Three shiny, scaled eggs sat nestled in the blanket. They were about the length of my forearm and perfectly ovoid. Magic radiated from the eggs in sweet, eye-watering waves.
I had the sudden strange desire to drop to my knees. They were the most beautiful things I had ever seen.
Fiella was going to lose her mind.
CHAPTER 31
Tandor
Kizzi and I stood in the Rockward stables, perplexed.
We found ourselves in a sticky situation.
She stood with her arms crossed, her foot tappingly rapidly against the ground. Her head was tilted, and her brow was furrowed in concentration.
The carriage, the ugly wooden thing we had dragged from Moonvale, was completely full. To the brim. It had slowly filled up throughout the weeks of the journey, becoming more cramped with every purchase, but now it was ridiculous.
The cauldron took up almost the entire bench, and our bags and parcels filled every remaining gap.
There was no way we would be able to fit in it to journey home. Kizzi might have been able to squeeze, but no way in Hell’s Realm was my frame fitting in there.
I ran my hand over Daisy’s back, scratching at her smooth mane and digging my fingertips into her taut muscles. “We’ll get you home soon, girl,” I said to the horse quietly. “You’ll be back home with your friends!”
Instead of perking up, the horse seemed to slump slightly, as though she could understand my words and wasn’t happy to hear them.
I thought about how lively she had been in Tidegrove. How she happily stomped through the waves, grazed along the shore, accepted pets from any folk passing by.
I knew we were supposed to bring her back to Moonvale, but what if we found her a new home?
Rockward’s stables were full of horses; there were at least twenty. The beasts were large, strong, and powerful, built for hiking mountains instead of strolling through forests and fields.
They looked like they could easily carry an orc or two.
The solution solidified in my mind.
We needed to rent a horse from Rockward to carry us and help drag the carriage. I glanced at Daisy’s thin legs. She had pulled the carriage here just fine but, with any additional weight…
And if we needed to drop her off along the way…
We needed to rent two horses. One to haul the carriage, and one to carry Kizzi and me. I glanced at Kizzi from the corner of my eye. We could each rent a horse—there were plenty, of course—but I wasn’t going to let that happen.
I was looking forward to journeying home with the little witch in my arms.
After some rearranging, reattaching of saddles and harnesses, and some finessing, we were on our way. Our traveling party was certainly a sight.
Two folk, three horses, a hideous carriage, and a living pile of purple slime.
Hallow’s Eve was days away. If we kept a brisk pace, we would make it with a sleep or two to spare, even accounting for the detour through Tidegrove.
I was looking forward to getting home—to getting back to the pub, seeing the local folk, sleeping in my own bed. But I was going to soak up every single moment of this journey.
Kizzi and I had been getting along, and we had connected irrevocably last night, but I wasn’t sure how things would be when we returned home. When things went back to normal.
Would she forget about me? Was this just a casual thing for her? It certainly didn’t feel casual.
Kizzi was bundled in front of me on the giant black horse (alarmingly named Nightmare). Her cloak was tucked tightly around her body to fight off the wind, and she clutched my arms with quivering fingers.
Her hair tickled my nose, smelling of apples and honey. I brought my elbows in, squeezing her tighter. She was always so cold, the little witch. It was a wonder she was able to regulate her own body heat at all.
