8. Chapter 8
AMARIA
We found the horse a mile past the lake.
It was standing in a clearing, reins trailing in the dirt, saddle still cinched. No rider. Just a pewter film of ash coating its flanks and a wild, white-rimmed eye that tracked our approach.
"Dead Zone refugee," Maxx said quietly. "Must have bolted when its owner..."
He didn't finish. Didn't need to.
Serenya approached slowly, hands raised, murmuring a soothing, melodic cadence. The horse's ears flicked. Its breathing steadied. After a moment, she had the reins in her hand.
"Well." She looked back at us. "At least one good thing came out of that hellscape."
One horse. Five people. And a tether that screamed if two of them got more than six feet apart.
"Maxx can lead it," I said immediately. "Eryndor walks beside—"
"No," Dreadscale stated. "Eryndor is still recovering from a chest wound. Walking will drain him. Drain you."
"Then I'll walk and he rides—"
"Six feet, Flameheart." Maxx was already grinning. I wanted to hit him. "Remember? Your invisible leash?"
"It's not a—"
"You both ride." Dreadscale wasn't asking. "You've adjusted your distance fourteen times in the last mile. You're bickering. You're slowing us down. The rest of us walk. You share the saddle. We move twice as fast."
I looked at the horse. Looked at Eryndor. Looked at the six feet of charged air between us.
"No."
"Amaria." Serenya's voice was soft, but there was steel underneath. "You're both still healing. The tether wants you close. You keep fighting it, you're going to arrive in Liraeth exhausted and useless."
"There has to be another—"
"There isn't." She stepped closer. "You think I haven't noticed? Every few minutes, one of you winces. Readjusts. Snaps at the other. You're burning through your reserves just to maintain six feet of stubborn distance."
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
She was right. I could feel it—the constant, low-grade siphon. Like a wound that wouldn't quite close.
"Fine."
"You first," he said.
I wanted to fight it. But Serenya was watching with that look, and Dreadscale's patience had clearly reached its limit. So I grabbed the saddle horn and hauled myself up, leaving room behind me that I desperately hoped would stay empty.
It didn't.
He mounted behind me in one fluid motion, his chest settling against my back, his thighs bracketing mine.
The tether purred.
Oh shit.
Every muscle I'd been clenching for three days unlocked at once. My spine gave up the fight before my brain could weigh in, sagging back against his chest like it had been waiting for exactly this.
For years I'd kept every exit mapped, every crowd measured for the fastest way out. And now my body had just—melted. Without asking. Into someone I couldn't walk away from if I tried.
A sound escaped me. Small. Relieved. The kind of sound I would deny to my dying day.
Eryndor went rigid.
"Not. A word," I growled.
"I didn't say anything,” he retorted.
"Your silence is very loud."
"Would you prefer I comment on—"
"I would prefer you stop breathing so close to my ear."
"Difficult, given the circumstances."
"Then suffer quietly."
We sat there. Pressed together from hip to shoulder. The tether humming its obscene satisfaction between us.
This was horrible.
This was the worst thing that had ever happened to me.
This was a war crime against my dignity.
This felt so good I could have wept.
That was the problem. Not the wanting—wanting I could work with, wanting had an off switch. The relief was the betrayal. My body had apparently defected without notice, and the message it sent my brain said finally instead of abort.
I did not do this. I didn't lean. I didn't soften. I definitely didn't melt against people who'd spent months being professionally terrible to me just because they happened to be warm and solid and—
My shoulders dropped another inch.
Traitors. Both of them.
The worst part was I couldn't even blame the tether.
The tether was just doing what the tether did.
This was entirely me—whatever idiot part of me had apparently decided that now, in the middle of a grey apocalypse with blood still under my fingernails, was the time to discover I had opinions about softness and cuddles.
This felt like a fire I did not want to put out.
My hips tilted and rocked back without permission. Seeking more contact. Harder contact.
Eryndor’s hand shot out. Gripped my waist.
"We should—" Eryndor's voice came out rough. He cleared his throat. "Your weapons."
"What about them?"
His hand moved before I could react—sliding along my waist, finding the dagger sheathed at my hip, checking the strap. Then lower, thumbing the blade strapped flush to my knee. Then up, to the one harnessed at my elbow.
I caught his wrist.
"Stop patting me down."
"Stop giving me reasons to."
His eyes met mine over my shoulder. Dark. Unreadable. His fingers still spanning the small of my back, right where the hidden sheath sat.
"You sleep with blades," he said. "You probably bathe with them. Forgive me if I want to know where they are before we spend hours crammed together."
"Worried I'll stab you?"
"Should I be?"
"Depends." I smiled, all teeth. "How annoying do you plan to be?"
"I plan to breathe. Apparently that's enough to irritate you."
"It's not the breathing. It's the breathing on my neck."
"Would you prefer I stop?"
"I'd prefer you combust, but I'll settle for silence."
His laugh was low. Surprised. It vibrated through his chest, and I hated how much I didn't hate it.
"If I wanted you dead," I added, "you'd be dead. I don't need hidden steel for that."
"No?" His mouth was close to my ear now. Too close. "What would you use, little fox?"
"My sparkling personality."
"Ah." I could hear the smirk. "So I'm safe, then."
"Don't push your luck."
He clicked his tongue. The horse started walking.
And I became excruciatingly aware of every single point of contact between us.
Think about something else. Anything else.
I tried to focus on something else. The way he sat on a horse, maybe—that irritatingly perfect posture that hinted at formal training. Parade grounds and riding masters. The kind of upbringing that polished men into weapons before they were old enough to question it.
It didn't help. Knowing how he'd learned to sit like that didn't make me any less aware of his thighs against mine.
An hour in, and I had memorized the shape of his torso, his abs, and his damn thighs.
Not on purpose. But when you're pinned against someone's body, you notice things. The way his muscles shifted when the horse changed direction. The expansion of his sternum when he breathed. The heat seeping through his shirt into my back.
The tether had gone quiet. Content. Like a creature that had finally been fed.
And the worst part was that I felt better than I had in days.
My lungs were clear. My head wasn't pounding. Even the pallid tinge to my skin was fading, life returning to my body where his chest had been flush to my spine.
And his arms.
At some point, his arms had wrapped around me. Not holding—not exactly. But his forearms rested against my stomach, his hands loose on the saddle horn in front of me, caging me in warmth I hadn't asked for.
I grabbed his wrists. Shoved them down toward his own hips instead.
"Don't—" I started.
"I wasn't." His voice was tight. "The horse was turning. I was bracing."
"Brace somewhere else."
"There is nowhere else."
The tether hummed. Smug. Sated.
And despite everything—despite the humiliation and the awkward position and the fact that I wanted to claw my way out of my own skin—my body betrayed me. Some stubborn part of me stopped bracing. My weight gave, just slightly, settling back into him like I trusted him to hold it.
For one moment, I let myself have it. The warmth. The steadiness. The solid wall of him at my back.
Then he turned to stone.
Not gradually. All at once. Every muscle locking, every point of contact going rigid and cold. The heat bled out of him like someone had opened a door to winter.
I straightened. The loss of contact stung more than it should have.
What did I do?
I killed the thought before it finished forming. Didn't matter. Wasn't going there.
I fixed my eyes on the treeline and decided I didn't care.
I was very convincing.
When we finally stopped to search for a good campsite, I practically threw myself off the horse. My boots hit soft earth—pine needles and last season's leaves, damp from shade. The trees here grew close, filtering the light into something green and dim.
The tether screamed. I ignored it. Took exactly six feet of distance and turned my back on him, arms wrapped around myself, trying to remember what it felt like to exist in my own skin without his body pressed against me.
"Amaria—"
"Don't."
"We need to talk about—"
"No. We don't." I spun to face him. He was still on the horse, watching me with an expression I couldn't read. "There's nothing to talk about. We get to Liraeth. We find the elders. We break this bond. That's the priority."
"Agreed." He dismounted. Smooth. Controlled. Like he hadn't just spent three hours learning the shape of my body against his. "Sever the tether. Then deal with the Void."
"Then deal with everything else."
"Yes."
We stood there. Six feet apart. The tether whining between us, already hungry again.
Neither of us looked at the other.
Neither of us acknowledged what had happened on that horse—the way the pain had transformed into a ravenous ache. The way our bodies had stopped fighting the proximity and started craving it.
We'd find a way to cut this thing out of us.
We had to.
Because I'd already poisoned one world. I wasn't going to poison him too—not inch by inch, not touch by touch, not with need dressed up as necessity.
Serenya stepped closer. A stick cracked under her boot. Somewhere above us, a bird startled and went quiet.
I felt her gaze before I met it—that careful, healer’s sweep that meant she was cataloging symptoms. Her eyes moved from my face to Eryndor's, then down to where we stood at the edge of our invisible leash.
"Interesting," she murmured.