Wolf and my departure from the Prince leaves an uncomfortable silence between us.

I'm not in any hurry to fill the silence, especially since I need a few seconds to compose myself.

Unfortunately, Wolf doesn't give me that.

"Are you daft?"

I flush. Perhaps I would have had a smarter retort had he said it in his usual mocking tone. But no, he sounds like he's genuinely curious about the answer.

I open my mouth and nothing comes out. I'm not sure myself.

I don't want to look at his expression, avoiding his eyes, until I hear a gruff sound that sounds suspiciously like a snort.

“Did you just laugh at me?” I ask insulted.

“That would depend,” he comments in that rough-smooth tone that curls around itself.

“Depend on what?”

He doesn't answer. Instead, he continues walking, his pace easily twice of mine. Soon he's leaving me in the dust like the rude beast that he is.

“Wait," I call out but he doesn't slow down, weaving away from the town center, towards the open grassy plains. He's almost on the clearing now but I'm not letting him get away that easily. I give up my walking pace and break into a run.

I desperately need to talk to him which is probably why I make the mistake.

I grab his arm.

Or rather, I attempt to because my hand is far too small to wrap around his wrist, much less the upper arm I try to hold. My palms and fingers would need to be at least five times their current length and breadth to do so.

Right now, they just kind of slide off his muscle.

But at least they have the intended effect causing him to stop in step.

He turns around, astonishment ripples in his voice when he asks, “Did you just touch me?”

I flinch. Why does he sound so insulted? Does he think I'm dirty? Does he not like being touched?

I can empathize with the latter, so I pull my hand back.

“It was the only way to stop you from leaving,” I say. “Don’t worry, I don’t have any diseases." Except for a penchant for coming back to life after I die. “At least nothing that you’ll catch. I think.”

He blinks once.

“But that’s beside the point. Have you given any consideration to my proposal?”

He glances down at his arm again as if expecting it to start sprouting feathers but then finally looks back up at me.

“I have,” he answers. Silence follows, so silent that I can hear the thinning crowd in the distance.

It takes me a few seconds to prompt him, "And?"

“And what?”

“And did you decide to help me?”

“That would depend.”

I want to throttle him.

"Depend on what?" I say through gritted teeth. Why is he making this conversation more difficult than it has to be?

“On how often you plan on letting yourself get beaten up." He says it off-handedly, but I sense an undercurrent of anger. It's the same anger I saw in his eyes when he watched my mother slap me.

Discomfort courses through me. “I…that was different. It was my mother.”

“So?”

“So…” I struggle to find a defense. “It’s complicated.”

“I see."

“She’s not always that bad,” I shoot back, crossing my hands over my chest, suddenly wanting to hide. “And I stole from her, so it was to be expected–" I cut the words off, realizing that I'm defending my mother and I don't need to.

Wolf shakes his head. I sense that he's even more disappointed in me.

“Why do you care regardless?” I say.

“I don’t,” he says. “But I would prefer not to have a weak partner.”

"I’m not weak.”

“You’re certainly not strong." He reaches out and lifts my right arm, as though inspecting it. He squeezes lightly. “I could snap this in two without even trying,”

He murmurs it in a considering tone, but I see the test for what it is. He's trying to see if he can scare me.

He can't.

Mostly because I already know he won't hurt me.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Don’t be so sure. That strange voice in my head says. He's killed you before.

In his defense, that was my fault. Plus, I indirectly killed him in the life before that, so we were even now.

But while I rarely ever know what Wolf is thinking, I do know he won't hurt me without a very good reason.

So while he tests my arm, I stare at him drinking him in in the daylight.

He looks different than I remember.

When I met him in the future he was a lot gruffer, quieter, and more intense. His face was scared and his demeanor was hardened by all the battles he'd had to fight up to that point. All the people he'd lost.

Wolf was strong. I once watched him face down an entire legion of Pangeans by himself and get away with only an eye missing.

But he has a tendency to befriend those weaker than him. And every time the Pangeans came after him, he lost more and more of them.

Until he barely had anyone left.

That was when I met him, and he kept his distance from me for the most part. He barely spoke, only grunted words occasionally. But eventually, as I got to know him, I started to see the random bursts of humor here and there, the almost childish churlishness that would kick in when he was hungry.

The strangely tender way he cared for me when I was sick.

Wolf is undoubtedly a good man.

It's why I picked him for this. He's a man who can defend the North with his life and set everything right.

“You need more muscle on your frame," Wolf says, concluding his analysis by dropping my arm. “And you’re underweight.”

“Very astute observation. Would you like to make any more, such as that snow is white and water is, in fact, wet?”

Wolf makes that coughing sound that could easily be mistaken as laughter. It nearly makes me smile. He almost never laughed in the future.

“You have good battle instincts,“ he comments. “But you need training.”

“I do,” I say and wait.

This is the part where you offer to train me, beast. I try to silently communicate the idea to him with a look and further drop a hint by clearing my throat obviously.

Any polite gentleman or even just any human with conversational awareness would understand what I'm trying to convey.

But instead, he turns and walks away.

I scoff in disbelief glaring at his back.

Then I run after him again.

"Wait."

This time he doesn't stop.

I run faster. "Wolf, hang on."

I don't know how his steps are so long and smooth but I'm practically out of breath by the time I catch up to him. “Why do you keep walking away from me?”

“Why do you keep chasing me?”

“Because I need you.”

That stops him in his tracks. “Need me for what? You’ve explained nothing of this grand plan of yours and how you know the things you know. “

I'm glad that he's taking a break so I can catch my breath. I try not to show how obviously winded I am as I say, “I’ll tell you everything you want. I promise. But I need you to promise to help me first. Otherwise, I’m taking a great risk by revealing my hand, you understand.?

“So I just have to tell you I’ll help you and you’ll tell me why you've been on me like a fly on a horse's ass?"

Bastard. “Yes.”

"Fine,” he says. “I’ll help you.”

"You will?" A sliver of hope makes it into my voice.

“Yes.”

I peer at him closely, reading his bland gaze. "You're not being sincere, are you?"

“You didn’t say I had to be.”

I want to stomp my feet like a child but I just release a breath instead. “Why are you making this so hard?”

He snorts. "You were under the impression convincing me would be easy?"

Honestly no, but I didn’t think he would be this irritating either.

“Fine. Let's swear an oath at the edge of the dark forest. That way I know you mean what you say, and I'll tell you everything you need to know."

"You want me to swear an Unbreakable Oath to you?"

"Yes."

He blinks as though he cannot believe my audacity.

"You really do have more guts than sense," he murmurs to himself.

"Thank you." I know he doesn't mean it as a compliment but I chose to take it as one anyway.

"Excuse me."

We both turn at the new voice. It seems while we were arguing someone walked up on us.

But I could never in a million years prepare myself for who that someone is.

My heart aches, trembles, then tumbles to my feet.

Savannah.

She smiles at both of us, green eyes flashing cheekily through the locks of red-hair that frame her face. While Savannah is pretty, like Genya, her features are not overwhelmingly remarkable. Yet there's a glow about her, a quality of her smile that draws you in and makes her effortlessly charming. There's unmistakeable power in her aura too and you can tell her strength from the confident way she walks. But it's not the cruel kind of the strength. It's the inviting one.

She's the type of woman heroic tales are made of, the one that can command armies and inspire an entire nation to devotion.

"You,” Wolf says with a frown. "Go away."

Savannah pointedly ignores him focusing on me instead.

“Hi,” she says. “I wanted to let you know that I watched your match and I thought you were fantastic.”

I can't speak at first. Emotion blocks my throat.

“Thank you.” I force the words out regardless.

“Where did you learn to fight like that?” Savannah asks.

From you, I almost respond. You taught me how to fight like that.

The first time I saw the Mazai fighting technique in action was in my first life, during the first trial after I climbed the side walls and snuck my way into the arena. Part of the reason I was able to succeed undetected was because no one was paying attention to me. Because most of the crowd was entranced with watching the battle between Savannah and the Mountain.

Yes, in the original timeline, it was Savannah who challenged The Mountain, fought him, and won. I remember watching their battle and being amazed at the flying woman who moved with effortless grace, taking down a man three times her size.

I like everyone else, stood in awe of her. I even wanted to approach her after the fight, but I didn't have the boldness to. I thought she, like everyone else in town, would be disgusted by someone like me.

Later when we met in my third life, Savannah told me she learned Mazai from a priest who once singlehandedly fended off two desert beasts on his own. He taught her what he knew, and in the end, she passed that knowledge off to me.

Yet, I couldn't help her when she needed me the most.

“I’m sorry.”

The words escape me before I can catch myself and Savannah cocks her head.

"Why are you apologizing?"

I clear my throat. "I’m sorry I didn’t ask your name," I amend.

"Oh." She grins. "It's Savannah."

"I'm Adria," I respond. "It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

I manage to smile at her, and her grin widens. Something passes between us, something intangible.

Finally, she turns to acknowledge Wolf.

"Wolf," she says. "Nice to see you again after you've so far ignored every letter I’ve sent."

"What are you doing back here?" Wolf respond.

Savannah shrugs. "Well, seeing as you didn’t see it fit to write to me of your affairs, I won't let you know of mine."

Wolf growls, and Savannah smiles. They're bickering is such a beautifully familiar scene that it pierces my chest and tightens in my belly.

I'm not too proud to admit that, amidst the wistful feelings of nostalgia, there's probably some jealousy mixed in. Savannah and Wolf have been friends, long before I met either of them. They match each other in ways I never could.

In the heroic tales, they would undoubtedly end up together, as she is the sole worthy partner for such a fearsome warrior.

I was the intruder that messed up their story.

Perhaps if I never met them tragedy would never have struck.

"Come," Wolf says. tapping my shoulder and walking away.

"What? Where?" I call after him.

" Does it matter? Last I heard you were homeless."

It takes me nearly a minute of staring to realize what he's saying. "Are you inviting me to your home?"

"Ah. You're not as daft as I thought after all."

I clench my fists and breathe through my nose.

I really will kill him one day.