Chapter 15 Mav
MAV
The forest remained doused in shadow when I woke.
I lay there for a long moment, staring up through the ragged canopy, letting the quiet seep into me.
My body wanted to rise, but my mind lingered on yesterday.
The heat of her spine against me, the tremor in her breath, the way her fingers curled tighter when mine brushed over them, as if she wasn’t sure whether to pull away or hold on.
I’d memorized the shape of that silence between us. Alive and threaded with possibility.
I shouldn’t have touched her that way. Not like someone who had a right.
Not like someone who’d earned it. My chest sizzled with the wanting, the restraint.
The war I’d been losing against myself since the moment she tethered me to her cursed, impossible life.
I closed my eyes, exhaled hard, and shoved the memory down where it belonged.
The weight of sleep gripped my bones as I sat up. I hadn’t meant to let it go that far. Saints, I knew better. But the moment I moved behind her to guide the swing, it stopped being about helping her split firewood and became the best mistake I’d ever made.
A mistake I would very much like to make again.
Perhaps I could start a massive bonfire.
Toss the logs into the river.
Anything that would require us to chop more firewood.
Quinn crouched by the embers of the firepit, coaxing the last of the heat into her hands.
She didn’t look at me when I sat down across from her, which somehow felt louder than if she’d shouted.
Her hair had slipped loose from its braid overnight.
Several soft curls brushed her cheek in a way that made my fingers ache.
I was desperate to brush the stray tendrils from her face.
The tether buzzed in my chest, a reminder of the bond neither of us had asked for.
Quinn busied herself with her cloak, her silence deliberate, her gaze fixed anywhere but me.
Right.
We were pretending nothing had happened.
Breakfast was a quiet, miserable affair: half-stale bread, a sliver of hard cheese, and Branrir’s excuse for tea, which tasted of boiled bark and resignation. Quinn studied the inside of her cup as if it held prophecies instead of leaves.
“Eat,” Thistle said, pushing a tin plate toward me.
I took it. “Good morning to you, too.”
Vesper padded over and dropped half a squirrel at my feet like an offering. “Fresh,” he announced proudly, tail curling high.
Branrir grimaced. “You couldn’t have brought something less…rodent?”
“Oh, and what did you catch in the woods this morning, cartographer?” Vesper goaded, green eyes narrowing. “Ungrateful,” he proclaimed and stalked off, muttering curses under his breath.
Every time I tried to catch Quinn’s gaze, she looked away. Every time I moved closer, she shifted. It wasn’t obvious or rude, but it was more than enough to drive me mad.
Fine.
Two could play this game.
As we started breaking camp, I made sure to stand a little too close. Passed her a waterskin she didn’t need. Brushed against her arm when reaching for a tent peg. Let my shoulder graze hers when loading the bedrolls.
She tensed. Bit her cheek. Pretended not to notice.
That’s when I knew I had her.
She finally rounded on me, huffing hard through her nose. “May I help you with something?”
I glanced up from the strap I was pretending to tighten. “I can think of two dozen ways you could help me,” I said, lacing my tone with suggestion.
Silence.
Her bright blue eyes locked onto mine as she closed the distance between us to mere inches. Then, dangerously sweet, she said, “List them.”
I froze. My brain emptied.
Completely. Utterly. Blank.
She crossed her arms, the picture of smug serenity. “Whatever is the matter?” she asked, tilting her head. “Too inexperienced to be specific?”
I blinked. “I’ll have you know that I’m very experienced.”
Her eyebrow arched. “And yet…none of them have stayed. Perhaps they were not good experiences.”
A scowl claimed my features. “I’m not taking criticism from someone who’s centuries out of practice.”
That landed. Her eyes narrowed. She stepped in close—closer than was fair—her breath brushing my collarbone as she leaned up, voice dropping to a whisper.
“I usually make up for the time I am asleep during my fortnight awake.” Her gaze dropped, slow and deliberate, sweeping me from head to toe. “Usually.”
My throat went dry.
I stared at her, uselessly, and managed: “What makes this time any different?”
She scoffed. “You are not my type.”
Liar.
The look in her eyes yesterday? That wasn’t indifference.
I caught her chin between my thumb and forefinger, guiding her to look at me. “I’ll be whatever type you want me to be.”
Heat and hunger flashed across the tether. I reveled in it.
For the smallest, fractured second, she wavered. Her lips parted. Her breath caught. And Saints—she looked at me, not like I was a mistake, but a decision she wanted to make at least twice.
She blinked hard, as though waking from a dream. The air between us fractured; she straightened, a single step carrying her out of reach.
“We have to get going,” she said.
Quinn mounted her horse with the grace of someone very much pretending her heartbeat wasn’t rattling her ribs. I watched her ride ahead, lips twitching, smirk threatening.
She didn’t want me?
Right.
And I was the Saint of celibacy.
The sun had begun its slow descent, bleeding fractured gold through the canopy. But in the Elderhollow, light didn’t behave—it hung in thin, brittle strands, afraid to touch the ground.
We’d been riding for hours, the hush between us settling heavier with each hoofbeat. The birds had stopped singing. Even the wind had gone still.
And that was when I heard it.
Snap.
One twig. Sharp. Deliberate. Wrong.
My reins tightened instinctively.
“Hold up,” I warned.
Too late.
The first arrow hissed past my cheek, close enough to shear a strand of hair. A second buried itself deep into the saddlebag behind me with a wet, ugly thunk.
Masked figures burst from the trees, mud-streaked with weapons aloft.
“Bandits!” I shouted.
Chaos erupted. Horses reared and screamed.
Blades hissed free of scabbards. I dropped from the saddle without thinking, boots hitting the damp earth hard enough to jar my teeth.
The world blurred into instinct and survival—shouts, the sharp clang of steel on steel, branches cracking, leaves scattering under frantic feet.
The smell of it hit next: sap and churned mud, iron and sweat, the raw, animal stink of fear carried on breath and blood. Shadows darted between trunks, blades flashing in quick, vicious arcs.
Thistle flung up a glowing hand. Vines ripped out of the ground like serpents striking, tangling ankles, jerking men off their feet.
Her other palm slammed against a nearby tree.
Roots surged forward, swallowing a sword mid-swing and snapping it in half.
The buzz of magic mingled with the wet crunch of breaking bones.
Branrir fought like a man possessed. He pivoted on a single foot, sword spinning, caving ribs with one strike and skewering another man through the throat with the next.
He was terrifyingly good. Vesper launched from a low branch like a furry missile and landed square on a man’s face, claws raking deep.
The scream that followed was as glorious as it was brief.
But none of that mattered.
Every sense I had was searching for her.
Quinn.
I caught a glimpse of her through the havoc. She fought to keep her horse under control. The tether between us wrenched so sharply it stole my breath.
Movement to her right. Too fast.
A bandit lunged from the undergrowth, yanking her from her saddle with brutal strength. The tearing of fabric split the air, followed by Quinn’s gasp of pain.
The world went red.
Sound dulled, fading to nothing but the pound of my own heartbeat. My body moved before thought could form, every old soldier's instinct rising clean and lethal.
I was no longer a man.
I was a weapon.
Two bandits blocked my path.
My sword cut the first down in a single, vicious stroke. I severed the other’s hamstring before he could raise his blade. Blood sprayed across my boots. I didn't care.
Nothing mattered except her.
Quinn elbowed the man holding her, writhing, but he was stronger. His knife caught her cloak, jerking her backward, his grip brutal on her arm.
“DON’T. TOUCH. HER.” The snarl tore free of my throat as I closed the distance.
My blade sang once—then again. The man’s arms fell before he realized they were gone.
His scream was short-lived. I drove my sword through his chest mid-fall, pinning him to the earth, his blood seeping into the moss.
The forest fell silent again. I stood there, panting, sword slick in my hand.
Quinn stumbled toward me, dirt streaking her cheek, splattered with the man’s blood.
Her eyes were wide and wild, the fragile shell of control cracking.
Before I could think better of it, my hand was on her waist, pulling her in until I could feel the tremor running through her bones. She clung to me, burying her face against my shoulder. Her breath shuddered against my collar, quick and uneven, matching the thrum of my own.
“You’re safe now,” I rasped, though my voice broke on the words.
Her heartbeat pounded against mine, fierce and blessedly alive.
She fit, as if my arms were always meant to hold her; now they would never feel right without her in them.
I pressed my cheek to her temple and let myself breathe her in.
Memorizing the weight of her. The warmth.
The truth of her breathing. She pulled back, her lip trembling but no tears falling. That was somehow worse.
“Mav,” she whispered, my name itself a tether; the only thing keeping her from falling apart.
I had kept the vow I made at the truth loop:
Anyone who hurt her would be sent to the seven hells courtesy of my blade or bare hands.
And I would keep it again.
And again.
Thistle crashed through the undergrowth a moment later, hands still glowing with Hedge magic.
Branrir stumbled in behind her, wiping his blade on a fallen man’s cloak and cleaning the lenses of his spectacles as if he hadn’t dismantled three opponents with terrifying precision. He didn’t even look winded.
Forcing myself to breathe, I released Quinn enough to stand on her own. My hands felt wrong without her weight in them, but she stayed close, her fingers curled tight in my cloak. That one small point of contact was the only thing keeping me upright.
I gaped at Branrir. “Where did you learn to fight?”
He shrugged, unbothered. “Army service. Briefly. And…I may have memorized a few hundred volumes of military strategy and torture manuals. For context, not practice.”
“Remind me never to piss you off.”
“Sound advice,” Vesper said dryly, as he strutted past a corpse.
Thistle’s gaze swept over us, sharp and searching. “Are either of you hurt?”
Quinn tried to answer, but her voice cracked. She swallowed, nodded, then gave up. I answered for us, my own words rough. “We’re fine.”
But we weren’t. Not really.
Her hand tightened suddenly, clutching my sleeve like a lifeline.
I looked down, and my stomach dropped.
Blood coated her fingers.
“Quinn?” My voice came out ragged. “What happened?”
She stared at her hands, brows drawn. “It is not mine.” Her head lifted, her eyes wide and stricken. “It is yours.”
I frowned, ready to argue.
Then the pain hit. It slammed into me beneath my ribs, low and vicious. A white-hot burn twisted deep. My body had been lying to me, holding the damage at bay until the fight ended. My knees buckled. I staggered half a step, clutching my side. My palm came away hot and slick.
“Shit,” I hissed.
“Mav?” Quinn’s voice sharpened, panic slicing through the exhaustion.
Thistle was at my side in an instant, her hand glowing green. “Sit. Down. Now.”
Pride kept me standing. I couldn’t fall with Quinn looking at me like the world was being ripped out from under her.
Except my body didn’t care about pride. The forest spun, tilting in a nauseating lurch.
My vision blurred. Somewhere, Quinn said my name again—high, ragged—but her voice bent strangely at the edges, sound warping underwater.
The tether seized, not the soft, steady hum I’d grown used to.
This was violent. A jolt of magic ripped through me, driving a spike of lightning through my chest. My lungs spasmed as my spine arched.
Quinn’s fear poured into me through our bond while my pain crashed back into her.
We were caught in a loop, each of us amplifying the other, until it threatened to split my ribcage.
It was all too much.
I gasped, choking on air that wouldn’t come. My knees hit the moss. The tether pulled tighter and tighter, a strangling thread wrapping our souls together.
Her voice cut through, my name as a command. “Mav.”
I forced my eyes open. Through the haze, I saw her crouched before me, curls tumbling loose, cheeks streaked with dirt and desperation.
Her hands cupped my face. It may have been a side effect of the blood loss, but I could’ve sworn her skin shimmered silver, glittering moonlight on the surface of a lake.
“Mav, stay,” she begged, her breath hitching. “Stay with me.”
Her fear hit me again, raw and unguarded, but beneath it was something deeper.
Fiercer. It wrapped around my fading consciousness like armor, like an oath.
I tried to answer. I think I did. My mouth formed her name, though I couldn’t hear it over the deafening pulse in my ears.
The last thing I saw before the world went black was her terrified, beautiful face.
Please, Saints—don’t let this be the last time I see her.
Then—
Nothing.