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Sweat

Idris

T he next four days were a dream: beautiful, unbelievable, something that couldn’t possibly last. Knowing that at any moment he could wake up, Idris enjoyed every waking second.

By day, he relished the ease between them. He played his flute, and she sang along to the familiar tunes. Conversation spilled from Anya like a mountain spring, her stories flowing over him in an endless stream of lilting laughter and small-town intrigue. She gestured animatedly with her hands as she described escaped pigs and funny misunderstandings. He asked about her mother and grandmother, and her voice became wistful, sharing stories about the women who’d raised her and shaped her.

He even told her more about Grinnick, happy memories he hadn’t thought about in years: the time Grinnick unknowingly met the Lady of Lothgaim in a crowded market and tried to bed her; the pranks he pulled on Idris when they were boys; the books about mythic heroes their father used to read to them, and how they acted out the fight scenes with stick-swords; the taste of their mother’s molasses cookies, Grinnick always taking the biggest one. They were memories he’d forgotten on purpose, but now—in the joyful retelling—they didn’t sting so harshly. Anya squeezed his hand when his voice broke, and laughed heartily at the moments that made him smile.

It amazed him how similar they were—not just their love of music and gossip, but also how their lives had been ruled by loss. Yet where Idris had withdrawn, Anya had flourished. She’d taken the pain of her grief and wove it into deeper connection and community—overextending herself at times, she admitted, but doing so out of genuine fondness.

Idris—who had avoided further heartbreak at all costs—found Anya incredibly brave for facing her grief head-on. Instead of retreating from her pain, she had opened herself more fully to love.

The ease between them only deepened by night, exploring, and lavishing , and ravishing until Idris lost track of all foreboding. Inside their tent or under the stars, with the heat of her bare skin against him, their bodies were impervious to the cold. To what loomed ahead.

As the days and nights unfolded, the bulb-like feelings in his chest grew taller, and he wondered, puzzlingly, if this was what the beginnings of love felt like. It wasn’t the same as the puppy love he’d described, a youthful infatuation. This felt deeper. Truer. More rooted.

But how could he, Idris, be capable of such a beautiful thing? Such a disastrously hopeful thing? In the cabin, Anya had all but told him that the commitment she wanted was something Idris—so long as he remained in his Order—couldn’t offer. And yet, with Anya in his life, he felt capable of anything .

He knew it was premature to feel so strongly, yet the intimacy of life on the road had fostered a deeper knowing than time suggested. No —it hadn’t been the road. It was Anya who had opened him up like this, bit by bit, across campfires and from Briar’s saddle. In the cabin, he’d told her more than he’d ever told anyone—including Grinnick, who didn’t even know how hurt Idris had felt after the baker’s daughter, Nina, had cut him off. Traveling with Anya had created shared experiences, but it was the connection they’d forged together that made him feel so overcome now, so bold in his desire of a life beyond his Order.

He hadn’t been lying when he told her he feared their Fates were doomed. Now that he knew what she felt like, sounded like, tasted like—the fear had only grown. So, yes, with Anya in his life, he felt capable of anything—but he also felt more vulnerable than ever.

This was the danger of falling in love, Idris knew. Love, he’d long ago learned, was the ultimate weakness. And Anya…well, she’d stolen all his strength the moment she’d opened the door to the Possum and invited him in.

On their final full day of travel, Idris and Anya rode Briar in tandem. All the sensations Idris had tried to ignore the first time they rode together had become things to relish: her scent in his nose, the persistent rocking of her backside against his groin. Idris had banded one arm around her stomach, brushed her hair away from her neck, and pressed kisses behind her ear. He’d been half-hard all day.

As the miles passed, the land morphed, becoming flatter and more verdant the closer they got to Fenrir City. Winter crops dotted seemingly endless fields to the east, while the wilds Idris typically roamed became a distant smudge to the west. Orchards and livestock were interspersed with quaint homes, and they encountered more and more people on the road: farming wagons, merchant caravans, casual travelers, and messengers clad in the Lord of Fenrir’s customary crimson and orange.

According to Anya, some folks they encountered murmured about his breastplate and Brine, but the rumors were more spread out, now, and seemed less dazzling to the more populous areas they were passing through. Knights of all kinds were more common here, which made his armor less remarkable the closer they got to the city.

By dusk, they came within sight of the capital. It was built into the foothills of the Shield, the largest and southernmost mountain in the Axe Range, which spanned the northeastern reaches of Fenrir Territory. They were still half a day’s ride away, yet the mountain’s size made it seem closer, rising high into the sunset sky. At its base, the pale stone buildings of the city reflected the light, making the capital—which Idris knew to be harsh, grimy, and old—appear welcoming and grand.

Fenrir was the smallest territory in the Kingdom of Marona, but as they halted on the final rise overlooking the sprawl of hamlets and farmland outside the city walls, the land appeared vast. Beautiful.

“Quite the sight, isn’t it?” Idris said.

Staring out at the capital from over Anya’s shoulder, Idris saw it through her eyes, anew. The Wend ribboned out from its hidden source in the Bone Mountains to the west, gold and shimmery. Smoke rose from the cottages clustered on its banks. Poplars reached their branches toward the dimming sky. Shadows purpled in the twilight.

“Quite,” Anya agreed breathlessly. Idris wondered whether she was breathless with worry, awe, or anticipation—perhaps a mix of the three.

Soon, she would face trial before the Lord of Fenrir. Idris hadn’t allowed himself to think that far ahead, but now, a sense of dread sickened him. Trials rarely ended well—why would they, when prisoners could take Oaths and benefit the Lord?—but Idris couldn’t imagine Anya’s trial turning sour when proof beyond the Mirror’s telling was nonexistent and she carried with her countless references.

She also had a Knight of the Order of the Valiant looking after her, willing to vouch for her. That has to count for something , Idris thought.

So, Idris refused to get swept into worry. There was no room for criminal convictions in their already-complicated futures. He had not lied to Anya when he told her he was lonely, that he didn’t want their time together to end, but he did not yet know how to be with her and still live out his duty. Perhaps he could focus his monster-hunting territory on the lands surrounding Waldron-on-Wend? Perhaps his stretches of duty-bound absence would be tolerable to her, so long as he always returned?

He was still stewing on such concerns as they made camp for the night. They found a small, woodsy grove about a quarter of a mile off the High Road and laid out their bedrolls side by side within the trees’ protection. While Anya busied herself with Briar’s care, Idris slinked off into the young wood to forage for dinner (but not without first planting a kiss on her lips).

As the sounds of camp faded, Idris tuned in to the rustling of night. Mice and other small mammals scurried into their small hideouts. A chilly wind rattled the branches of the trees. Leaves and twigs crunched under Idris’s boots, the leather straps of his gear groaning as he moved.

He opened his power to the grove, scenting animal musk, sap, and decay. His nose led him toward the dark mound of a fallen tree, where he was certain he’d find mushrooms he could cook for dinner—but then an out-of-place smell reached him, hitting the back of his palate: stale pipe weed, wool, and man-sweat.

A man he knew.

Idris halted, his hand finding Halgren’s hilt.