about it.

He walked fast. Too fast. The silver trees blurred past, and his shoulders shifted with every step, and my head kept bumping softly against the back of his neck. I told myself firmly that I was not going to fall asleep. If I fell asleep I might fall off. If I fell off I might break something. If I broke something he would probably leave me right here and not even feel bad about it.

So I talked.

"You walk too fast," I said.

Nothing. His pace did not change.

"Your shoulders are uncomfortable."

They were not. They were warm and solid and steady in a way that made it very difficult to stay properly annoyed at him. But he absolutely did not need to know that.

Still nothing.

"You are terrible at conversation."

Silence.

I breathed out slowly against the back of his neck.

"Rhydor."

"What?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"You’re going to anyway."

True. I shifted slightly, settling my weight more evenly across his back.

"Would you ever fall in love with someone else? Apart from Isadora?"

He went still for half a step. Then kept walking like I had said nothing at all.

"Go to sleep."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the only one you are getting."

"You are impossible."

"I know."

"That was not a compliment."

"I know."

I stayed quiet for a moment. The forest moved past us on both sides. Pale light filtering down through the branches. His steps steady beneath me.

"I think you already did," I said quietly.

He stopped walking completely.

Every single muscle in his back went rigid. I felt it everywhere, his shoulders, his arms, even the way his breathing caught for one full second before he started moving again. No words. No reaction. Just walking, as if my words had simply dissolved into the morning air.

I did not know why I had said it. I was too tired to know anything properly. Maybe that was what exhaustion did to a person. Stripped away all the careful things you normally kept behind your teeth.

The silence between us grew heavy.

"Rhydor."

"What?"

"Tell me something about yourself. Something I don’t know."

"No."

"Play the game with me. One thing each. I will go first."

Silence. Long enough that I thought he was finished talking entirely.

"I used to cover my hair with mud when I was little," I said, speaking toward his shoulder. "The white streak. I thought if I hid it, people would stop staring at me." I paused. "They stared anyway. Just at other things instead."

His steps slowed. Just slightly. Just barely enough to notice.

"Your turn," I said.

A long pause. Then, flat as everything else he said:

"I hate the cold."

I laughed. Small and tired, the sound pressed against the back of his neck. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

"That is your secret? You hate the cold?"

"You said anything."

"That is pathetic."

"You are being carried by someone pathetic."

I laughed again. Softer than that time.

"Fine. Another one." I shifted my arms a little. "I am scared of the dark. Always have been. Embarrassing, right?"

"No."

Just that one word. But it landed warm inside my chest and stayed there.

"Your turn," I said.

He was quiet for so long I nearly let it go.

"I do not like people touching me."

I thought about that.

"But you are carrying me right now."

"I know."

I did not push it any further. Both things were true at the same time and I did not know what to do with that except hold on and say nothing about it.

"Another one," I said. "I think about my parents every single day. Even though I cannot remember their faces."

A pause.

"I think about my brother."

I went still against his back. "Torin?"

"No." His voice was quieter now. "Another one. He died."

The words were soft. Too soft. The kind of soft that comes from something that has been carried alone for a very long time.

"I did not know you had another brother," I said.

"No one does."

I did not think about it. My arms just tightened around his neck on their own. My cheek pressed against his shoulder like it had decided that was where it belonged.

"I am sorry," I whispered.

He said nothing. Just kept walking. But something in the set of his shoulders shifted, something too small to name, and I did not let go.

My eyes were getting heavy in a way I could not fight anymore. The warmth coming off his back. The even rhythm of his footsteps. The way he had not once adjusted his grip or complained or put me down.

"Rhydor."

"What?"

"I do not think you are as cold as you pretend to be."

Nothing.

"I think you are scared. Like me. Just a different kind of scared."

Still nothing. But his arms tightened under my legs. Just slightly. Just enough that I felt it clearly.

"I think..." The words started dissolving at the edges. I could not hold them together. "I think I do not hate you as much as I should."

My arms went slack. My head dropped against the back of his neck.

The forest kept moving. His steps kept going.

I was already gone.

****

"I woke up to the sound of water. Not a stream this time, a proper river."

I opened my eyes slowly. I was propped against a smooth flat rock with a river running a few feet away, clear water moving quickly over dark stones, catching the early morning light.

Rhydor was already in it. Waist deep, washing the dirt and dried blood from his arms and hands like this was perfectly ordinary. Water moved across his shoulders and down his back. His hair was dark and wet, pushed away from his face.

I looked away.

Then glanced back once.