Her pov
The moment we stepped beyond the broken archway, I felt it—the shift. The air loosened, the weight of eyes and rituals slipping off my shoulders like something I had endured rather than chosen.
And then I pulled my hand away.
Not gently. Not hesitantly. I tore it free.
For a second, I just stared at the space where his hand had been, as if the imprint of it still lingered on my skin. Warm. Unwanted.
Then I looked at him.
Oh, I had held it together inside—every nod, every quiet step, every word I wasn’t allowed to speak. But out here? There was no reason to pretend.
“How dare you announce me as your wife—” I stopped, the sheer absurdity of it sharpening my voice, “—who is mute!”
The words hit him. I made sure of it.
He didn’t react the way I expected. There was no apology, no defence on his face, in his posture.
He just… studied me. As if I were a question, he had decided to take his time answering. As if my anger was something to understand, not something to answer for.
It made something inside me burn hotter.
“Do you have a problem,” he asked, calm to the point of arrogance, “with being my wife… or with being mute?”
For a heartbeat, I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny—but because of the audacity.
I stepped closer. Closed the distance he seemed so comfortable measuring.
“Both.”
The word came out sharp. Clean.
The word left me sharp, unyielding—exactly as I intended.
And then—
He laughed.
Not loudly. Not mockingly. Just a quiet, unguarded sound that slipped out of him as if he hadn’t quite meant to let it.
It caught me off guard.
For a fraction of a second, I only stared at him.
And then, absurdly—betrayingly—something in me gave way too.
A laugh escaped me.
It started small, almost reluctant, like I was resisting it even as it rose—but the more I tried to contain it, the more it slipped free. The memory of the temple scene came rushing back, vivid and ridiculous in equal measure—the solemn faces, the reverent silence, and us, standing there, weaving lies into something that had sounded dangerously close to truth.
We walked side by side along the narrow forest path, our shoulders nearly aligned, our steps falling into an unconscious rhythm. The rain-soaked earth was soft beneath our feet, the scent of wet leaves and damp bark thick in the air. Droplets clung to the edges of branches overhead, falling in slow, intermittent taps that echoed softly around us.
For a few moments, neither of us could stop laughing.
“So, I count the days… for your letters,” I murmured under my breath, repeating my own words, and this time I couldn’t even pretend to hide the smile that spread across my face.
He glanced at me, the warmth of amusement still lingering in his expression. “You did say you write letters.”
“That does not mean I count days.”
“It absolutely sounded like it.”
I shook my head, though I could feel the laughter still sitting just beneath the surface.
“And you,” I said, turning slightly toward him, “you made me mute.”
He gave a soft laugh. “It worked.”
“It was embarrassing.”
“It was necessary.”
I looked at him with exaggerated disbelief. “You could have said shy.”
He didn’t even hesitate. “No one would have believed that after the way you pinched me.”
That broke whatever restraint I had left. Another laugh slipped out, lighter this time, freer—carried away by the quiet rhythm of rain and footsteps.
For a while, it was just that.
The forest. The sound of water dripping from leaf to leaf. The soft squelch of mud beneath our steps. The strange, easy warmth of shared absurdity threading between us as we walked parallel, neither too close nor too far.
It felt… simple.
Too simple.
And perhaps that was why the thought came. Uninvited. Sharp. It didn’t build slowly. It didn’t warn me. It just—arrived.
Him.
Saying those things so easily. My wife. Letters. Waiting. As if— As if somewhere, that place already existed. As if someone else already stood in it.
The image formed before I could stop it. A woman. Unseen, undefined—but real. Waiting. Belonging in a space I had, even for a moment, unknowingly stepped into.
Something in my chest tightened.
The laughter faded from my lips without warning.
“You should not say things like that.”
The words slipped out quieter than I expected, but they carried something I couldn’t quite hide.
He glanced at me, a hint of curiosity replacing the fading amusement. “Say what?”
I hesitated.
For the first time since we had left the shrine, I didn’t know how to answer.
Because the thought itself felt… irrational. An yet it had unsettled me.
Why?
Why should it matter?
Why should the idea of him belonging to someone else feel—
I swallowed that thought before it could fully form.
I looked ahead instead, at the path winding through the thinning trees, at the mist slowly lifting where the jungle began to loosen its hold.
“That you write letters… that I write letters,” I corrected myself softly. “And those… husband-wife things.”
The last words felt strange in my mouth now.
The smile was gone.
“If your wife gets to know this?” I added, forcing the thought into something more reasonable, more distant. “She won’t like it.”
He stopped walking.
The sudden stillness pulled me to a halt as well.
A drop of water fell from a leaf above, landing against my wrist, cold and sharp. The forest seemed quieter suddenly, as if even the rain had softened to listen.
He turned toward me fully.
For a heartbeat, his expression was unreadable.
Then—a faint, almost incredulous smile touched his lips.
“So,” he said slowly, “you think I’m the kind of man who leaves a wife at home and roams around calling someone else my wife?”
Heat rushed to my face instantly.
“No, I just—”
The words tangled.
Because I didn’t have an answer.
Because I didn’t know why I had thought that.
“What do you mean?” I asked instead, the question slipping out before I could stop it.
“I’m not married.”
The words landed and something in me shifted. It was immediate. Unmistakable relief.
I hated accepting this, that those words made me felt more at relief than I want to. It moved through me quietly, like the first clear breath after being underwater longer than you realized.
And that only confused me more.
Why should that matter?
Why should it ease something I hadn’t even meant to feel?
I blinked at him, trying to steady my expression. “But you said your family writes letters, so I thought…”
“I have family other than a wife.”
Of course he did.
Of course.
The embarrassment followed quickly after, warming my face again, sharper this time.
I turned my gaze away, pretending sudden interest in the rain-laden vines draping along the path, in the way droplets gathered and fell in slow, steady rhythm.
Anything but him.
To cover it, I spoke again, grasping at the first thought that would distract from the one I didn’t want to examine.
“If you had a wife… would you still have helped me?”
This time, he didn’t answer immediately.
I felt the pause.
When I looked back at him, he had turned toward me fully again. The mist softened the edges of him, blurred the certainty I had grown used to, leaving something quieter in its place.
When he spoke, the teasing was gone.
“I would have helped you,” he said, “without saying you were my wife.”
The simplicity of it stilled something inside me.
Not because it surprised me.
Because it didn’t.
Because it meant the lie had never been the reason. The lie had only been a shield. He would have stood beside me anyway.
My expression softened before I could stop it.
We didn’t speak after that.
The path widened gradually beneath our feet, the dense canopy breaking apart to reveal lighter sky beyond. The air shifted—less enclosed, less heavy. Ahead, the faint outline of the kingdom’s outer road emerged through the thinning mist.
We continued walking side by side. Parallel. Close enough to hear each other’s breath. The path curved gently through the thinning trees, and then, without warning, it opened into a clearing she recognized all too well. The path curved, and something in me slowed before I even saw it.
Then the trees parted just enough, and there it was.
The daldal.
I stopped.
It looked almost harmless now—dark, wet earth lying still under the fading rain, as if it had never been anything more than a patch of softened ground. If I had come upon it like this the first time, I might have walked straight through it without a second thought.
But my body remembered what my eyes tried to dismiss.
The pull.
The weight.
The way it had held on.
For a moment, I wasn’t standing at its edge—I was inside it again.
The mud closing around my legs, swallowing inch by inch, tightening no matter how hard I fought. I remembered the way I had struggled, how every movement had dragged me deeper instead of freeing me. The panic had come quickly, sharp and suffocating, stealing breath, stealing thought, until there had been nothing left except one terrible certainty—
This is where it ends.
No one would hear me. No one would come. The forest would take me quietly, and that would be it.
And then—
A hand.
Firm. Steady. Unyielding against everything that had been pulling me down.
I blinked, pulling myself back into the present, my gaze lifting from the dark stretch of earth to him.
He had stopped too.
Of course he had.
His eyes followed mine to the daldal, resting there for a brief moment, and something in the quiet of that glance told me he understood exactly why I had stopped.
“Thank you,” I said.
The words felt too small for what they held, but they were all I had.
He looked at me then—not surprised, not dismissive—just… aware. After a moment, he gave a small nod, as if accepting it without making anything more of it than it already was.
No words.
No dismissal.
No insistence that it hadn’t mattered.
Just that.
And somehow, that made it enough.
He turned, and I followed.
We left the clearing behind us, stepping back onto the narrowing path, our pace unhurried, our steps falling into quiet rhythm once again. The forest had begun to loosen around us; the dense canopy broke apart overhead, letting pale light slip through in scattered fragments. The air felt different here—lighter, easier to breathe—though the scent of rain and wet earth still clung to everything.
We walked side by side.
Not speaking.
And yet, the silence no longer felt like something that needed to be filled.
It had settled into something steady, something that simply existed between us without asking for explanation.
By the time the trees thinned enough for the outer road to appear ahead, faint and open beyond the last line of forest, I almost didn’t want to notice it.
He slowed. Then stopped.
“This is where it’s safer for you.”
I let out a quiet breath that almost turned into a laugh. “Yes,” I said, glancing ahead before looking back at him. “I should go on my own from here.”
It was the obvious thing to say.
The right thing.
Even if it didn’t feel as simple as it should have.
I looked at myself; my clothes were still wet but not as wet as before. I reached up and slipped his robe from my shoulders. I could physically feel the essence of him getting away from me but still lingering somehow. The fabric slid away easily, but my fingers lingered on it for a moment longer than necessary before I stepped closer and held it out to him.
He didn’t take it immediately.
Instead, his gaze rested on my face—steady, unreadable, lingering just long enough to make me aware of it.
Then he reached for it.
Our fingers brushed.
Again.
It was brief. Barely there. And yet, it carried something that stayed longer than it should have, like an echo I couldn’t quite shake.
A faint breeze passed between us, cool and damp, carrying the last traces of the jungle behind and the openness of the road ahead.
I knew I should leave.
He knew he should turn back.
But for a moment, neither of us moved.
Then he spoke, his voice quieter now, touched with something almost light.
“Try not to fall into anything on your way back.”
My lips parted immediately, offense rising before I could stop it. “That happened once,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.
And then—despite myself—I smiled.
“I’ll try,” I added. “But no promises.”
The smallest hint of laughter touched his expression in return.
Then he stepped back.
Once.
Then again.
The distance between us returned slowly, as if neither of us wanted to break it too quickly.
I turned first.
Because staying would have meant something else entirely.
The road stretched ahead, clear and certain beneath my feet. I had taken only a few steps when something pulled at me—something I didn’t question, didn’t resist.
I did not turn back. But I knew. He was still there.
At the edge of the forest, where the shadows held and the mist lingered faintly behind him. He wasn’t calling me back. Wasn’t moving toward me.
Just watching.
Quietly.
As if making sure I was truly safe.
As if the moment needed to last a second longer.
I didn’t look back despite the fact I wanted to. Because if I did, I didn’t know … was he still there, still waiting. If I turned, would he say something.
The jungle faded behind me with each step, its sounds softening, its presence loosening its hold.
But one thing remained. Unwanted. Uninvited. And impossible to ignore.
For a stranger— he had become dangerously unforgettable.
Write a comment ...