Late morning had not decided what colour it wanted to be yet. The clouds had dimmed the sky again, this time covering its entirety. The stream holds the dark under its surface like a secret, moving slow over stones until it fell off a small drop into the lake.

  Amia steps into the flowing water until cold finds her thighs and locks the ache under her shoulder blade.

  Water takes her waist. There was no cloth to drag her down this time.

  She turns her back to a boulder worn round by winters and summers of flowing water — pressing the hurt against it until the sting steadies. Fingers go up and back, trace the torn line beneath her left shoulder blade. It’s ragged — but very shallow — looks like she did get hit.

  Blood slicks her fingertip.

  Amia lets out a long sigh.

  She breathes it. Catalogs it.

  Pain that arises the moment she gets hit is dangerous — pain that arises only after she realises she was hit is just troublesome.

  Pebbles tick under careful feet just a couple of paces downstream from her at the bank.

  Artemis is a dark shape against the paler shore, cloak shouldered but loose. The fur trim absorbs the damp and softens at the edges, the rest of her doesn’t. She kneels where the bank shelves and leans forward, hands cupped together. Stream water fills them and overflows in small quick ropes through her fingers.

  “Drink,” Artemis says.

  The voice is lower than the water. It lands just behind Amia’s ear. Amia tips toward the palms without lifting off the stone and sips. The cold makes her teeth ache and clears the dry from her battle this morning.

  Artemis dips again, then unslings a strip of linen. She wrings it, wrists crossing, the muscles in her forearms cutting neat under skin. She reaches past the edge of the boulder. Wool brushes Amia’s shoulder before the linen touches her.

  Pressure. A slow drag from spine toward rib. Blood follows it.

  Amia holds still without being told. Her hands flatten on the stone at her hips; fingertips numb, palms hot.

  Artemis’ breath moves closer. When she shifts, the cloak breathes damp wool into the air, edged in the scent of pine and her.

  Hands, accidental. The rub of the cloth starts straying and begins to near the side of Amia’s breast.

  She doesn’t say yes. She doesn’t say no.

  The cloth snags once. Amia swallows a hiss and lets it come out as air.

  Fingers map lower — curious, reverent. The heel of Artemis’ hand lands at Amia’s hip and holds, pressure enough to say I am here, not enough to steer. The other hand returns to the torn place, cool with water.

  Birds wake in small chirps and echoes — two calls, then silence, then a flutter and another echo that brings forth the hum of the forest.

  Amia turns her head. The angle puts Artemis’ mouth a breath away. She doesn’t close it. Neither does Artemis.

  Amia reaches for Artemis' wrist, not the one resting on her hip, but the other. She gently pulls it away from the linen at her shoulder and guides it downwards, placing it firmly on her breast. Her fingers linger over Artemis' hand, pressing it firmly into her soft flesh, feeling the warmth of Artemis' palm as it begins to mould around her curves.

  The first kiss is not careful, but like what Amia is — precise. It’s what happens when a thought breaks its leash and there’s no time left to decide. Mouth on mouth.

  The shock slams into Amia’s chest and runs along every frayed wire in her.

  She tastes river and salt and heat that doesn’t belong to the stream. Teeth tap once — tongues meet. The sound that leaves her is not pain.

  Artemis catches it like a thought in her head. Her hand slides to the small of Amia’s back, spreads there, and covers. She doesn’t pull. She anchors. The kiss deepens because the heat within Amia craves for something that will make it steam.

  Amia presses her spine harder to stone just to keep the rest of her from climbing into Artemis of its own accord.

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

  Hands find skin. Artemis’ fingers skim the side of Amia, gracefully streaks of water off of her pale skin. Warm palm lands on waist. The difference in temperature shivers across Amia’s stomach and leads her breath into a stagger.

  “Wait,” Amia says against her mouth.

  Artemis freezes without leaving. Her breath hangs at Amia’s lip. The hand on her breast doesn’t push. It turns into stillness that feels like kneeling awaiting command.

  Amia inhales once — deep, controlled — and steps that breath down into her ribs where the old anger lives and the new one tries to light it.

  “You will do only as I say,” she says. The sentence is smooth granite. Solid, and no room for misunderstanding.

  “Yes, Master,” Artemis answers. No scratch of irony. It lands like an oath.

  Amia's breath hitches as she feels Artemis' touch,

  [NSFW/Explicit scene — does not affect plot; safe to skip]

  Artemis leans in, her breath hot on Amia's ear.

  "Is this what you want?" she whispers.

  Small kisses plant on Amia’s neck and ear.

  Amia gasps, her eyes fluttering closed.

  "Yes," she breathes out, her voice barely a whisper.

  [NSFW/Explicit scene — does not affect plot; safe to skip]

  “I want this for myself,” Amia adds, eyes unblinking on Artemis’ face. “Understood?”

  Artemis’ pupils widen a fraction in the dim. There is a tiny break in her mouth that might be relief.

  “Yes, Master.”

  [NSFW/Explicit scene — does not affect plot; safe to skip]

  never has she felt more vocal.

  More alive.

  More complete.

  [NSFW/Explicit scene — does not affect plot; safe to skip]

  “Enough,” Amia says though trembles.

  [NSFW/Explicit scene — does not affect plot; safe to skip]

  Amia turns her head and brushes a kiss onto the forearm — it tasted like the stream — and it felt like permission was granted and thanked after returning a favour.

  She pushes off the stone, breaks the waterline hip by hip. Cold clings in streaks, then lets her go.

  Artemis steps back onto the pebbles and stands while Amia climbs out. She doesn’t reach to steady her unless asked. She watches instead— eyes lifted, mouth even, a muscle in her jaw working because tension arises when desire still exists.

  Amia skirts the biggest stones and crouches by the cloak she left by her pack. She shakes it once, drapes it over her shoulders for a second to blot the wet. Her hands tremble once. Control catches them and smooths the shake into the motion of tying a knot.

  Amia sniffs the air once — habit and need — then pulls her damp hair into a band and ties it off. No familiar long red ribbon near her hair appeared as she did. That part of her somewhere else in Halia.

  She follows the instinct to touch the place on her collarbone where it would sometimes rest, and finds only skin.

  That absence no longer scrapes. It marks.

  Her head turns to Artemis, who now stands at the edge of the bank while she dries herself with a length of cloth. Her tall light brown topless figure making the trees behind her look frail in comparison.

  “This doesn’t change anything,” she says bluntly.

  “It never did,” Artemis responds.

  Birdsong spills brighter. The first real colours edges into the space between trees — grey trading up to something like blue and orange.

  “We move out by midday,” she says. She didn’t look up while fixing her leather vambraces to her forearms. “River, south.”

  The cape brushed her shoulders and upper arms, trapping warmth where the air should have been cold, as she drew her panties up with slow, careful hands. She tried to do it fast — only to make it slower. Wet skin didn’t cooperate, and the cape shifted with every small, annoyed adjustment.

  “We’ll keep by the river until the coast to our right shows us the sea,” Amia continued.

  “Yes, Master,” Artemis says.

  The words fit now that they live in air between them instead of just in the throat.

  She bends, gathers the bundles of supplies and rations left behind by the morning’s event. Rope, arrows, leather strips, and fur pelt among the items that weren’t food.

  She looks at Artemis one more time. Broad shoulders under a cloak. Hands that can break and yet wait. Eyes that would read her without permission. Devotion so steady it terrifies and steadies in the same breath.

  Warmth still hums under her breasts where Destructive Magick had learned and measured her. The pain is all but just a lingering warmth sensation around her sternum.

  The line between command and want feels less like a blade and more like a path she can span across freely now.

  “Pack,” she says. “Whatever we can’t fit onto the saddle we’ll burn.”

  Artemis moves. Quiet. Efficient. The small sounds they make — buckle, cloth, the soft pop of a shoulder settling under weight — thread through the trees and vanish.

  Amia takes one more step into the stream to wash her hands clean of the last stick of blood. Metal lifts, then fades from her skin. She stands and watches the sky choose itself, then turns her back on the water.

  Her skin still tingles where command met touch. It does not make her weaker.

  Because she had reclaimed what was hers from the start — when four others tried to claim what wasn’t theirs — and it wasn’t Artemis.

  Artemis was just someone that would willingly assist.

  It makes them both ready to move.