Nomi could feel the moment he remembered.

  It vibrated through his skin like a tremor. One second, he was her partner, leaning on her for support, his breathing heavy and trusting. The next, his muscles locked into steel beneath her fingers.

  His head snapped up. His eyes, which had been warm for the past hour, shot to her face. There was no warmth there now. He looked at her like she was a stranger. No—worse. He looked at her like she was a monster. Like he was finally seeing the blood on her hands that she’d tried to wash off years ago, but could still smell under her fingernails.

  He knows, the voice in her head whispered. He remembers everything.

  Instinct took the wheel. Nomi pulled her hands away as if burned, her ears pinning back tight against her skull in a display of pure submission. She took a half-step back, waiting for the shout, the blow, the explosion.

  But he just stared.

  A moment passed. Then another. The silence stretched, thin and agonizing.

  Nomi swallowed the lump of terror in her throat. He’s still hurt, she reminded herself, forcing her breathing to steady. He is burning up. If you leave now, he dies.

  She fell back on the only defense she had left. She forced the mask back on.

  “Well… it was nice… while it lasted. But I’m glad you're back.”

  She offered a small smile—playful, teasing, the same smile she’d worn a thousand times before. She reached out, poking his chest gently with one finger.

  “Your heart almost exploded,” she continued, the words tumbling out fast when he didn't reply. “And I think something’s wrong with your mana channels. It almost killed you.”

  Talos didn't blink. He swayed slightly, his eyes murky and unfocused, the drugs and the trauma leaving him woozy. He looked like a man trying to stand on a ship in a storm.

  Nomi moved in. She ducked under his arm, taking his weight to guide him toward the bed.

  “Come on. You need to sit down before you fall down.”

  His muscles locked.

  “...Don’t touch—”

  He tried to pull away, a clumsy, disgusted shove against her shoulder.

  “Please. Not right now.”

  Nomi cut him off. Her voice cracked, the playful mask shattering into dust. She tightened her grip on his waist, anchoring him not as a lover, but as a lifeline.

  “I know you hate me,” she whispered, the words tasting like ash. “I know how much I hurt you. I know.”

  She met his eyes. They were hazy and bloodshot, but the wall was there. She searched the murky depths of his pupils for any scrap of the love that had been there this morning, any hint of the man who had held her, but she found only cold, confused anger.

  “Please,” she begged, her voice sounding exhausted and small in the quiet room. “Please let me make sure you’re okay. Then I’ll leave. Just… just until Lillik gets here.”

  Talos wavered. Whether from the drug or the sheer weight of her desperation, the fight drained out of him. He didn't say yes, but he stopped pushing her away.

  Nomi let out a shaky breath and hauled him toward the mattress.

  His focus stayed fixed on her while she worked with her limited supply of potions. She didn’t know what was wrong with him, and that terrified her. Usually, his body would’ve fully regenerated by now, but his heart and flesh were horrifically overtaxed.

  Toxic shock? she thought, her hands trembling as she checked the burn. Or just burnout?

  Her gaze shifted to his face for a moment and realized he was still staring at her. But his eyes weren’t full of anger anymore. They were contemplative.

  “...See something you like?”

  She tried, forcing a tiny, fragile smile.

  He blinked, his gaze growing a bit more guarded as he realized he was staring. Then… slightly, the muddy eyes softened.

  “...You aren’t alright.”

  It wasn't a question. It was the old Talos breaking through. The Talos she had told all her secrets to, the one who knew her. He had to know her. He had to know she wasn’t the person who hurt him—that she hadn’t been that person since long before they met.

  Nomi’s throat tightened.

  “...No.”

  “Because of the mutant?”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “You almost died. You did die,” she whispered. “I heard your heart stop beating. And whatever the side effects of that potion were, they nearly stopped you from being able to heal.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “...I’m alive, Nomi.”

  “...Yeah.” Her small smile returned, faint but genuine this time. “Too stubborn to let go?”

  “Something like that.”

  Nomi hummed—a soft, affectionate sound that slipped out before she could catch it.

  She hated being this vulnerable. It made her skin itch; it made her want to run. She knew it was the wrong time—he was drugged, exhausted, and bleeding—but the terror of his stopped heart had stripped away her patience. She had to know.

  Her ears drooped, eyes heavy with fear.

  “Are we… Are you through with me?”

  Her head stayed low, submissive and scared, but her eyes flicked up to his. They were cautious, searching his face for the answer that would either save her or break her.

  She had been too terrified to ask it before. But after almost watching him die today, the ambiguity was worse than the truth. She could fight monsters, she could fight nobles, she could even fight his anger. But she couldn’t keep trying to save them if he had already decided there was nothing left to save.

  “Am I… through with you?”

  He repeated the question slowly, tasting the words as if checking for poison.

  Nomi held his gaze, though everything in her screamed to look away. She could hear his heart through his ribs. It wasn't steady. It sped up, skipped a beat, then fluttered like a bird trapped in a cage. She watched his gaze roam over her face—tracing the lines of her jaw, the twitch of her ears—and she wondered if he was memorizing her one last time before he sent her away.

  Just say it, she thought, bracing herself. Just swing the axe.

  Talos let out a shaky, uneven breath that rattled in his chest.

  “I… should be. I should have cut you out the moment you told me. You took away the one person I had when I was at my worst. You stole her.”

  Nomi tensed, her claws digging into her own palms, but she didn't look away. She took the accusation like a physical blow.

  “And you kept it from me,” Talos continued, his voice gaining a jagged edge. “Even after you figured it out, you lied to me. Every day, you looked me in the eye and lied.”

  He closed his eyes for a second, the anger shifting into something far more exhausting: hurt.

  “But here we are. Months later. And no matter what I do… no matter how much ice I put between us, or what lies I tell you to drive you away… you keep reaching for me. You keep cutting yourself just to try and touch me.”

  Talos’s eyes opened, finding hers again. The silence that fell between them wasn't empty; it was heavy with all the things they couldn't fix.

  “I don’t have an answer for you, Nomi. I can’t say no. I can’t look at you and say that I don’t hate you for what you did. For who you took from me.”

  He looked down at his own hand, the one she had tried to hold earlier.

  “But… I can’t lose you, either. I can’t survive losing anyone else. And I can’t keep lashing out at you just to punish myself.”

  “...Where does that leave us?” Nomi asked, her voice small and trembling.

  Talos looked at the rain streaking the glass, then back to the empty chair beside his bed. He looked lost.

  “...I don't know,” he admitted, his voice rough. “Damaged. We are damaged. But I can’t… I can’t just throw you away.”

  “Okay.” Nomi let out a shuddering breath, her knees finally giving out. “Okay.”

  She didn't ask for more. She moved to the chair and sat down carefully, shrinking into the upholstery as if trying to take up as little space as possible.

  But as the silence settled, she realized she couldn't just sit in the silence. Not anymore.

  “I know… I know I should just take that and be grateful,” she whispered, twisting her hands in her lap. “But… I need you to stop hurting me, Tal.”

  Talos went still.

  Nomi forced herself to continue, her voice trembling but firm.

  “You don’t have to let me touch you,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “You don't have to forgive me. But… I think about it every day. I think about you, and hurting you, and it eats me alive. And now we’re here, and when you look at me like a stranger… I feel like I’m a kid again. Just a scared kid with blood on her hands.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes wet but unblinking.

  “I can’t keep reaching for a ghost, Tal. I can’t keep reaching for someone who isn’t there.”

  She felt his gaze shift. Talos stared at her. For the first time in months, he wasn't looking past her; he was looking into her. He saw the hairline cracks in her mask. He saw the exhaustion vibrating in her bones.

  And in return, she saw the wall he had built to protect himself finally crumble.

  It didn't fall because of time or erosion. It fell because he was dismantling it. She could almost feel the effort it took him—his scarred, bloodstained hands reaching up to pull the bricks down, piece by jagged piece, forcing himself to be vulnerable when every instinct told him to stay hidden.

  “I know,” he admitted.

  His tone softened, the gravel and ice melting away until he sounded like the man she remembered. The man she loved.

  “I’m sorry, Foxy.”

  The nickname hit her like a physical blow—soft, but winding. Nomi’s breath hitched, a hot sting of tears pricking her eyes.

  For a fragile second, the months of ice and silence melted away. The uncertainty vanished. He wasn’t gone. The real him—not the cold, hollow shell who had spent the last season eroding her soul, but her person—was still in there. He was damaged, and he was bleeding, but he was there.

  She opened her mouth to speak, to grab onto that lifeline—

  SLAM.

  The door didn't just open; it exploded inward against the wall in a vastly overkill expenditure of force.

  The reaction was instantaneous and violent.

  Talos, half-dead and drugged, lurched out of the sheets, his heavy boots skidding on the floorboards as he scrambled for the shortsword leaning against the wall. Fumbling out of the bed and hitting the floor with a heavy thud.

  Nomi was faster. She sprung to her feet in a blur of motion, three silver needles already between her knuckles, a blur of motion in a hiss of combat readiness.

  She scanned the doorway, ready to kill—and froze.

  Lillik stood there, filling the frame, looking entirely unimpressed.

  Nomi felt the blood rush to her face, a flush of hot embarrassment burning her cheeks. She hadn’t been snuck up on in decades. She was a master scout, a whisper in the dark, yet her sister’s heavy, multi-limbed frame had somehow crept to the threshold without Nomi hearing a single footfall.

  Lillik didn’t move. All of her eyes—human and arachnid alike—blinked in unison, fixing first on the drawn weapons, then on the two of them.

  “...I was told Talos nearly died.”

  “I did,” Talos grunted.

  He awkwardly reversed his grip on the sword, sliding it back into the scabbard with a heavy clack. His adrenaline crashed as quickly as it had spiked, his legs buckling again. Nomi was there instantly, taking his weight and guiding him back onto the mattress before he could hit the floor.

  Lillik watched the interaction. She watched the way Nomi touched him, and more importantly, the way Talos let her.

  “Something has changed,” the Spider observed, her voice dry and analytical.

  Talos glared at her, pulling the blanket up to hide his shaking hands.

  “...Can you just come help with my wounds?”