The bathhouse was half-ruined, half-haunted, and entirely too poetic for what was about to happen.
I leaned against a cracked pillar that still stank of jasmine oil and mildew, arms crossed, silk wrap clinging to me in all the wrong places. A breeze stirred through the broken archways, carrying the distant sound of bells and my own rising fury.
Across from me stood a ghost.
Sir Ogden. Alive. In the flesh. Sun-kissed and sheepish.
I'd buried him.
I'd mourned him.
I'd cried over that stupid tombstone with its pompous epitaph and lion-smiting holiness and here he was, alive, breathing, and blushing like a schoolboy caught with his pants around someone else's sacred grove.
"You," I said, voice calm like a knife laid gently on a table. "Let me get this straight. You faked your death because you thought you knocked up an elven princess?"
His mouth opened, closed, opened again. "I… didn't think I knocked her up. She said she was with child. And she was very clear it was mine."
"And at no point—not once—did it occur to you to check the math? Ask some clarifying questions? Maybe, oh I don't know, notice she'd been rutting with a tusked green brute on the side?"
"I didn't know!" he blurted, hands up like I might throw something. I should've. "I mean, how could I? Elves are—look, they're complicated!"
He rubbed the back of his neck. "She said all the right things! Whispered elvish poetry, cried out under the moonlight, called me 'blade of twilight's breath' or something. I was bewitched."
"You were dickmatized," I snarled.
"I'm not at my smartest when I'm between elven legs, okay?" he shouted, then immediately winced. "That came out wrong."
"Did it?" I pushed off the pillar and started toward him, each barefoot step a tiny thunderclap. "Because it sounds exactly like the Ogden I know. Big sword, bigger delusions, and a mind that shuts off the second thighs start rhyming."
He backed up a little. Good. Let him feel small. Let him feel watched.
"You had a tombstone, Ogden," I said, stopping inches from him. "You had quotes etched into marble. I cried. Me. Saya. Cried like a milkmaid with a broken heart and no shoes. Do you know how humiliating that is? People saw me."
He opened his mouth. I slapped my hand over it.
"No. You don't get to talk yet."
His eyes went wide. I let him stew in it for a beat, then pulled my hand back. Slowly.
He looked at me like I was a thundercloud in silk.
"I thought you were dead," I whispered. "I carried your sun medallion like a widow. I grieved. And all this time, you were what? Hiding in a swamp? Eating frog legs and writing shitty poetry?"
"I didn't write poetry," he muttered.
I arched a brow. "Oh? Then what was that 'Ode to the Grove of Regret' I found in your saddlebag?"
"Private reflections."
I almost hit him. Almost.
Instead, I laughed. Loud. Sharp. Ugly.
"You vanished from my life over a baby that wasn't even yours, from a woman who wasn't even pure, leaving behind a memory that wasn't even real."
He looked down. "When you put it like that..."
I grabbed his chin and yanked his face up. "You're lucky you're pretty," I said sweetly. "Otherwise, I'd chain you to a stump and let dryads snack on your virtue for eternity."
He swallowed. "That seems… excessive."
And then I walked out.
Head high. Rage hotter than dragonfire.
Crying whore, my ass.
He dragged a hand down his face.
"What was I supposed to do, Saya?"
I blinked slowly. "Oh, I don't know. Not fake your death like a theatrical coward?"
"The Grove wanted my head on a silver platter," he shot back, frustration cracking through the golden‑boy composure. "They declared I had defiled their princess. That her firstborn was a half‑human mongrel. Do you have any idea how serious that is to elves?"
I folded my arms tighter.
"They were already debating succession omens," he continued, pacing now. "A half‑human heir? Gods, Saya. That can fracture clans. Start blood feuds. Entire branches of lineage get contested. Elves don't just gossip about honor—they wage centuries over it."
"Should've thought about that," I said flatly, "before sticking it in the elven lady."
He stopped pacing.
Looked at me like I'd just suggested he personally invented sin.
"Look, Saya…" he began, voice turning defensive, almost pleading. "There was moonlight."
I stared.
"And skinny dipping," he added weakly.
I stared harder.
"And I'm a man," he finished, spreading his hands as if that explained wars, plagues, and structural collapse. "How is a human hero supposed to resist that? It's practically karmic programming. Moonlight, water, an elven maiden—those are mythic triggers. I didn't stand a chance."
I let the silence stretch.
Long enough for him to realize how deeply, cosmically unimpressed I was.
"So your defense," I said slowly, "is that your dick responded to narrative tropes."
He winced.
"She said I was chosen by starlight."
"You were chosen by hormones."
"She sang to me."
"So do tavern girls. They don't put bounties on your head afterward."
He groaned. "It wasn't like that."
"Wasn't it? Because from where I'm standing, you saw moonlight, heard a harp, and forgot every political reality between here and the Inner Sea."
He rubbed his temples. "You don't understand. Elven beauty is… overwhelming. It's like standing too close to the sun."
I snorted. "Funny. I've been standing next to one for years and never felt the urge to ruin my life over it."
"That's different."
"Oh? Why?"
"Because you are the sun, Saya."
I paused.
Blink.
Then smacked him in the arm hard enough to make his armor clank.
"Don't flirt your way out of this."
"I'm not—!"
"You are absolutely trying."
He sighed, defeated.
I stepped closer, jabbing a finger into his chestplate.
"You know what your real problem is?"
He braced himself. "What?"
"Your balls do the thinking. Always."
"That's not fair."
"Isn't it? Let's review: Temple novices, barmaids, that swamp nymph incident, the traveling priestess twins, and now an elven princess under ceremonial moonlight. Pattern recognition, Ogden. It's not heroism. It's your cock chasing folklore."
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
"…When you list them like that, it sounds bad."
"Oh don't pretend..."
He looked genuinely miserable now, golden head bowed.
"I thought I was doing the noble thing," he muttered. "Disappearing. Protecting everyone from the fallout."
I watched him for a long moment.
Then shook my head.
"No," I said quietly. "You were protecting yourself from consequences."
He didn't argue.
Didn't defend it.
Just stood there, sunlight catching in his hair like he was still trying to look heroic in the wreckage of his own stupidity.
I exhaled through my nose.
"Next time," I said, turning away, "try using the organ in your skull before the one between your legs."
Behind me, he muttered:
"…I'll do my best."
I didn't turn around.
Because if I did, I might've smiled.
And he hadn't earned that yet.
***
We were supposed to be fighting.
I was still fighting. Just… not with my hands.
My thighs clenched around his hips, the cracked tile cool beneath my knees, and Ogden's back arched like he was trying not to beg. His fingers dug into my waist, trying to hold on, trying not to lose it, trying not to give me everything.
I rocked forward, slow, cruel. Let him feel the ache of every day I thought he was dead. Let him feel the punishment in every grind of my hips. Gods, I had missed this cock. That cocky, smug, heroic, infuriating—
"Tell me," I gasped, breath hot, hips still moving, "I fuck better than some elven cunt."
He froze under me.
Eyes wide, lips parted like he wasn't sure if this was foreplay or a trap.
It was both.
He tried to pivot. "Saya, that's not—"
I slapped him.
Not hard. Not cruel. But loud enough to echo through the crumbled bathhouse and remind him who was in charge of this little resurrection.
His jaw dropped.
"Seriously," I snarled, still grinding, still chasing the edge I'd been starving for since his godsdamn tombstone. "Lie to me. Ogden. Lie."
"I—"
Another roll of my hips shut him up.
His eyes fluttered. His hands squeezed. He was close. I could feel it. But I wasn't going to let him off easy. Not this time. Not after everything.
"Say it," I hissed, lips barely brushing his. "Say I'm better. Say she was nothing. Say she was forgettable and I'm fucking unforgettable."
He moaned. Weak little whimper. Pathetic.
I bit his lower lip.
He finally cracked.
"You're—gods—Saya—you're better, you're perfect, she wasn't even—she never—fuck—"
"Louder."
"You fuck better than anyone," he gasped. "I swear it. I swear it on every god I've ever pretended to serve."
I smirked.
And came hard, nails digging into his chest like I was trying to carve my name into him. Maybe I was.
As I collapsed forward, sweat-slick and panting, I whispered:
"Good."
Then I bit his ear.
Because forgiveness? Wasn't coming yet.
But this?
This was a start.