Chapter 14

After

Nozumi returned to the cabin where Mio had nursed her back to life in a daze. If not for the ice maiden at her side, she might've stumbled back into the blizzard, lost forever amongst its swirling snow. Her molt had finished, leaving her tender and weak, but it was Mio's great secret, not the loss of her scales, that left her reeling.

Hiei was the imiko.

Yukina's brother.

Her twin.

It was nearly impossible to make sense of. He'd never mentioned a sister. In fact, he'd never mentioned any family. But then… he'd been only an infant when the ice apparitions cast him out. Perhaps he'd not even known about the Koorime and their floating island. Perhaps his bandit clan had truly been all the family he'd ever possessed. Until her. Until she'd tried to change that.

But now?

He had a sister.

One he cared for. Not a girl he loved romantically as she'd feared, but a sibling he loved fiercely. With the same fire and passion and dedication as she adored Sueko.

And that sister was missing.

She staggered into her bed, numb and compliant as Mio tucked her beneath the blankets. Across the room, Sueko called to her, but Nozumi could only shake her head, too lost in the enormity of it all.

Lost she remained for hours or lifetimes—however long it took for exhaustion to drag her under, her molt and her body's need to heal winning out. When sleep came, she welcomed it. At least asleep, the world would stop whirling out from underneath her. At least asleep, the world made sense.

For two days, Nozumi slipped in and out of fitful hibernation. Her body needed rest, but her mind clamored for answers, and the two remained at constant war with one another.

In one of her more lucid moments, she told Mio of the portal she and Sueko would need to find if they were to make it back to the allies waiting for them. She took care not to mention Hiei, though his name burned upon her tongue. Mio promised that when Nozumi was well, they'd find the dimension door, but not a moment sooner.

On the second night, Sueko climbed into her bed, and Nozumi whispered Yukina and Hiei's story to her. In its aftermath, Sueko was left speechless, struck silent for the one of the few times in all their lives. In the long hours between midnight and dawn, she drifted back to her own bed, still stunned, as off-kilter as Nozumi herself.

But on the third day following her molt, Nozumi woke not to Mio's gentle ministrations, but to a commotion beyond the cabin's walls. To shrieks and screams—and to a voice she could never mistake.

"Where is she? Tell me, you frigid beasts!" The demand was equal parts snarl and roar. It ripped through the once sleepy village like a thunderclap, disrupting the quiet whisper of the snowfall.

Nozumi lurched upright, vaguely aware that for the first time in days, her body didn't pain her. She found shoes and an outer layer, then hurried to the door, throwing it open and stepping out onto the frozen path. Still curled up beneath her blankets, Sueko mumbled groggily, but Nozumi paid her no mind as she soaked in the commotion in the street.

At the road's far end, Hiei blazed like a bonfire, snow melting to hissing rain as it hit his aura. Ice apparitions fled from him, darting into their homes or bolting from the village entirely. Only Mio remained, standing in the midst of the path.

She was so little, such a tiny, delicate thing. Yet she stood her ground, declaring, "Yukina isn't here, imiko! She isn't—"

Hiei snarled, stalking closer, focus locked on Mio. He clutched at his katana, the blade half-drawn. "Not Yukina." Energy ripped from him in torrents, blazing through the village—more energy than Nozumi had ever been so directly exposed to. He was infinitely stronger than his younger self, more powerful than she'd ever imagined he might become, yet when he spoke, her name sounded as it always did on his tongue, the last syllable drawn out, savored like a precious treasure. "Nozumi."

Mio stiffened. Her head turned, just a degree, as if she were trying to peek back at Nozumi's cabin—and that was all it took to draw Hiei's attention past Mio. Straight to Nozumi herself.

Recognition—and, dare she think, relief—splashed across his features, softening their hardest edges. In her next breath, he blurred out of sight, and then, with crushing force, appeared before her and hauled her to his chest. His arms locked around her waist, every hard plane of muscle that formed his wiry frame pressing into her as he drew her tight.

She held perfectly still, not even breathing.

Heat poured off him, melting the falling snow into clouds of mist, and his energy eddied off her skin, harmless yet horrifyingly vast. She blinked the fog away, uncertain if it was water or tears that weighed upon her lashes. It had been thirty years since he'd held her like this—thirty years since she'd last known he cared.

In the end, she was the one who broke contact.

She curled her hands over his shoulders, and it took only the lightest pressure for him to release her. Breathless, she stepped back, bumping into the cabin's ajar door. Snow swirled past her, drifting into the warm interior.

Hiei scalded her with his crimson gaze as she withdrew. "I thought you'd died."

"Nearly did."

A growl thrummed in his chest. He whirled toward Mio, katana whining from its sheath, but Nozumi caught his wrist, stopping him in his tracks.

"They saved us. Mio and the other maidens. Leave them be."

He remained wound tight as a spring, poised to lunge, but he didn't move. "If you say so."

"I do."

A muscle in his jaw worked, and she thought of a thousand things he might say, a thousand things his embrace had woken in her, but when he spoke, it was to riddle her with accusations, each as pointed as a knife. "You've been here five days. Did you think we'd forget about you? That you could steal—"

The lingering warmth of his embrace evaporated.

"I molted," she bit out before he could accuse her of the heinous sort of crime she'd always forgiven of him, yet apparently he wouldn't forgive of her—never mind that she'd committed no such sin. "We got lost in the storm, and then I molted. We couldn't get back to the portal. Not yet." She crossed her arms, steeling herself against him. "But to answer your question—no, Hiei, I didn't think you'd forget. Not while I have your precious payment. Thank you for reminding me of your priorities."

A war of emotions clashed upon his face, pressing his lips tight and narrowing his eyes with their force, but Nozumi made no attempt to read him. Only disappointment waited for her if she did.

"Stay here," she said. "We'll get our things and go. Five minutes."

And then she left him in the blistering wind.

They departed the Koorime's village with little fanfare. Only Mio saw them off, hugging first Sueko, then Nozumi. She clutched at Nozumi tight, her tiny hands balled into fists at the small of Nozumi's back. "Be careful," Mio murmured as she let go, her frightened gaze darting to Hiei.

"We will be." Nozumi squeezed her hand. "Thank you for everything, Mio."

Hiei ignored the girl as he led the way into the storm, but Nozumi glanced back a dozen times, as if confirming Mio existed verified the truth of Hiei's history, too. For as long as Nozumi could make out the settlement, the maiden remained at its outskirts, motionless but for her hair whipping in the storm.

When the snowfall at last swallowed the village, Nozumi forced her attention forward. The Koorime had been another bust. Another failure. Yukina was out there somewhere, but she wasn't here, in this terrible place that had torn apart her family on the same day it had been born. More than ever, Nozumi understood why these men so desperately wanted Yukina back. Not just for Kuwabara's sake, but for Hiei's, too.

They traveled in silence, Hiei carving a path that Nozumi and Sueko followed single file. The purple light of his Jagan blazed, casting its hue across the falling snow as he set their course back to Kuwabara's dimension door. Though he'd tamed his vast energy, its presence was not easily forgotten once felt, and Nozumi's skin crawled beneath the Jagan's light, shivers that were not from the cold wracking down her spine.

Despite the disquiet squirming at the edges of her awareness, she stared at Hiei's back, trying to reconcile the fire demon she'd known with the ice apparitions he belonged among. In some ways, it explained him. After all, if the Koorime's elders could throw a baby to its doom, was it any surprise that the child grew up harsh and brutal? If that was all he'd ever known, how could anyone expect anything else from him?

But it was impossible to imagine that he shared ancestry with gentle, kind Mio. Or Yukina, who—if the descriptions of her were to be believed—was as much Mio's kindred spirit as she wasn't Hiei's.

Could such a girl truly be his twin?

It seemed impossible. And yet, she believed it. With every fiber of her being.

The Jagan proved more than apt at navigating the blizzard, and soon, the portal back to Hanging Neck Island took shape between the whirling snowflakes. Hiei stopped beside it, lashing the cloth back in place across his forehead. With a jerk of his chin, he indicated they should pass through. Sueko did so without protest, clearly eager to be free of the nightmarish cold.

Nozumi was not so quick.

She stopped before the dimension door, staring into its unknowable depths as she searched for the right words. Beside her, Hiei blazed like a bonfire, the snow melting to slush at his feet. Impatience radiated off him, but she didn't rush. Not for him. Not anymore.

"We need to talk." She aimed for soft yet firm, hoping to brook no argument—to leave no room for protest.

Of course, Hiei always argued.

"Hn. What we need to do is get off this forsaken island."

She exhaled long and slow, her breath forming a white plume that disappeared into the portal, swallowed up by oblivion.

If she wanted, she could make a game of her newfound knowledge. Hint at what she'd learned. Make him squirm. But, in truth, she couldn't see the point in teasing. He hadn't told her who Yukina was to him, and if she'd possessed so much as a single lingering hope that what had once laid between them wasn't dead, that hope had certainly gone out now.

So she played no games.

She faced him, shoulders squared, spine straight—confidence almost unwavering, though she prayed he wouldn't notice that. "Yukina is your sister." Hiei stiffened, gone as rigid as the frozen icicles that hung from the Koorime's eaves, but she paid his distress no mind. "If you want me to find her, we need to talk. Otherwise, I walk. Those are the terms. Take them or leave them." She shifted toward the portal, ready to cross between planes, letting her ultimatum fill the space she'd once occupied. "Your choice, Hiei."

The portal spat Nozumi out not on Hanging Neck Island like she'd expected, but in the midst of a Demon World field. A warm breeze soothed across her raw, wind-bitten cheeks, the chill of the Koorime's frozen island already a memory, and long stalks of grass rustled around her calves, flowers in all the shades of a sunset swaying between the blades. She took five steps forward, then turned, readying to face Hiei.

But she'd forgotten they weren't alone anymore.

"Nozumi!" Kuwabara swooped in, stepping between her and the dimension door as Hiei emerged from its depths. The human's broad palms smoothed over her shoulders, turning her slightly side-to-side, as if he needed to verify her three-dimensionality.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Yukina wasn't there."

His brow puckered. "Yeah, I figured." Releasing her, he pressed a palm to his forehead, as if to push the tension from his flesh. He eased back, and her field of view broadened to reveal Kurama and Urameshi to her left. "Didn't think it would take you five days to show back up if you'd found her. Started to worry you might've turned into an ice cube up there."

Sueko huffed a laugh. She stood in Kurama's shadow, rubbing her hands rhythmically up and down her arms. "Don't rule that out just yet."

Despite herself, Nozumi couldn't hold back a smile. Pins and needles pricked across her skin, her entire body aflame as it thawed. Welcoming the warm wind, she peeled off her outer layer—Kuwabara's coat—and held it out to him, admitting wryly, "Turns out, we were underdressed for the occasion."

A sheepish blush stained across his cheeks as he took the jacket.

"Told you it wasn't a parka," Urameshi said when Sueko tossed him his windbreaker.

"Enough."

The faint sense of camaraderie amongst them faded as quick as it had come, banished before Hiei's snarl.

He stood at the threshold of the portal, tensed like a caged animal. "Yukina wouldn't return to the island. We all knew it. Five days wasted on a foolish guess—" he spat the accusation at Nozumi's feet, his gaze as sharp as his katana "—that never could've been right. And now, the lot of you are joking about it."

For a beat, silence answered him.

Then Kurama loosed a slow breath through his nose. "We're all disappointed, Hiei, but there's relief in knowing Nozumi and Sueko are safe. That's all."

A flicker of disbelief twinged within Nozumi. Relief? On her behalf?

But she couldn't dwell on that, not in light of Hiei's sneer.

How dare he lie to her all this time and then besmirch her talents. She'd been honest about what she'd needed from them if her efforts were to succeed, and they'd misled her. They'd hidden Hiei and Yukina's shared blood, kept her in the dark, let her fumble futilely—and he dared blame her?

All sense of good will evaporated, leaving her numb to it all. Hiei's rage. Kuwabara's concern. Kurama's relief. None of it mattered.

This was a job. Nothing more.

"I learned plenty amongst the Koorime," she said, meeting Hiei's gaze flatly, refusing to waver before his ire. "I told you upfront that I track bonds. Connections. Yet you all omitted the most important bond Yukina has to any of you."

In her peripheral vision, Kuwabara cocked his head. "What are you talking about?"

The question was earnest. Confused. And it was because of that, not Hiei's frigid rage, that Nozumi faltered.

Breaking eye contact with Hiei, she appraised them. Kurama, placid and unmoved on the surface, yet unable to stop his gaze from flitting to Kuwabara, then Hiei, then back. Urameshi, awkward and evasive, shifting from one foot to another, a hand rubbing at his neck. Hiei, raging like a bonfire, but suddenly not at her, his flames turned inward instead.

And Kuwabara, uncertain, on the outside looking in.

Ah.

So it wasn't just her who'd been lied to.

She tipped her head back, breathing the scent of the meadow into her lungs. Hiei owed her explanations, but she'd spent three decades waiting on him. She could wait a little longer.

"Tell him, Hiei," she said to the sky. "Surely you owe him that. Find me after—if you still want me to help. Your choice."

With that, Nozumi slipped her hands into her pockets and turned heel, leaving the foursome to lay their secrets bare. Sueko fell in at her side, and they padded through the flowers, crossing to the edge of the meadow, where a smoldering fire waited. The men's bags were in various states of disarray, their possessions scattered about the encampment, but Nozumi found a patch of open grass and settled, drawing her knees to her chest.

Sueko didn't sit. She stared back across the field, eyes narrowed. "His choice?"

"I told him what I learned about Yukina. Said we need to talk; otherwise, I'm done here."

"Good."

Nozumi hummed agreement.

The wind rustled through the branches overhead. The grass answered, and for a time, the chorus of murmuring blades and sighing leaves filled the silence. Eventually, voices rose in the distance. Kuwabara's first. Urameshi's second. Nozumi didn't look, but Sueko remained riveted.

"Kuwabara might hit him."

At that, Nozumi almost indulged in a glimpse. A wicked little part of her craved to see it—Hiei getting an iota of the blows he dealt. But even still, she averted her gaze, and after a moment, Sueko sighed.

"Never mind. Kurama intervened."

Time stretched. The voices retreated.

After what might've been an hour, footsteps crunched at Nozumi's back.

Unceremoniously, Urameshi flung himself down across from her. His mane was as wild as she'd ever seen it, his body rigid with tension, but when she met his gaze, a lost boy looked back at her.

Kurama was less theatrical. He sank gracefully onto a log, crossing his legs and lacing his fingers atop one knee, but he stared into the middle distance all the same, mired in his thoughts.

Kuwabara did not join them.

"Hn. Come."

She turned and found Hiei. His ire was gone, all his rage burned down to dull coals. In its absence, his features had softened, and for the first time since seeing him in Tourin over a week ago, she truly recognized him—the lonely, broken demon she'd once loved.

The staunch determination in her chest nearly cracked, but she bolstered it. She wouldn't back down. Not on this.

He offered a hand.

She didn't take it, but she stood all the same—and they went to talk.

They followed the meadow's edge, walking through the sun-dappled grass.

Nozumi spotted Kuwabara across the field, laying spread-eagled in the flowers, staring at the sun as it crept ever higher overhead. For once, she couldn't imagine what he must be feeling. Not really. How long had they kept the truth of Yukina and Hiei's shared lineage from him? A decade? That was a betrayal that was uniquely his.

When he fell out of sight, she fixated on the flowers ahead. Most were red, some orange and yellow. A smattering were a deep, velveteen purple. She bent to pluck one. Lofting it to her nose, she inhaled its buttery scent, then twirled its stem between the pads of her fingers.

The silence stretched, but she didn't break it.

She didn't even look at Hiei.

This time, Nozumi wouldn't help him. He could meet her on her terms for once.

She was almost beginning to doubt he was capable of it when he at last cleared his throat. "We have no bond," he ground out, the words clipped and short, as if they pained him. "She doesn't know what I am. Who I am."

The silence broken, Nozumi allowed herself to study him. He remained the young demon she'd known, all his sharpened angles dulled, his steely confidence replaced with the false bravado she remembered all too well. "You never told her?"

"Of course not." A muscle in his jaw ticked. Once. Twice. "No one like Yukina would desire a brother like me."

She raised a brow. "You made that decision for her, obviously. Didn't give her a chance to decide for herself."

It wasn't a question. The more she thought about it, it wasn't even a surprise.

Perhaps he hadn't changed near as much as she'd thought. After all, the Hiei she'd known was always assuming—assuming she'd left him, assuming she wasn't competent, assuming he didn't need her. He'd never trusted her enough to have the conversation, to hear her out.

Seems he hadn't trusted Yukina either.

She hadn't meant the statement as an accusation, but he clearly interpreted it as one, and his hackles rose as he lurched to a halt, his crimson gaze snapping to hers. "I know what I am," he hissed. "I didn't need to hear it from her."

Nozumi slowed, scouring his face for a sign he didn't mean it, for a single hint he thought himself worthy, but she found nothing. "You still believe that? Even after all this time?"

Consternation furrowed across his forehead.

She sighed and continued before he could spiral into a fit, "So because you've never told her the truth, you claim there's no bond between you. Fine. Maybe not on her end. But what about yours? You clearly care about her. Her absence is eating you alive. Perhaps I can use that to find her, if you'll share it with me."

His eyes shuttered closed. He breathed low and slow, in for a three count, out for a three count.

While he gathered himself, she scanned for a place to settle. A large tree at the edge of the woods beckoned her, and she sat amongst its roots, her back against the trunk. She patted the dirt at her side. "Come. Sit."

She'd expected a fight, but he complied without a word. It wasn't until he'd settled at her side, his warmth leaching into her arm, that she recalled an afternoon a lifetime ago when they'd sat in the garden outside the inn, arm-to-arm, backs against a tree. Never had she imagined they might be so intimate ever again.

"What must you know?"

Anything. Everything. Whatever he would share.

But he didn't mean about his life.

He meant about Yukina.

"Start at the beginning. Did you always know about her?"

He stiffened. His head swung toward her, but she kept her focus on the flower she'd plucked, running a fingernail along the edge of one silken petal.

"When we—" He faltered. Shook his head. Started again. "No. Not always." He propped his elbows atop his knees, his hands held in the space between his legs. They curled into fists, relaxed, then tightened again. "I knew of the Koorime village. I knew they'd banished me. But I didn't know of Yukina. When I was young, I intended to hunt their island down and exact my revenge. In my earliest days, it was all I cared about, the beacon that drove me forward." His knuckles grew bleached as he dug his nails into his palms. "Eventually, it didn't seem so important."

Nozumi closed her eyes, refusing to read into his meaning. If he wanted to tell her what had changed, he could come right out and say it. She wouldn't try to read his mind. Instead, she imagined this hidden part of him—his Koorime ancestry, their terrible cruelty, what it must have been like to grow up bereft of those who should've cared most. "Is that one of the places you went, when you disappeared for days on end?"

"Hn. No. I required the Jagan to find that forsaken island."

He said it so plainly, as if the Jagan weren't a wretched curse, but a mere tool. Like a compass. Or a map.

If he noticed the way that pained her, he hid it well.

"It's why I possessed a Hiruseki stone." He raised a hand to his throat, wrapping his fingers around the twin cords that hung there. "It was my mother's. I flaunted it. Dared other demons to try to take it from me, and try they did." Again, his gaze cut to hers. This time, she met it. "Sueko saved me once. You did, another time." He huffed and looked away. "After that, I stopped using it to provoke fights." The fleeting ghost of a smile quirked his lips. "No demons with a death with."

His smile was here and gone in a heartbeat, but the crook of his lips emblazoned itself on her heart all the same. She swallowed hard, then repeated, "No demons with a death wish."

A petal tumbled from her flower, torn free by her fretting fingers.

She forced out a question. "Where does Yukina come in then? When did you learn of her?"

"After the Jagan surgery," he paused a moment, and she got the distinct sense he was omitting something from his story when he continued, "I found the Koorime's island and spoke with one of them, my mother's friend Rui. She told me that my mother, riddled with grief over what they'd done to me, had taken her own life and, in doing so, left behind a daughter. My sister."

Yukina.

"And you met her then?"

"No. She'd already left the village, searching for her brother."

"You."

"Hn."

Nozumi drew up her knees, laced her arms around them, and rested her cheek atop one kneecap, appraising him. The wind caught in his hair, rippling through his bangs. An ache opened in the depths of her belly, urging her to reach out, to run a hand along his jaw, to soak his warmth into her skin. "How long did it take you to find each other?"

"Years. The Jagan was still new to me, and finding one apparition was far harder than tracking an entire island. In the end, I followed her to Human World, but I was too late. She'd been captured by human scum."

Right. The rescue mission Kuwabara had told her about—the one Hiei had miraculously stumbled in to. Except it hadn't been a miracle. He'd been on a search-and-rescue mission of his own.

"Ever since, I've kept my distance. Ensured she was safe and nothing more."

Something about his tone told her that wasn't the truth. "I doubt that."

His head snapped to the side, his gaze searing into her. Mere inches separated them, and the scalding heat of his breath scorched her cheeks as he exhaled sharply, his nostrils flaring in momentary surprise at her proximity. His eyes flitted to her lips, and then he jerked his head away, his rebuttal dying on his tongue.

"She doesn't know," he said, repeating his initial claim.

"But you're not strangers."

"Obviously."

"So what is there between you? Who does she think you are?"

"An ally."

It took all her willpower not to roll her eyes. "She lives in Human World, Hiei. She has a—" it took a moment to find the foreign word "—fiancé. She's not at war. She's not a bandit. She doesn't need allies."

Frustration pulled his lips into a snarl. "You're enjoying this," he bit out. "Forcing me to say these things is a twisted game to you, isn't it?"

In another lifetime, his mistrust might've stung, but there was no hurt in it now. At long last, she understood it was a comment on him, not her. "No, Hiei. That's never been my sort of game—and you know it." She raised her head, looking out across the field. "You've begged me to help. The whole lot of you have insisted I'm your last chance. I promised I would try. Promised Kuwabara. Promised you. This is me trying, nothing more, nothing less."

His answer was slow in coming, and when it did, it was as soft as she'd ever heard him. "I don't know who am I to her. An acquaintance? A friend?" With a jerky tug, he pulled the cords at his throat free of his neckline. Not one, but two Hiruseki stones swung forth. The dappled sunlight caught on their surfaces, refracting a thousands shades of blue across his jawline. "Years ago, she gave me her Hiruseki stone. Asked me to give it to her brother, if I ever found him."

Nozumi sucked in a breath. Hiei's stone had meant everything to him—everything. Yet Yukina had given him hers? On the mere hope he might find her brother? Then let him keep it for years on end?

"You're sure she doesn't know who you are?"

He curled a fist around the stones and shoved them back beneath his shirt. "Hn. I won't flatter that absurdity with an answer."

Evasion was more confirmation than he appeared to think, but she didn't press him further. "Fine. What's your theory, then? Where has she gone? We all know she wasn't kidnapped."

"If I knew where she was, I wouldn't need a tracker, would I?"

She laughed. "You're right. Wrong question. Why would she leave? She's your sister. Surely you have a guess. Perhaps she's not so different than her long lost brother."

He ground his teeth together. "She's not getting a Jagan, if that's what you're suggesting."

Nozumi shrugged, shoulders rolling toward her ears. "It wasn't. Few souls are so hell bent on courting death, I imagine, and from what I've heard of Yukina, that doesn't sound much like her. But maybe there's something else." Like the real reason he'd gotten the Jagan.

Because he couldn't stand to rely on anyone else.

To need anyone else.

But Hiei didn't rise to her bait. He merely shook his head. "I don't know."

The words were so forlorn, so painfully lonely, that they couldn't be anything but the truth, and despite her efforts to steel herself, her heart ached for him. He'd found his sister a decade ago, and yet, in so many ways, it seemed she remained a stranger to him.

Closing her eyes, Nozumi conjured up Hideo. His belly-deep laughter. His burnished bronze scales. His immaculate, soul-affirming hugs. More than thirty years had reduced the ache of his absence, but it was never out of reach. Her heart would know his until the day she joined him in Spirit World.

Sueko was no different. She was half of Nozumi's whole, one of the few anchors she still possessed. They'd spent a lifetime at one another's sides. Bickering often, not speaking on occasion, but always—always—there for each other.

Long ago, Nozumi had thought she could be that for Hiei. She knew better now. Yet she'd hoped he would find that wholeness elsewhere. Somewhere. With someone.

She'd thought that someone might've been Yukina.

It appeared she was wrong.

"One final question," she murmured before the silence could become unbreakable. "I assume you've tried to find her with the Jagan. It hasn't worked?"

"No."

"I thought the Jagan could find anything."

"As did I."

"So this is a first?"

She meant nothing by it, but the question landed like a strike, and Hiei stiffened. His lips parted, then closed. He shook his head. "It's failed before. Once." With a lurch, he stood. He stared down at her, a question she couldn't quite parse smoldering in his eyes. "But it was new to me then."

With that, he turned heel, heading back to their camp, apparently having decided he'd given her enough.

She didn't follow. Not for a while.

Not until her heart stopped racing.