The fires had burned low, their embers rippling with heat. I quietly picked my way around the sleeping bodies to where I’d left my sleeping roll propped against a rocky ledge.
I froze when I saw Kiera curled into a ball next to my roll. Even though her blanket was tightly tucked around her body, she was shivering in her sleep.
I stepped closer. Not just shivering. Her face contorted as if in pain, and little whimpers escaped her lips.
Gods damn it. I rubbed my hands over my face. I sincerely doubted she realized she’d curled up next to my bedroll, but I couldn’t just leave her like this.
However, my face might be the last thing she’d want to see if I woke her up.
What did she dream of? Was it moments she regretted or moments she feared would happen?
My mind liked to frequent both in my sleep. The last time it hadn’t was in that tent in The Hollow. With her.
I glanced around the camp, but no one stirred.
Resolute, I unrolled my thick blanket. My fingers worked swiftly and quietly, unbuckling my sword and knives. I laid them in a heap at my back. I balled up my cloak for a pillow, then carefully stretched out behind Kiera, dragging my blanket over both of us.
She continued to fret and tremble, so I slid closer until her back nestled into my chest. She seemed to sense my body heat and pressed herself more firmly against me.
Warmth flickered in my chest. I slowly draped an arm over her side. She released a soft sigh, and I relaxed.
“Aiden,” she murmured.
I tensed again, waiting for her to shove me off. Instead, her breathing deepened.
My body hummed with contentment. Perhaps even hope. If I could vanquish her nightmares, perhaps I could defeat whatever awaited us at the mountain.
But when I awoke a few hours later, Kiera was gone.
Chapter 12
Kiera
The distress hornswere faint at first.
We’d been riding all day when Nikella stiffened in front of me. I’d been dozing against her back despite the constant jostling.
I hadn’t slept well last night. At least at first. I’d been having nightmares where I seemed caught between awake and asleep, not knowing what was real. But then I dreamed Aiden had lain down behind me and held me close. And I’d faded into blissful darkness.
When I’d awakened in his arms, I realized it hadn’t been a dream. My cheeks had burned, wondering what had happened that caused him to take pity on me. Had I called out for him in my sleep?
The last time we’d lain together like that had been in The Hollow.
Unbidden, the memory of his deep voice whispering into my ear had floated through my waking mind.
“For the first time, I have hope. Hope that my heart might not be too scarred for a certain beautiful thief to consider stealing the rest of the pieces she hasn’t already taken.”
A warm ache had stirred in my belly that I escaped as hastily as his unconscious embrace.
Yarina and Nikella had shown me a few sword maneuvers by firelight as the others packed up the camp.
I’d borrowed a sword from Vorkahn, who was a walking armory. He’d handed it to me with a hard glint in his eyes, saying it’d belonged to his niece, Bronwyn. I recognized the name from Frieda’s funeral speech as one of the dead. It felt clunky and unwieldy in my unpracticed hands, but I didn’t dare turn down such an offering.
Renwell had never seen fit to teach me much of the sword since my father had banned them from Aquinon.
My lip had curled in disgust when I told Nikella such. And of the deadly sunstone sword with which Renwell had beheaded my father.
She’d nodded as if she expected this and corrected my sword grip.
