I Stopped Simping and the Heroines Lost Their Minds

The sound beneath the cistern came again while Derren was getting Halden ready to move—a slow rush of water somewhere below the broken basin.

Rhea’s ears turned toward the opening. She listened until it faded, then glanced at her mother.

Lysa looked through the trees at what little daylight remained. "That’s enough. We take Halden back."

Derren went over to Halden while Arthur lingered beside the broken basin. Hati was still visible below, lying in the mud with the dark veins spreading around one eye and disappearing beneath the fur of his neck.

The sight reminded Arthur too much of Iron-Vein. The Cave Spider Matriarch there had been stronger than anything in that dungeon had a right to be, with black growths fused into its body and a strange splinter buried inside its core.

The system had called it an Abyssal Signal Fragment.

Rhea came up beside him. "You’ve seen something like this before?"

"Once." Arthur looked toward Hati again. "I still don’t know what it was."

Arthur crouched near the dry edge of the masonry and broke off a loose piece of old stone. A faint black stain ran through one side of it.

"Taking souvenirs now?" Rhea asked.

Arthur turned the fragment over in his fingers before dropping it into his inventory. "I know someone who’ll want to see it."

Derren grabbed the front handles of Halden’s makeshift stretcher. Arthur took the back. Lysa moved to take point.

Rhea didn’t follow immediately. She walked back down the slope until she was close enough for Hati to see her clearly. Hati lay with his head in the mud, exhausted, but his clear eye followed her.

"Don’t drink it, idiot," she told him.

"I think he’s figured that part out," Arthur called from farther uphill.

Rhea flipped him off without looking back. Hati’s ear twitched, and his tail moved once against the mud.

"We’ll be back," Rhea said.

She turned and walked up the slope. Arthur simply waited for her before following Lysa and the stretcher into the trees.

Rhea caught up without saying anything. For the next few minutes she stayed beside the stretcher, occasionally glancing back through gaps in the trees until the slope disappeared behind them.

The first stretch was rough with Halden on the stretcher, but ordinary sounds gradually returned as they put distance between themselves and the cistern. Birds moved through the canopy again, and a squirrel scrambled up a pine tree before screaming down at Derren.

"Finally," Derren muttered. "Something in this forest hates me for normal reasons."

A steep incline tipped the stretcher enough to pull at Halden’s splinted leg.

"Level the damn thing," he hissed through his teeth.

"You can walk if you prefer," Arthur offered from the back.

Halden reconsidered and kept his mouth shut.

At the next level stretch, Derren shifted one hand off the stretcher and flexed his fingers. Halden noticed, opened his mouth, then caught Arthur looking at him from the rear handles and thought better of it.

Lysa took them through an overgrown stretch where the old trail was almost lost beneath ferns. Carrying the back of the stretcher kept Arthur facing forward most of the way, which meant Lysa spent a considerable amount of time directly in his line of sight.

Rhea caught him at it after a while.

"Arthur."

He looked over.

She glanced pointedly toward her mother.

Arthur shrugged.

Rhea stared at him for another second before turning back to the trail.

One of Lysa’s ears had turned backward during the exchange. She never looked around.

Farther on, they had to pick their way across a narrow washout one at a time. Lysa made it over first and waited on the other side while Arthur and Derren maneuvered Halden across.

Arthur looked up and found her watching him.

Lysa’s gaze stayed on his for a moment. Then her mouth curved slightly and she turned to continue down the trail.

Beside Arthur, Rhea let out a long breath through her nose.

When they stopped briefly for Derren to adjust his grip on the stretcher handles, Halden took a long drink from a waterskin and looked back toward the east. "Animals were already avoiding that area before we ever broke the outer wall."

Arthur looked down at him. "You didn’t see anything?"

"No," Halden rasped. "Just assumed a big predator lived nearby."

Arthur glanced east. So the animals had been avoiding the spring before Halden’s crew ever touched the wall.

Arthur took the stretcher handles again. Whatever the sample turned out to be, Elena needed to see it when he reached Lornfell.

It was fully dark by the time they reached Rauk Hollow. Hunters saw the stretcher and immediately came over, Garr and Kara jogging across the trading yard to meet them.

Mara stepped out of her clinic a moment later. She took one look at Halden’s splinted leg and started directing the hunters where to carry him. As she turned back toward her door, she passed Arthur.

Her hand trailed lightly across his chest, her fingers brushing directly over the muddy handprint Rhea had left on his shirt hours ago. She paused, looking from the mud to Arthur, then to Rhea standing nearby.

"Busy day?" Mara asked.

"Don’t," Rhea warned.

Mara smiled and followed Halden inside.

By the time Arthur made it into the lodge, Derren had already found food and Torr had pulled him into an argument about the eastern trails. Merek kept interrupting from the next table to insist Kara had deliberately miscounted the wildcats.

Garr caught them before Arthur reached the tables.

Lysa did most of the talking. She told him about Halden, the broken basin, and the dark water running out beneath the older stonework. Rhea added what Hati had been doing around the spring.

Garr’s attention shifted to Arthur.

"Whatever’s in that water is getting into the animals. Halden’s crew made the leak worse, but this started before they arrived."

Garr’s face tightened. "How far east?"

Lysa gave him the boundary.

"Nobody drinks past the old survey trail," Garr said. "Not until we know what we’re dealing with."

"I’ll tell the patrols."

Someone shoved a bowl toward Arthur before he even asked. The stew was too hot, the bread was fresh, and for several minutes the table talked over itself without mentioning Hati or the cistern.

Arthur squeezed into the open seat beside Derren, with Rhea taking the space on his other side. Torr was still arguing about the eastern trail, and Merek had somehow managed to drag the wildcats into the discussion again.

Arthur ate while half-listening to both of them. Rhea stayed pressed against his side beneath the crowded table, close enough that when his hand eventually settled on her thigh, neither of them had to shift.

Her hand came down over his a moment later and squeezed.

"Higher and you lose fingers."

Arthur looked at her once, then left his hand exactly where it was and went back to his food.

Merek eventually leaned across the next table to insist that one of the wildcats had been unusually large. Kara threw a crust of bread at him without looking up from her drink, and Torr immediately sided with Merek just to annoy her.

Her tail remained draped behind him while they kept eating.

Mara eventually came back from the clinic looking hungry and tired. She dropped into the chair across from Arthur, stole his cup on the way down, and drank from it while reaching across the table for the bread.

Arthur pushed the plate closer to her without interrupting Torr.

Mara took a piece and kept the cup.

Some time later, Torr pulled another bottle from somewhere under the table and started explaining a drinking game whose rules seemed to change every time Derren asked a question.

Arthur finished what was left on his plate and headed outside.

He had barely crossed the trading yard when the lodge door opened behind him again. Rhea caught up a moment later and fell into step beside him.

They walked a little way before Rhea spoke.

"She knows you were staring."

Arthur glanced at her. "She was staring back."

Rhea shoved his shoulder.

Arthur caught the wrist she’d pushed him with and pulled her back against him, his other arm circling her waist.

Her palm landed against his chest, but instead of pushing him away, her fingers slowly curled into his shirt.

Arthur had barely started leaning closer when Rhea caught his collar and pulled him the rest of the way.

She kissed him hard, pressing against him until his arm tightened around her waist. Her tail curled around the back of his calf.

Arthur started to draw back first. Rhea kept hold of his collar and kissed him again.

Voices carried from one of the nearby houses.

Rhea finally broke away and glanced toward them.

"Not out here."

She loosened her grip on his shirt, only to catch his collar again and pull him down for one shorter kiss.

"Go to bed, Arthur."

She turned toward home, her tail snapping once behind her.