Page 10

10

Eden

THE EVENING AIR carried a crisp bite, a quiet warning of the creeping night. Gold and crimson stretched in molten threads over the river’s surface. The dying sun spilled fire across the slow-moving current. Damp soil mingled with distant brine, thickened by the murmur of insects. Emberwings flickered in and out of sight, pulsing with amber light. Shadows lengthened through the underbrush where unseen creatures stirred, their rustling drowned beneath the rhythmic croak of dusk-born toads.

Oberon shifted his weight. His jaw ticked, a muscle twitched in his cheek, and his brow drew. “What?”

“Are you obstinate and deaf?“ I shot back, my voice edged with command. “Take your shirt off, Sinclaire. I’m not asking. If it’s bleeding enough for me to see through black fabric, it needs to be restitched and wrapped.”

He stared at me, unreadable. For a heartbeat, I expected refusal—a sharp retort, the usual pushback. But his shoulders lifted in a slow, resigned sigh, and his fingers moved to the laces of his tunic. The knot came undone with a single pull.

“Fine.”

I gestured to a fallen log along the riverbank, its bark worn smooth by time and the elements. “Sit. I’ll be unsteady if I have to stitch like this.”

He scoffed but obeyed, moving with the signature fluid grace of a predator, always ready to strike. As he pulled the tunic over his head, the last light of the sun caught along the contours of his body, gilding him in gold. I swallowed hard as the glow painted him in shades of copper and ember. His back resembled a battlefield—each scar a silvered thread woven across otherwise unmarred strength. Broad shoulders, muscles shaped by discipline rather than vanity, tapered into a lean, dangerous frame. He looked forged, elemental. A force contained within skin.

My gaze dragged lower.

Focus.

Fingers tightening around my satchel strap, I forced my attention away, pulling free a needle, thread, and rag. The motions steadied me until my eyes landed on the wound. The torn flesh, the blood, the iron in the air. It felt too close, too known. The past curled its fingers into the present. Phantom pain rose from scars that never faded.

Oberon shifted behind me, breaking the spell. I took a deep breath and dipped the rag into the river. The water swirled red as I wrung it out. His jaw tightened when I pressed it to his side, and his shoulders flexed, restrained beneath my touch.

“Try not to move,” I murmured.

He exhaled a slow, deliberate breath. “Not my first wound, Dilthen Doe.”

That slur again. He wouldn’t find satisfaction in my reaction. Acknowledging the name would only encourage him. Perhaps if I ignored it, he would let it go.

Silence settled between us as I cleaned the wound, carefully assessing the damage. The cut had split open again. Its jagged edges gaped to expose raw, pink flesh. The skin around it was flushed and swollen, an angry red that made me wince. It hadn’t become infected yet, but it had grown close. It needed fresh stitches and ointment to stop it from worsening.

I steadied my hands and threaded the needle.

Oberon sat unnervingly still. His eyes observed me, but I didn’t dare look back. If I met his gaze, I might lose track of what I was doing. I needed to concentrate.

I pressed my lips together and made the first stitch. His muscles tensed beneath my fingers, but he didn’t flinch. Calder’s voice echoed in my mind: ‘He always acts like that. He stumbles in half alive and is gone before regaining his health.’ He must have been accustomed to pain. The thought unsettled me more than I wanted to admit.

My shoulders relaxed when I tied the last knot. My hands ached from the tension, my fingers stiff from gripping the needle, but it was done. The wound was closed. When I pulled back, my gaze caught his. I should have looked away, tended to the salve, or the bloodied cloth in my lap. But for one breathless moment, his dark eyes held me.

He tried to unravel me, making the space between us feel too small. His warmth still lingered on my fingertips, even though I wasn’t touching him anymore. A slow flush crept up my neck and across my cheeks before I looked away. Whatever he sought, he wouldn’t find it.

After reaching for the cloth, I dipped it in the river, and gently smoothed a thin layer of salve over the wound. Crushed herbs and beeswax wafted into the cooling air, steadying me.

“Be more careful,” I murmured, a soft chide. He didn’t have time to reply before I snatched the tunic from his hand.

“What are you doing?”

“Cleaning it.”

Kneeling at the river’s edge, I scrubbed the blood from the fabric. The water ran red before the current swept it away, carrying the evidence downstream. I had done this countless times. It had nothing to do with him. It was the wound, the risk of infection if he wore that filthy thing again.

When I returned, the tunic wrung out and dripping, his eyes remained fixed on me. His expression revealed nothing, but his gaze felt critical and angry.

I frowned and held the damp shirt out to him. “You can’t wear a bloodied tunic over a clean wound. It’ll get infected, which means more problems for both of us.”

He remained still.

His silence made my chest tighten. “I didn’t think you would bother cleaning it yourself,” I added, lifting my arm and nudging the tunic toward him. “So, here.” His jaw ticked. I braced for another sharp remark, but he simply took the tunic from my hand.

Turning away, I sank back to my knees at the river’s edge. Night had settled in. The last remnants of twilight had vanished, leaving only the fractured glow of the half-moon rippling across the dark water. The trees loomed as towering shadows, their branches tangled against the starry sky. In the underbrush, unseen creatures stirred: the rustle of wings, the skitter of something small, and the distant cry of an owl swallowed by the darkness.

I would sooner have drowned myself than endure another tension-filled staring contest with an angry Fae. Cupping my hands, I dipped them into the river, a shiver racing up my arms from the cold. It tasted of stone and soil.

Clean enough.

Behind me, there was the rustle of fabric. “I thought you needed to—”

“I didn’t,” I interrupted, wiping a stray droplet from my chin. “It was an excuse.”

Silence followed, punctuated by a sharp, brooding huff. “You just lectured me about wearing a dirty shirt over a healing wound, and now you’re drinking from the same river you washed it in?”

Lowering my hands, I glanced back over my shoulder. He stood there, arms crossed, tunic still clutched in one hand. His expression teetered between irritation and disbelief.

I shrugged. “What, worried about me now?”

A faint scowl ghosted across his moonlit features before his eyes narrowed. “It’s my job to keep you safe,” he gritted out, “as infuriating as that may be. And your logic is flawed. I don’t need you getting sick before you’ve had a chance to heal anyone in the village. Did you not bring a flask?”

With a sigh, I shook my head. “I never needed one, so I didn’t have one to bring. The river is clean enough. It’s flowing, not stagnant. Don’t you drink from rivers, Sinclaire?”

“Not after I just saw someone scrub blood-soaked fabric in there,” he scoffed.

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the water. Coolness seeped through my fingers as I flicked a few droplets in his direction. “Relax. You’re acting like I’m about to drop dead.”

His glare burned into my back as he tried to dissect my reasoning… or me. “You’re reckless,” he muttered.

A short, dry laugh escaped me, and I wiped my hands dry on my uniform. “And you’re paranoid. Guess we—”

A sharp, wet crack shattered the night, reverberating through the trees. Then another. The sound was the unmistakable resonance of bones cracking under immense pressure.

I rose to my feet. Every muscle in my body tensed, and my blood ran cold. That wasn’t the forest settling; it certainly wasn’t a harmless animal rustling through the underbrush.

Oberon’s hand flew to the hilt of his sword, his entire body becoming still. Rigid. Alert. His ears, pointed beneath the tousled edges of his dark hair, twitched as he listened. A breeze stirred the trees, subtle at first, and then it intensified.

A putrid stench rode the wind.

My hands flew up to cover my nose. “Oh, gods. What is that?”

“We need to go.” His voice was tight and clipped with urgency while he yanked the damp tunic over himself.

Emberhollow had been consumed by twilight. The skeletal ruins and crooked chimneys lay in wait, shrouded in shadows.

The sound returned, closer this time. It was a deep, wet crunch of sinew tearing and bones breaking under something heavy. Then, silence so profound that it rang in my ears.

My stomach turned to stone. The air felt wrong. Dense. The forest itself had stopped breathing.

“What is that?” I whispered, my throat dry.

“We don’t have time to find out.” He grabbed my arm and pulled. His hands gripped my waist, lifting me onto the saddle as if I weighed nothing. Untying the reins with practiced speed, he swung up behind me. The heat of his chest pressed against my back, solid and grounding even through the damp fabric of his shirt.

“Hold on tight,” he warned.

He snapped the reins, and the horse lunged forward. The wind tore past my ears as we plunged into the woods, with branches and shadows blurring around us. My knuckles whitened against the saddle. I struggled to think or breathe over the thunder of hoofbeats and the pounding in my chest. What was that sound? What thing made a noise like that?

I turned my head to glance at him. “What was that?!”

His arms caged me with a tense posture. “You said you never left your home village,” he shouted. “Do they ever talk about other villages there?”

“I was too busy surviving to listen much. Why?” Another sickening crack echoed behind us, followed by a guttural growl. My muscles grew so taut that they ached.

Oberon leaned in closer, his breath warm against my ear. “Welcome to Emberhollow,” he growled. “Where the dead don’t always stay buried.”