Everything will be okay.
Char is coming.
Everything will be okay.
I will survive.
Chapter 5
Serafina
I settle beneath the bridge, clutching the bag my father packed to my chest. It’s worn and old. I think it used to be blue, but now it’s just a dull gray. In some places the threading is bare, and a hole threatens to form.
It’s the same tote my father has had since he was a child because on the rare occasions my family did have extra coin to spend, it never went toward purchasing a new bag. It went toward books to help me and Telfi study for the second trial. Or clothes, if ours had turned to rags, unsalvageable by a quick stitch.
It would’ve been nice to have a new tote, though. One I wasn’t worried about falling apart at the seams, causing the contents to spillto the ground.
But I don’t, so this will have to do.
I stretch my limbs, trying to get comfortable, but there’s not a lot of space beneath this bridge. Long ago, I’m sure water once flowed in the spot where I sit. Otherwise, what would be the point of the bridge?
But that water has long since dried up, leaving dry, cracked clay in its wake.
I’m thirsty. So thirsty. After all that running, my throat feels like sandpaper. But I cannot drink the water I have. I need to save it because soon I won’t have any. Unless I find a stream. Or a lake.
But it won’t be easy. It could take days. Hopefully, only days. No longer than a week. Otherwise, I will die, and not by the hands of Norin or the Enforcers.
But dehydration.
The silent killer.
The one that sweeps through the villages every few years when the drought worsens and the rain refuses to fall, and the little water we do have is even less.
I quiver at the thought.
I’ve never liked the feeling of thirst. The way it makes the back of my throat itch, my tongue swell, and my stomach ache. It’s a feeling I’ve felt many times, and I do not wish to feel it again.
Char will find water. He’s resourceful. He’ll know where to go, where to look.
I peek my head out from beneath the rickety old bridge, looking up at the moon.
Where is he?
It has to be past midnight. The moon is high up in the sky.
He’ll be here.
I know he will.
But I’m nervous.
And I’m scared.
But then I hear him. Footsteps stomping in my direction.
I nearly scurry from beneath the bridge to greet him, but I freeze because it isn’t only one pair of footsteps I hear.
It’smultiple.
