Page 79 of The Blight of Hollowmire

Gods help me, I have missed this.

Since I set foot in the Verge, I’ve felt every one of my years—every ache and twinge and reminder that the body remembers my old wounds long after my mind has grown tired of them. More than once, I’ve found myself wondering whether I have finally reached the point where my experience can no longer compensate for my age.

Yet here, with a sword in my hand and glorious necessity, something settles back into place inside my chest with such surety that I nearly laugh aloud. It’s the competence and confidence, and the comforting realization that I still know exactly who I am when violence shows its hand.

The fourth bandit rushes me with a club raised overhead, but I’m practically enjoying myself now, and I catch his wrist before the blow can land—twisting it sharply enough to produce a sickening popping sound. I plant my foot directly in his stomach, sending him careening backward into a patch of ferns, where he disappears amidst a flurry of leaves and pained groans.

The fifth man hesitates as he takes in the scene around him and turns wide eyes on me in pure astonishment. I chuckle—I find I cannot help it. Discouraged and panicked, he drops his weapon, taking off at a rapid clip in the opposite direction. His companions have finally reached the same conclusion.

“Run!” Ginger Beard screeches.

The shout sends the camp into immediate chaos as men scramble for horses, packs, weapons, and whatever shreds of dignity remain available. At last, a wise choice from this group of fools.

Within moments, they crash through the wilderness as though they’re being chased by every horror lurking within the Verge, and I only barely resist the urge to pursue them if only to reinforce the lesson.

Then I remember Vireth—still likely sleeping up at our camp, completely unprotected except for a very determined corpse weasel. I cannot stop the sudden flood of horrified imaginings about what might happen when the band of bested bandits stumbles onto our camp. The thought strikes with such force that all my satisfaction immediately evaporates.

I whirl around, and⁠—

Gods.

Vireth stands just at the top of the rise—the most magnificent sight I’ve ever seen. She’s still clad in her sleeping shift, sword clutched in a steady hand, her pale hair half-freed from its braid and fluttering around her face. Relief crashes through me with such force that my knees almost give out.

That is, until I take in her expression.

She is staring at me with an intensity that immediately unsettles me, her oxblood eyes wide and fixed upon my face, not with fear or anger or even confusion, but with a kind of astonishment so profound that for one ridiculous moment I wonder if one of the bandits has returned. Yet the clearing remains empty, save for us.

My relief begins to curdle into concern almost immediately, because astonishment is all well and good, but I would vastly prefer annoyance or irritation over her silence.

“Vireth?” I’ve never known her to be so silent for so long, which only furthers my fear that something is wrong—an illness, or another overtaking from the Blight Mother, or something.

My gaze drops immediately to the sword she still holds in a white-knuckled grip before traveling over the rest of her in a rapid inventory of potential injuries, searching for blood upon her clothing, bruises upon her skin, or any indication whatsoever that one of the bandits managed to reach her while I was occupied with the others.

“Did one of them get near you?” I ask as I cross the clearing toward her. “Are you hurt?”

Still she says nothing, and the silence settles heavier with every step I take, which I’m beginning to find more uncomfortable than irritating.

“Gods above, woman, answer me!”

By the time I reach her, I’m overset with worry and long past the point of pretending propriety, and I begin looking her over in earnest, checking her shoulders, her arms, her face, and anywhere else an injury might reasonably hide while she continues staring at me with those impossibly wide eyes.

“Did they touch you?” I demand, perhaps more sharply than intended. “Gods, I should’ve killed the lot of them. They were planning on robbing us on the road today—the things they talked about doing… about doing to you! I couldn’t wait, Vireth, I had to act. What is the matter? Were there more of them—did you see any others? Are you injured?”

For what feels like an eternity, she simply stands there looking at me as though she has never seen me before, and with each heartbeat that passes, I’m edging closer to madness with concern—with fear—for her.

Without warning, she drops her sword, which lands on the mossy earth with a muted thud, and before I can ask her anything else, her hands seize the front of my tunic and she kisses me.

My thoughts abandon me so completely, I may as well have been struck across the head with a shovel. One moment I am frantically searching for injuries and demanding answers from her, and the next her mouth is against mine and my whole world seems to tilt beneath my feet.

Gods.

Too long I’ve imagined this—dreamed of it—and yet, nothing has come close to the sheer perfection of this moment.

Her lips are warm and soft, but she kisses me with a fierceness that utterly destroys what remains of my common sense and threatens to untether my sanity. She slips her tongue between my lips and I groan, giving in to the weeks of unspoken tension. When she sucks at my lower lip, some deeply embarrassing sound escapes me, but I find I cannot be bothered to care. The longer we stand there, the hungrier I become, licking and nipping and sucking at her like she is the last taste I will have before dying.

My hands find her waist as though they have always belonged there, while the rest of the world quietly ceases to matter. The road disappears. The wilderness disappears. The famine disappears. Arden disappears.

Every burden I have carried across half the continent simply dissolves beneath the overwhelming reality of her. My lady fae. My Vireth.