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Screaming still, Meira bolted upright in bed. Her pulse drummed inside her veins and echoed inside her ears. She couldn’t breathe though she gasped for air. All around her, the bedding was soaked with sweat. Every inch of her body was still damp and hot. The press of her clothes felt more like bindings than anything. Frantically, she pulled her leathers off her body until she was only in her underwear and the thin band across her breasts.
Where was she? When was she?
The beige walls around her were not familiar. The bed she’d been in was larger than the one she had at Mount Ridmond. Only vaguely did she recall falling onto the sheets with exhaustion.
Reality thrust itself back upon her. Yordway. The table in the darkest part of the tavern and swapping truths with Remis under the pull of a truth serum in their wine. Saying that she loved him.
Meira wanted to scream again. Love? How could she love him? But the truth had been pulled from her, dragged from the deepest part of her soul. She hadn't meant to say it. Didn’t even realize that she truly felt that way until the words had come right out of her. Remis looked damn near as shocked as she felt. His face had paled and then turned a brilliant shade of red. Not too long after she’d thrust herself into the first unlocked room she’d found.
She didn’t know if Remis had found his own room or if he simply left. He could have easily run from her and started this hunt over once again, but the huntress mark still carved into her flesh hadn’t urged her into motion. That must have been a sign that he’d stuck around after all. After saying she loved him, she almost wished he’d run away, if only so she wouldn’t have to look at him this morning.
What a stupid ridiculous thing to say.
The room had come with a wash tub already filled to the brim with water. She hadn’t bothered to use it last night when the water was still warm. Stripping the last of her clothes, she stepped into and submerged her burning flesh. Another memory had returned to her.
Mrithun falling to her death, Remis smiling wickedly from his seat on the harness, and Meira helpless to it all. Her throat ached as if she’d been screaming all this time. The urge to continue to do so was still there so she dunked herself below the water's surface and screamed until she had no more air left in her lungs. Then she stayed submerged for several long seconds before finally pushing herself back up.
Fresh air made its way into her lungs as she tipped her head back and began undoing her braids. Her hair was stiff at the ends, her scalp a thick layer of grease, she was grateful for the bath and the cold water that soothed the heat radiating off of her.
She didn’t want to make sense of what she’d remembered. Though part of her felt justified. Mrithun’s death? That would ruin Meira enough to take hold of that long-dormant power that lived within her veins. Bonded partners, as Meira and Mrithun were, could survive without the other but they would not live. There were tales, as old as time itself, about riders losing their bonded dragons and dragons losing their bonded riders. Neither dragon nor rider could escape the madness that came after losing a part of themselves.
Perhaps Meira had traveled through time to save Mrithun. Perhaps madness had found Meira and she’d time jumped only because her mind had gone and she didn’t know what she was doing. By the time she’d cleaned her hair and washed every inch of dirt from her body, she’d settled into a distant sort of anger. Remis would ride Mrithun to her death. Meira would go mad like some rabid animal. And she couldn’t allow that to happen.
So she dressed herself in her leathers, leaving her thick tangle of curls loose to air dry, and left her room to find the witch. The tavern was quiet except for the low murmur of a conversation at the end of the bar. Meira stepped off the bottom of the stairs and the wood creaked under her weight as she found Remis leaning over a cup of coffee chatting with Stauci while she washed glasses behind the counter. Stauci, for all Meira had done to ignore her, wasn’t exactly ugly. She was young, eighteen likely, and her blue eyes were as bright as her smile when she laughed at something Remis said.
A pang of jealousy stabbed Meira low in her gut. It had her exhaling slowly, contemplating shoving her sword straight through Stauci’s gut. Before she could act on the notion though, Remis looked up. Held her stare. Grinned. Her jealousy evaporated. Only hate remained. That smile, his smile, wasn’t much different from the bloodied one he gave her in the memory before he’d led Mrithun to her death.
“Where is Kindred?” Meira demanded.
Stauci’s giggling was cut short and her grin fell. “I’ll go get her,” she answered, and disappeared behind the door to what Meira assumed was the kitchen. Then she and Remis were alone.
“You stayed.” Meira watched as his features puckered in confusion. Her steps were slow, carefully measured, as she came around the counter and sat on the stool next to him. All the while his eyes never strayed.
“I stayed.” He finally nodded. Sitting next to him, she could smell the crisp scent of soap on his skin. The stubble that had been growing on his cheeks had been shaved away leaving only the hair over his upper lip and down around his chin. The wild mess of his hair was perfectly combed away from his face.
She touched her own frizzy curls, certain she looked like a crazy mess next to him. How he could look so polished after everything that had just happened was beyond her. Remis tracked her subtle movement.
“Your hair is…” He trailed off, looking at the mass of it as every second that dried made it larger. The braids were much easier to manage when she was traveling and flying.
“Big?” she finished for him. Over the years she’d heard it all from her peers. Her hair wasn’t slick and shiny like Jaselle’s but it also didn’t require the braids that either Willa or Quincy always wore to tame their tight coils. She was something in-between.
“I was going to say pretty.”
She snorted. “The serum has worn off, I see.”
He reached out between them, found the end of one of her curls, and twirled the strand around his finger.
“Don’t touch me.” She shoved his hand away, leaned away from him.
“You,” he chuckled, “are something else.” He pointed a long finger at her, shaking it as he laughed dryly. “You hunt me. You want to kill me. You say that you love me. You look at me like you want to fuck me. You don’t want to touch me.” He sighed. “You’re confusing.”
She opened her mouth and promptly closed it.
“Are you scared?” Remis whispered.
“Scared of what?” she snapped.
“Scared of loving? Of getting your memories back only to find out that we were something?”
