[BL] I Didn't Sign Up For This-Chapter 55: In Which Azryth Does Something Incredibly Stupid (Or Incredibly Brave)

Chapter 55: In Which Azryth Does Something Incredibly Stupid (Or Incredibly Brave)

I stood outside our room, Azryth on the other side, my hand raised to knock, my stomach in knots.

Through the binding, I could feel him in there, not far, maybe sitting on the bed or standing by the window. His emotions were carefully locked down, but I caught the edges, unease, wariness, that controlled distance he used when he was trying very hard not to feel things.

My fault...all of it is my fault.

I’d manifested a weapon designed to kill demon lords, designed to kill him, specifically, and now he was in there processing the fact that his accidentally acquired spouse could end his existence with a thought.

I knocked, softly.

"Come in."

His voice was quiet and tired, not cold or angry, just... careful.

I opened the door.

Azryth was sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, staring at his hands, still in his training clothes, hair messed up like he’d been running his fingers through it repeatedly.

He looked up when I entered, and something in his expression made my chest hurt.

"Hey," I said, closing the door behind me.

"Hey." He managed a small smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

I crossed the room and sat beside him on the bed, close enough that our shoulders touched. "You okay?"

"That’s a loaded question." He leaned back slightly, and our arms pressed together. "Are you?"

"I feel like shit, honestly."

He huffed a quiet laugh. "That makes two of us."

We sat in silence for a moment, not the uncomfortable kind, just... heavy, weighted with everything unsaid.

"I didn’t mean for it to happen," I said finally. "The blade.. I wasn’t trying to..."

"I know." He shifted, and his hand found mine, fingers threading through. "I know you weren’t, the seal activated, your power responded. It’s not like you planned to manifest a demon-killing weapon during sparring."

"But I did, and now..." I looked down at our joined hands. "Now you’re sitting here trying to convince yourself I’m not going to use it on you."

His fingers tightened on mine. "I don’t think you’re going to use it on me."

"But you’re still scared."

"I didn’t say I was scared."

"You didn’t have to. I can feel you through the binding, remember?" I squeezed his hand. "You’re terrified."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Not of you, not exactly."

"Then what?"

"Of..." He stopped, searching for words. "Of history repeating itself."

I turned to look at him. "Sera."

Something flickered across his face,pain, quickly buried. "She was my most trusted advisor, my partner, the person I believed in more than anyone." His voice was carefully controlled. "And she poisoned me with sealing toxin, testified against me in front of the council, helped orchestrate my exile."

"You know I would never..."

"I know." He said it quickly, firmly. "Rationally, I know you’re nothing like her, you’re honest, sometimes brutally so. You tell me when I’m being an ass, you don’t play games or manipulate." His thumb traced circles on the back of my hand. "But five hundred years of that betrayal doesn’t just go away because I know you’re different."

"...So when you saw the blade..."

"Every instinct that kept me alive through imprisonment started screaming." He looked at me, and there was something raw in his eyes. "The person I trusted most gave me the means to destroy me, now the person I’m bound to has a weapon that could do the same thing, and my brain is making connections that aren’t rational but feel very real."

"I’m never going to betray you."

"I know that too." He brought our joined hands up, pressing his lips to my knuckles. "Here." He touched his chest over his heart. "I know you won’t, but here.." He tapped his temple. "Five hundred years of paranoia is having a field day."

I leaned against him, resting my head on his shoulder. "That sounds exhausting."

"It is." His arm came around me automatically. "But I’m working on it, trying to override the panic with logic."

"How’s that going?"

"Poorly." But there was affection in his voice now. "You showing up at my door helps."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Sera never came to explain herself. Never tried to make it better, she just... did what she did and walked away." His hand moved in slow patterns on my back. "You came to check on me, that means something."

We sat like that for a while, just holding each other.

"Can I show you something?" I asked eventually.

"Depends on what it is."

"Trust me?"

"Always." He said it without hesitation, and through the binding I felt the truth of it.

I pulled back, stood up, and held out my hand. "Come here."

He took my hand, letting me pull him to his feet.

I channeled power deliberately, carefully, and the spectral blade materialized in my other hand.

Azryth tensed, but he didn’t let go of me.

"This weapon," I said quietly, looking at the glowing blade, "was designed to kill demon lords, my mother put it in the seal to protect me from threats I couldn’t handle any other way." I turned to face him fully. "But I don’t need protection from you, so I’m giving it to you."

I extended the blade toward him, hilt first.

He stared at it like I’d lost my mind. "Riven..."

"Take it."

"That’s a terrible idea."

"Is it? Or is it the only way to prove I trust you as much as you’re trying to trust me?" I pushed it closer. "Take the blade, Azryth."

"If I touch that..."

"Nothing will happen, it’s keyed to me, it won’t activate unless I will it to." I met his eyes. "Take it. Please."

His hand moved slowly toward the hilt, like he expected it to burn him.

The moment his fingers made contact, the blade pulsed, warm, acknowledging, not a threat, just recognition.

Then he was holding it, the god-killing weapon looking both alien and natural in his grip.

"It’s warm," he said, surprised.

"It’s made from both our powers, you helped create it." I watched his face. "How does it feel?"

"Terrifying." He turned the blade, examining it. "Every survival instinct is screaming at me to drop this and run... but I’m not going to."

"Why not?"

"Because you handed it to me." His eyes met mine. "Sera gave me poison hidden in wine, you’re giving me a weapon designed to kill me and telling me to hold it." Something shifted in his expression. "There’s a difference."

"Yeah. There is."

He looked at the blade for another moment, then extended it back to me, hilt first. "Keep it. Master it and learn everything it can do."

I took it, and his hand stayed on mine, both of us holding the weapon together.

"But if the day ever comes..." he started.

"It won’t."

"Riven, let me say this." His voice was serious. "If I ever become what I’m afraid of, if I become a threat, if the binding somehow twists me into something dangerous..."

"Then we’ll deal with it together," I interrupted. "Not with secret plans or predetermined outcomes, together, like we do everything else."

"You’re supposed to promise you’ll use the blade."

"I’m promising I’ll trust you not to become something that needs it." I let the blade dissolve, the energy scattering like fireflies. "I’m choosing to believe in you. In us."

He stared at me, something vulnerable and raw in his expression.

Then he pulled me into his arms, tight, almost desperate, like he was afraid I might disappear.

Through the binding, I felt everything. The relief, the fear that he didn’t deserve this trust, the hope that maybe, just maybe, I was right.

"I don’t know what I did to deserve you," he said against my hair.

"You freed yourself from that amulet and then immediately got stuck with me, I’d say you’ve suffered enough."

He laughed, quiet and genuine. "Suffering. Right, that’s what this is."

"Isn’t it?"

"No." He pulled back just enough to look at me. "It’s terrifying and unpredictable and nothing like what I planned, but it’s not suffering."

"What is it then?"

He brushed hair away from my forehead, his touch gentle. "Something I didn’t think I’d get to have again, someone who chooses to trust me despite having every reason not to."

"You make it sound like a big deal."

"It is a big deal. Sera’s betrayal taught me that trust was dangerous, that letting someone close meant giving them the tools to destroy you." His hand cupped my face. "But you just handed me a literal god-killing weapon and told me you trust me anyway. That’s..." He stopped, searching for words. "That’s everything."

I leaned into his touch. "You’re not going to become what you’re afraid of."

"You keep saying that."

"Because it’s true. Five hundred years of imprisonment didn’t break you, Sera’s betrayal didn’t make you a monster, you chose mercy when it cost you everything." I covered his hand with mine. "You’re not the threat here. The blade is just... insurance we’ll never need."

"I want to believe that."

"Then believe it, believe in us."

He studied my face like he was memorizing every detail, then he kissed me, soft at first, testing, then deeper, like he was trying to prove to himself that this was real. That I wasn’t going anywhere.

When we pulled apart, he rested his forehead against mine.

"Okay," he said quietly.

"Okay?"

"I’ll try to trust this, to believe I won’t become something that blade is necessary for." His hand moved to the back of my neck. "But you have to promise me something."

"What?"

"If I’m wrong, if I do become a threat, you won’t hesitate. You’ll do what needs to be done."

I wanted to argue. To say again that it wouldn’t come to that.

But through the binding, I felt how much he needed this, this one reassurance, this escape clause that let him believe I’d survive even if he didn’t.

"If you become a threat," I said carefully, "we’ll deal with it together, I’m not promising to kill you, but I am promising not to let you hurt people. Including yourself."

It wasn’t the promise he wanted, but he accepted it. "Together."

"Always together."

The binding pulsed warmly between us, satisfied.

"We should eat something," Azryth said after a moment. "You burned through a lot of energy today."

"So did you."

"Then we’ll feed each other and pretend this is a normal evening."

"Is any evening with us normal?"

"Fair point." He took my hand, pulling me toward the door. "Come, let’s see what Mara’s kitchen has hiding."

We left the room together, and when we made it downstairs, Mara and Henrik were already in the kitchen. They looked up when we entered, took in our linked hands and relaxed expressions, and smiled.

"Everything okay?" Mara asked, though her tone suggested she already knew the answer.

"Yeah," I said. "We’re okay."

"Good, because tomorrow we’re testing that blade’s capabilities, and I need you both functional."

"Tomorrow, no problem," Azryth agreed. "Except I’m hungry."

Henrik had already pulled out sandwich fixings, we fell into an easy rhythm, making food, talking about nothing important, just existing together without the weight of god-killing weapons hanging over us.

And when Azryth’s hand found mine under the table, squeezing once, I squeezed back.

The blade was still there, still possible, still a reminder of all the ways this could go wrong.

But we’d chosen to trust each other anyway.