Yes, I do. I know more things than you could ever imagine: I’m fifty thousand!
Amma clicked her tongue but chuckled and gave the branch a pat. “Regardless, thank you.”
Don’t thank me yet, said the tree,you still have to get down.
Amma grimaced and groaned, moving to stand.
Ah, ah, wait just a minute. Isn’t there something you’re forgetting?
There was a tug in her chest as if an extra weight there were being pulled downward. “The talisman,” she said, dread balling up around her heart, the sensation strange but not misplaced.
Shall we?
Amma slapped a hand over where she had dreamed the slice had been. The panic that flooded her veins eclipsed even the panic of becoming snake food. “Tomorrow,” she squeaked out, standing. “I’ll come back, and we can, um…we can do it then?”
The tree sniffed even though it didn’t have a nose.No bark off my trunk either way.
Amma was exhausted and achy, but her descent to the forest floor was even quicker, mind focused on the way down, trying very hard not to think about what the tree had offered, and trying even harder not to linger on the fact she had declined. Only until tomorrow, though, she told herself, and in the back of her mind there was a sound like laughter, but it was only the rustling of leaves.
CHAPTER 23
WELL-PLACED EXPOSITION
It was evening when Amma returned to the witches’ camp, and she was completely sapped. The only thing she would have liked more than taking a long soak in a bath and crawling into the comfort of a big, fluffy bed, would have been to see Damien, but when she and Em hobbled across the mossy stones of the ruins, there was still no sign of the party that had set out a week prior.
Too tired to join the others in the midst of their evening meal, Amma simply ravaged a piece of fruit on her way to the private hut she’d been given for her stay. Two monkeys were chasing one another around the tree’s base, and she tossed them the rind of her fruit, wiping at her mouth before ascending. She pulled off her crossbow as she pushed through the vines that covered the entry. She didn’t want to think about what she intended to do the next day, but the sooner she went to sleep, the sooner Damien would return. It had to be soon; he’d been gone so long.
Dark inside with the sun down, she placed her crossbow against the wall, yawning with a hand over her face, and when she dropped her arm, there, bare chested and rubbing a linen against wet hair, stood Damien. His eyes fell on her, and then he smiled, really, truly smiled in that rare way that lit up her insides.
Amma sprinted across the hut faster than when she had a giant serpent on her heels, and then she pounced. As she threw her arms around him, Damien stumbled only a step, inhaling sharply, then fell very still. She hung from his neck, feet scrambling as they scuffed the floor, squeezing relentlessly with her head buried in the crook of his shoulder all while the realization of her over-eagerness set in.Oh, gods, she thought,what am I doing?
And then the linen fell to the floor, and Damien’s arms pressed in around her middle as he bent to embrace her fully. His skin was warm, still slightly damp, and it smelled so good, she sighed right up against his neck, body melting to his. Damien clung more tightly then, fingers curling into her sides. He took a deep breath, the lift of his shoulders and expansion of his chest pressing into her.
Amma’s body flushed, warmth running from the center of her chest and into every limb. They’d never embraced like this, never touched one another so intimately without almost immediately pulling out of it, yet it felt exactly right.
I missed you, ran through her mind, unable to be spoken when the words mingled so complexly with the more amorous ones,I want you. She reluctantly leaned back to look on him, but didn’t let go. No one had told her what he had been away doing, only that it was dangerous, but she could see a change on his face. He was exhausted, that much was clear, and perhaps relieved as well, but there was something else.
It had only been seven days they’d spent apart, but each night she’d thought of him, imagined hearing his breath beside her as he fell asleep, recalling those violet eyes, that knowing grin, the painful-looking scar she had come to adore. His face had burned itself into her mind, and now that it was before her again, she knew something had changed.
“What happened?” she asked, voice a whisper as she touched his cheek.
He turned ever so slightly into her palm. “Oh, nothing, only a bit of banishment,” he said, voice a rumble. “Have they been good to you here?”
The threat in his tone sent a shiver through her. “Yes, of course. And were they kind to you, or do I need to put a crossbow bolt between someone’s eyes?”
He let out a single, low laugh. “Darkness, no, but be careful with those offers—I might concoct some falsehood just to see you do it.” Damien’s grip on her tightened, the mischievous grin melting off his face. “It certainly wasn’t like being with you though.”
She slid her fingers up over his temple and into his hair, gently gripping and pulling him closer. “If you hadn’t come back,” she heard herself saying, voice cracking and trailing off, not sure how she could explain the hollowness in her chest at just the thought of him not returning. If he hadn’t come back, she would be free of him, of the villain who had her arcanely chained to his side, so how had it come to this? To getting absolutely everything she needed—the Brineberth soldiers run out of her home, her pending wedding struck from possibility, seeds from a wild liathau to repopulate the orchard—and feeling as though none of it mattered if she didn’t have what shewanted, if she didn’t havehim.
A shadow shot in through the small, frond-covered window at the front of the hut with a shrill cry, and the two started. There was a scraping of talons on wood, as a mess of feathers came to land on a table just inside, a raven skidding to a stop and nearly toppling over the edge. Wings spread, it ruffled itself and gave a final indignant croak as if fell still.
“Wonderful bloody timing,” Damien grumbled, straightening as his hands came off Amma. A chill replaced where they had been. “Corben, you look awful.”
The bird cawed in protest as a roll of parchment fell from his beak. His mouth remained open as he panted, and even as his feathers relaxed, he did look a bit chunkier than when last they’d seen him. Corben’s plumage wasn’t quite as full as before, and the hop he attempted was very short.
Amma clasped her hands behind her to keep from grabbing Damien again as he left her side. Seeing him bare chested made it even harder, but then he retrieved his tunic from the foot of the bed and disappointingly pulled it on, and Amma was able to refocus on the raven. “He does look a little different. Does that mean something went wrong?”
Damien had reached out for the bit of rolled up parchment on the table, but hesitated, eyes flicking back to her and brows knit. “Are you prepared to find out?”
