The heaviness in Barry’s chest pressed against his heart and lungs as he moved across the forest floor. It cut his breath short and kept his ribcage tight, almost ready to burst. The phantom pain from getting stabbed through the ribcage had been slowly dissipating. At least it was no longer suffocating him to the point he’d crumble in wheezing agony if he pushed too hard.

“Are you at your limit?”

Kajou’s words rang out in the same tone of concern that had been used at least half a dozen times since they’d set out. Her hand lingered near his shoulder, and she had a worried expression on her face. The Amazon’s eyes kept flickering towards the forest behind them, always looking for some potential threat that just might jump out and attack them.

Wheezing slightly, the young man could do nothing but shake his head. “I can… do… a bit more.”

“Pan isn’t here.” Kajou frowned slightly, giving a little nod of her head. “No need to play tough, you’ve shown you’re strong enough.”

A bitter pill coming from a being capable of knocking down your average pine tree in a dozen punches. Barry grimaced, shoulders slumping slightly as he let out a sigh. It was the only answer he could give, and he watched as Kajou shifted her pack so it would hang from her front. The young woman crouched, turning to face away from him, her back inviting him to hop on.

The feelings of embarrassment and self-loathing warred within him as he approached, hopping on to get a piggy-back ride from the maiden that was just about as tall as him and yet at least an order of magnitude stronger, if not more. Her shoulders were narrow and lithe, her skin soft. By all accounts, she shouldn’t be able to handle another person’s weight this easily. Yet that was exactly what she did.

“Grab on tight,” she spoke with amusement somewhere hidden in her voice.

Barry’s hands found nothing but skin soft as velvet, with muscles right underneath that were hard as steel. The only discomfort the maiden showed appeared to be balancing herself rather than the actual strain from carrying the weight of the young man on her back. It was an extraordinarily strange feeling, sensing how she adjusted her balance because of the shift in center of gravity.

It took her only a couple of seconds to get comfortable, and then she began to run. Faster than the pace she’d kept when they walked together. “We shouldn’t be too far from the court. Hopefully we can get there before we have to start looking into fighting the ferals.” Her voice showed no strain from the effort.

“Can’t we just… climb a tree and wait things out?” Barry muttered, looking around. The trees here weren’t monsters of impossible height as where they’d landed, but they were almost comparable to redwoods either way.

“We’d be exposed to anything and everything that might opt to make a meal out of us,” the woman replied without missing a beat. “One hungry or aggressive feral opts to look up and shoot at us, or fly down from the sky, and we’d be tumbling down into the thick of things.”

“You’ve dealt with this kind of thing before?”

“We all have.” The woman paused, frowning, slowing down to look over her shoulder at him. “But with you, we might have a chance to fix things.”

Barry opened his mouth to reply, but could not find the words. His gaze lowered and turned away, staring into the distance as he tried to keep himself from speaking the rebuttal out loud. What the hell was she expecting out of him? To be some sort of savior? He couldn’t even save himself.

Kajou didn’t seem to mind his lack of an answer. Focusing ahead on the tricky forest terrain and moving at a speed Barry would have been unable to keep even at his best.

Eventually, the young man found his way through his thoughts and threw out a question. “What’s so important about this Court, anyway? Why send you two from so far away just to get you to talk to them?”

“We need to confirm whether some rumors regarding a different way to form bonds with humans are true.” The Amazon kept looking over her shoulder at him, clearly intent on gauging his reactions. “Even if it’s just a rumor, establishing some relations could prove helpful to everyone.” Despite this statement, she let out a disappointed sigh. “Personally, I’d rather turn around and go back to Coven, now that we’ve seen that you can bond without a collar.”

“I’m not sure it’s…”

“Barry, I can feel how hard it is for you to breathe.” Kajou frowned slightly, not slowing down. It was odd to see how fast she could run, and yet she wasn’t even winded. “You have nightmares of her death, you scream sometimes.”

“It could just be PTSD.”

“I don’t know what that is,” she replied. “But you have to trust me on this one. I know what I saw. You bonded her, and you’re showing all the signs of a broken bond. And I’m sure something must have happened with that Hound because if a bond hadn’t formed, I’m absolutely sure you would have ended up dead.”

Barry’s grip on her shoulders loosened ever so slightly, but he didn’t let go. “Does the pain go away?”

That seemed to brighten the maiden, her lips turning into a slight smile as her pace accelerated. “According to our elder, yes, with time and new bonds.”

The young man wasn’t too sure what to feel about that proclamation. The tightness within his chest brought his thoughts towards Pan and the glowing, burning sword. It made him grimace and shrink slightly. He could barely stay alive, not even properly run. Was this what would await him every time? The only reason why he’d survived the pit, the ferals, had been Kajou.

It made him feel useless, weak, small.

For the first time in what felt like forever, his thoughts turned to Mark. Was his brother even alive? Was… Veronica? Barry’s lips thinned at the memory of the young woman. Shame and anger burned inside him. She’d betrayed them. If Mark found out, Barry was sure he’d likely try to kill her… if they were still alive at all.

Shaking his head, Barry refused to let his thoughts be further dragged down. No, Mark was alive, out there, somewhere. Maybe he’d even found out about what had happened. There was no way his older brother wasn’t able to handle the bat-shit insanity this world had to offer. A slight lightness came to Barry’s chest at this thought. It was hard to think Mark would be anything other than alive.

His musings came to an end when he spotted a flicker of white overhead. The young man quickly stiffened, gripping Kajou’s shoulders. She didn’t miss the signal, slowing down and coming to a halt, glancing upwards until they both spotted Pan. The winged maiden was descending from the treetops, spiraling her way to the ground with a stern look on her face.

Barry could not hop off of Kajou fast enough, doing his level best to move away from the Amazon and to the nearest tree and, hopefully, remain away from the blond woman’s immediate attention.

“What’s the situation?” Kajou spoke out before Pan had even finished landing.

The blond monster’s gaze turned to Barry, and her eyes narrowed as her fingers lingered on the pommel of her sword for only a second before looking back at Kajou. “No frenzy yet, but I spotted a second wave.”

“Already?”

“It was on the other side of the river,” she replied, shaking her head. “I doubt we’ll have to worry about that one.”

Kajou frowned slightly. “You flew all the way to the river?” Approaching her sister, she reached out, touching the tunic. “You changed your clothes… you were attacked, weren’t you?”

“Some ferals trying to get a lucky shot,” came the reply, a roll of the eyes. “I had to confirm there weren’t Hunters chasing the ferals, and that might come our way.”

“They could have spotted you.”

“Do you take me for an idiot?” Pan replied. “I was pretending to be feral.”

Kajou’s eyes widened, her hand shooting out and touching the black collar the woman wore. There was a pause. She touched her own, softly. “You didn’t take the collar off.” The words were both accusatory and heavy with relief. Her brows furrowed slightly. There was something in that gaze that hesitated, something that went unspoken.

“We need to move. We’re almost at the court. I spotted the tree they told us to look for. Adjust the course a bit more to the South.” Pan spoke up before Kajou could say anything else. “It should only take us a day, two if you keep pretending the human’s actually walking on his own.”

Spreading her wings, she jumped into the air, taking several strokes before she’d gained momentum and started gaining height. A lingering silence permeated the two left behind as the woman kept going up and up, and eventually soared off.

“I think she’s warming up to you,” Kajou commented offhandedly, glancing at Barry with a smirk.

He could only gawk at such a proclamation.