The morning was too quiet for a place that had known so much ruin.
Hatku stood at the edge of the forest just beyond the temple grounds, green flames faint under his skin as he waited. His father's blade was strapped across his back. The sun filtered through the trees, casting long golden shafts between high boughs.
Shyla arrived without a word, hair tied back, boots worn from the path they had traced days earlier. She didn't wear her usual combat garb—just a simple travel wrap and her dagger at her side.
"This still counts as a terrible idea," she said, adjusting the strap across her chest.
Hatku smirked. "Not all terrible ideas end in blood."
Shyla raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that?"
He said nothing. Just started walking.
The hike wasn't planned. Neither of them had slept much the night before, and when Hatku had mentioned the ancient trail behind the temple, Shyla hadn't hesitated. Maybe they both needed a moment to feel like people again. Not weapons. Not survivors. Just themselves.
They moved mostly in silence, but it was a silence charged with something unspoken. The forest path curved upward into a ridge that overlooked the eastern valleys, a place where the world opened wide and the noise of gods and war fell quiet.
"Your sister okay?" Shyla asked finally, as they reached a rise in the trail.
Hatku nodded. "Stronger than me, probably."
"Doesn't mean she's fine."
"I know."
They paused near a tree split by lightning, long dead and hollowed out. Hatku ran a hand along the charred bark. "Reminds me of the village," he said quietly. "The one I left behind."
Shyla stepped beside him. "You never talk about it."
"Because every time I think about it, I remember how small I was. How powerless."
She didn't offer comfort. Didn't reach for him or speak hollow words. Instead, she walked forward, giving him the space to follow. He did.
The ridge came into view minutes later, steep and rocky—but that wasn't what stopped them.
It was the creature.
It stood in the clearing below the ridge. Gray skin laced with crimson veins, six legs, and no eyes. Just a smooth, pulsing skull that opened sideways like a flower, revealing rows of jagged teeth.
Shyla crouched immediately. "Do you see that?"
"Yeah," Hatku muttered, already drawing his sword. "Looks like it sees us too."
The creature shrieked, its body folding and then lunging in one grotesque motion.
Hatku moved left, drawing the thing's attention, while Shyla flanked the other side, knife flashing in the sunlight. The battle was fast and violent. It gored the trees as it moved, kicking up bark and soil, shrieking like thunder between its lunges.
Hatku's green flame erupted from his arm mid-strike, searing into the creature's leg and forcing it to stumble. Shyla used the moment to leap onto its back, driving her blade into the seam of its flowered skull just as it began to open again.
It dropped, twitching violently, steam rising from its wounds.
Shyla fell back onto the ground with a grunt.
Hatku rushed to her side. "You good?"
She laughed breathlessly. "That's two terrible ideas in one morning."
Hatku grinned. "And yet we're still alive."
They didn't move for a moment. The forest buzzed quietly, the tension drained.
By the time they made it back to the temple, the sun was nearly setting. Tashina wasn't in the main chamber, likely still in the archives. They stepped inside together, both dust-streaked, blood-smudged, but breathing.
Hatku turned to say something—to thank her maybe, or joke about her knife skills—but the words never left his mouth.
She looked at him. Really looked.
And he kissed her.
This time, it wasn't frantic like in the hall. It was steady. Intentional. Like choosing a path.
When they finally pulled apart, Shyla rested her forehead against his. "That was a third terrible idea."
"Maybe," he whispered. "Still not sorry."
A small laugh escaped her, and they stepped apart before the moment could stretch too far.
Later that evening, they joined Tashina by the inner courtyard pool. The stars were beginning to show in the rippling water.
"How was it?" Tashina asked without looking up from her notes.
"Quiet," Hatku said. "Mostly."
"We ran into something in the woods," Shyla added. "Some kind of corrupted beast. We took care of it."
Tashina glanced up. "You two okay?"
"Yeah," they said at once.
Neither of them mentioned the kiss.
And the air between them held it like a secret tucked between breaths.