Sylar
Chapter ten
The high noon sun beats down mercilessly over the market’s open training grounds, baking the dusty earth until the air itself seems to vibrate.
Raylen steps up to the marksman’s line, the heavy timber of his bow balanced casually in his grip.
The trial targets today are a notoriously difficult Emberleigh creation: Mirage Mist. Instead of solid straw, they are wavering, illusory rings of heat and vapor that shift and dance in the scorching light, making it nearly impossible to lock down a true center.
Raylen wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead, his shoulders tensing as he raises the bow.
Before he can draw the string, a tall, cool shadow falls over him. My shadow. I step right into his personal space under the pretense of adjusting his form. My long fingers slide firmly over his biceps, intentionally shifting his stance.
“Your left shoulder is dropping five degrees, you oaf,” I mutter, my voice low and intentionally gruff. My hands linger on his heated skin, tracking the smooth lines of his tattoos, though my eyes betray me as they slip down from his brow to fix squarely on the teasing curve of his mouth.
Raylen doesn’t pull away. Instead, a slow, wicked grin spreads across his face. Without even turning his head to look at the wavering vapor rings, he draws the feathered fletching back to his jaw and releases.
The bowstring snaps with a sharp, echoing twang.
The arrow cuts cleanly through the shifting heat waves, piercing the exact, invisible center of the illusory target.
The Mirage Mist explodes into a harmless shower of sparkling rainbow condensation.
The small crowd that has gathered to watch erupts into loud cheers.
“Hard to focus when my coach is trying to seduce me with his sexy, nerdy charms,” Raylen teases, leaning his head back just enough to flash me a brilliant, lilac-eyed wink.
I immediately yank my hands back, my face flaming hotter than the damn sun, but the official proctor is already stepping forward. With a grand flourish of his quill, he logs the impossible shot into his ledger, officially entering Raylen’s name into the high-stakes championship tournament.
The roar of the training grounds fades behind us, but the triumphant grin on Raylen’s face remains completely unbothered.
“Come celebrate my win with me,” he commands, his fingers wrapping securely around my wrist and tugging me out of the dusty training grounds before the lingering proctors can crowd him.
He navigates us through the labyrinth of the market to his favorite pub.
The place is a lively, open-air tavern tucked beneath a canopy of weeping willows.
The atmosphere here is thick with celebratory energy.
Joyful, fast-paced folk music ripples through the air from a trio of mandolin players, and off to the side, Cinder is happily yipping, playfully flying in erratic, joyful loops next to a pair of dancing elves who are entirely charmed by her antics.
The tavern is chaotic, and the menu board is a dizzying blur of local brews, but before the familiar knot of decision-anxiety can tighten in my chest, Raylen takes charge.
He smoothly places an order for both of us, getting me a cold, sweet pear-mead and a plate of salted flatbread.
Relief washes over me so intensely it makes me dizzy, a profound happiness settling into my ribs.
He filters out the noise so I don’t have to.
We slide into a shaded booth, the wood cool against my back. Raylen leans his elbows on the table, shifting closer until our thighs press firmly together. The victory has made him bold, his eyes burning with an intense, heavily flirtatious light that sets my skin on fire.
“So,” I say, taking a long, grateful sip of the mead. “Now that you are officially a championship contender, perhaps you can finally tell me what the legendary Archer of Moonscliffe has actually been doing for the last few years.”
Raylen chuckles, his fingers tracing lazy circles on the condensation of his glass, occasionally brushing against my knuckles.
“Honestly, Sy? It’s not as glamorous as the broadsheets make it sound.
The past three years have mostly just been a blur of grueling archery competitions, sleeping in various woodland camps, and traveling from kingdom to kingdom with Cinder acting as my terrifyingly high-maintenance co-pilot. ”
He looks up, his gaze dropping to my lips. “It was loud. It was fast. And it was incredibly lonely.”
My heart stumbles at the raw honesty in his voice.
“And what about you?” he asks softly, trailing a thumb over the back of my hand. “What happened after I left town?”
“I went to university at the bottom of the mountain,” I tell him, the admission tasting a bit heavy on my tongue.
“It was… a massive culture shock. But I never wanted to leave Dun Steorra territory entirely. I chose a school close by because—” I hesitate, looking down at our touching fingers.
“Because I wanted to be close to my mother and sister. If they ever needed me, I couldn’t be hundreds of miles away.
As soon as I graduated and returned home, I took up the tutoring position. That was seven years ago now.”
Raylen looks at me, his expression softening into something so fiercely tender it catches my breath in my throat. He doesn’t call me overprotective. He doesn’t call me rigid. He just smiles, as if my fierce loyalty to my family is the most beautiful thing he’s ever encountered.
“Seven years,” he murmurs, his eyes dropping to my neck. “My sister says you’re her favorite tutor.”
I nod.
The low afternoon sun shifts through the willow branches, hitting the front of my tunic and casting a bright, metallic reflection across the table.
Raylen freezes. His gaze locks onto the silver, cylindrical-shaped locket that’s settled against my chest. His signature pendant and silent public claim I haven’t taken off since he gave it to me.
A sudden, dark heat flares in his hooded eyes, entirely scorching away the playful banter.
The weight of the heavy silver pendant resting against my chest feels less like a piece of jewelry and more like a physical anchor, dragging me deeper into a territory I have no formula to navigate.
“You’re still wearing it,” he whispers.
Before I can come up with a logical response, Raylen reaches across the table.
His long, calloused fingers wrap firmly around the thick silver chain.
With a slow, deliberate smirk, he uses the necklace to playfully tug me forward, dragging my chest flush against the edge of the table until my face is mere inches from his.
“Raylen—” I start, but the word is completely stolen.
He closes the remaining distance, capturing my lips with a deep, claiming kiss. He tastes like sweet pear-mead, summer heat, and a desperate hunger that leaves my mind completely blank. As his lips move against mine with a possessive confidence, the loud tavern around us vanishes.
When he finally pulls back, just a fraction, his thumb lingers on my jawline, his breathing as ragged as my own.
I stare into his pretty eyes, my fingers trembling where they rest against his vest. A terrifying realization crashes through my defenses, leaving me exposed.
I don’t want this to be a two-week adventure.
I don’t want this romance to end when the Everend Market packs up its tents and the festival flutes go quiet.
I look at the beautiful, wild rogue in front of me—a man built for the open road and endless horizons—and a desperate question echoes through my racing mind.
How on earth am I going to convince him to keep me?
We walk back to the cottage in a comfortable, heavy silence as the afternoon sun dips, painting the sky in soft shades of violet and gold. Cinder trots lazily ahead of us, her fiery tail flicking against the tall grass, exhausted from her afternoon of festival mischief.
The moment the wooden door clicks shut behind us, locking out the distant, muffled hum of the market, the air inside the cottage shifts.
It feels smaller. Closer.
Raylen unbuckles his leather quiver, setting it carefully against the wall before turning to face me. He looks so fucking edible in the dimming light. His sharp jawline. His braided lilac hair coming loose and curling slightly from the afternoon heat.
“You’re doing it again,” he murmurs, a slow, knowing smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he steps into my personal space.
I blink, my back pressing against the door. “Doing what, precisely?”
“Calculating,” he whispers.
He reaches out, his thumb gently tracing my jaw. His calloused skin sends a familiar, electric hum straight down my spine. “Your eyes get incredibly dark when you’re running numbers in that beautiful head of yours, Sy. What are you counting?”
I’m counting the days we have left, I want to say. I’m trying to figure out how to stretch a fortnight into a lifetime.
Instead, I let out a shaky breath. “I am merely realizing that my memories are not the only things I have miscalculated.”
Raylen’s expression softens, the playful rogue vanishing to reveal the fiercely tender boy from our teens. He leans in closer, his chest brushing against mine, his hands coming up to rest securely on the small of my back.
“Then stop calculating,” he breathes against my lips. “Just feel.”
When his mouth meets mine this time, there is no crowded tavern around us, no urgent search for our sisters, and no frantic panic or stress. It is slow, deep, and devastatingly sexy. He still tastes like sweet pear-mead.
His hands tighten on my waist, pulling me flush against his radiating warmth until I’m untangled.
As we sway slightly together in the center of the quiet room, my mind goes beautifully, wonderfully blank.
He guides me to the reading chair in the corner and straddles my lap so I’m forced to look up into his pretty eyes.
Cinder hops up on his shoulders, causing the two of us to laugh.
In this moment, there’s nothing weighing me down, nothing suffocating me or causing my chaotic mind to whirl with panic.
I don’t know where the open road will take him when the market ends, but right here, wrapped in each other’s arms beneath the shelter of this cozy cottage, I feel safe.