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Luxus is wetter than Demas would prefer by far, but he—and Rhea—feel much safer with the rainforest canopy overhead than they did in the vast, open deserts of the central continent.
They’ve taken odd jobs as they’ve traveled south: anything that isn’t terribly suspicious and pays enough for three meals and two rooms at an inn. Rhea’s contact, the mysterious “Serval” whose men rescued Demas, has proven quite helpful to that end. Demas has no idea where his seemingly unending funds come from, but since he’s been giving them assignments that pay well enough and keep them out of Pexus territory, he’s content not to wonder too much about it.
They’ve made it to one of the larger jungle towns now. They’re slowly working their way towards the capital, where Rhea hopes to hire a mage to contact her parents. Of course, nothing is stopping her from swimming off into Oshanos herself—nothing save for her unwillingness to part with him and Indra.
His chest pangs at the thought. He has been glad of her attachment to the pair of them, for it has spared him of having to reveal his own. Well, anyway it has thus far—only now he is certain he cannot go on without telling her.
As if on cue, Rhea opens her door and smiles at him. “Indra said you’ve been standing here for some time,” she says, tearing a sheepish laugh out of him. For such a small woman, how can Indra be so unsettling? She must have heard him approach, he supposes.
“I suppose I was lost in thought,” he says.
“Well, come in!”
He steps in and glances toward Indra, who stares impassively back at him from the bedside. “May I speak privately with Rhea for a moment?”
Indra glances to Rhea (and he swears for a brief second that he sees the slightest expression in the elf’s face: a twitch of her brow, a widening of her eyes), who smiles brightly and nods.
He is overcome with a strange amusement; Rhea is their authority. Well, it was Rhea who rescued her from the lamia, and after all, he is no captain anymore; he hasn’t been one for months.
Indra stands and takes her leave. He has no doubt that she awaits just outside the door, but it is sufficient.
“Is everything alright, Captain?” Rhea asks as they sit beside each other on her bedside.
He chuckles to mask his mild discomfort. She has continued to use the title thus far with little protest from him, but now at once it feels severely inappropriate, given what he is about to tell her. “I don’t have a ship anymore, Rhea,” he says quietly.
“You have a crew,” she counters with an amused flash of her teeth. “You’ve always been my captain, besides.”
Her captain. Well, when she says it like that, it pleases him. Yet the idea of the reverse makes him shift uncomfortably: he does not want her to be his sailor. Not his sailor. The thought spurs him to continue.
“Let us be a crew without a captain, then,” he says, taking her hands into his. She blinks and looks into his face. “Please. After everything you’ve done for me, we must be equals now.”
Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and he finds his gaze stuck there as she says, “Well—Demas. I will try, then, since it seems so important to you.”
He sighs and looks down at their met hands. “It is.” You are, he almost says, but his throat catches.
He turns her hands over in his own instead, examining the colorful scales, the webbing betwixt her fingers. “You can’t wear rings, can you?” he finds himself idly wondering.
She leans closer. “No. They would rust in the water anyway.” He feels her eyes upon his face. “Is—um, what did you want to talk about?”
He does not look away from her hands. How can he tell her this? He searches for the words.
“I thought you were dead.” Those weeks had been miserable—first in the custody of the Virduc Legion, and then in the druid’s sanctuary upon the frozen mountaintop. “After the—explosion. Well, I thought everyone was dead. I thought I’d gotten you all killed—and I thought I’d never be able to tell you—”
He swallows. He feels the oppressive weight of her wide-eyed gaze, but he wills himself not to meet it. He will stop if he does, and he must tell her now.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispers to her hands. “Rhea. You can refuse me—”
She tears her hands from his, and for a heart-stopping moment he almost thinks she will refuse him, but then she grabs his face and crashes her mouth into his so hard that her teeth clatter into his tusks.
“Rhea,” he rasps into her lips, pulling her into his arms.
It is a long moment before Rhea pulls away and breathes, “I can’t believe I didn’t see—but I’ve wanted you, too.” She’s barely finished saying it before he’s kissing her again.