Obviously.
Definitely.
Yet every time I shift my arm and wince at the resulting pain that sears through my still-healing tissue, I recall her beautifully cold fingers against my burning flesh, her tender ministrations as she stitched and bound my wound. My stomach tightens in a strange way when I consider that my skin bears threads she stitched inside me.
Like a piece of her, threaded through my—
“Godsdamnit,” I mutter, grateful I’m driving alone tonight, the rest of my crew in back. “Is that you, Sloth? Are you romanticizing my wound?”
He answers with another sigh, then lifts his head. “She considers usspecial, right? More than the others? I don’t see her stitching the squirrel. She only sews things she loves, doesn’t she? Like the cloth heart she keeps tucked in her dress?”
“Mm,” Lust says in my ear, forming beside me. “You mean tucked against those perky tits? When you put it that way, it does feel special, doesn’t it?”
I shift uncomfortably, praying to the gods that Inana is sitting too far in the back to overhear this conversation. The river that runs along the road should mask most of it, at least.
“She’s never told us a story,” Pride says, and I’m shocked at his moody tone. “Yet she told the squirrel one.”
“What the hell are you on about?” I ask. “You’ve heard her tell stories plenty of times.”
“But none of them were just for us,” Pride says. “This one got a story all its own.”
“When did she have time to tell this other Shade a story?”
Pride scoffs. “Did you not see it? It was one of the moon squirrels, the flying ones from the dragon incident.”
I didn’t. I knew it was a Shade, mostly because Sloth sensed it and darted toward Inana. It’s rare for my shadows to react aggressively to Shades, but luckily the squirrel wasn’t provoked, only startled. So much so that it crawled inside her dress, apparently.
“She never let us beneath her skirts,” Lust says, and I fucking hate that he just stole my train of thought and twisted it down a path I had no intention of taking.
Yet now that he mentions it…
A spark of irrational envy courses through me at the thought of a Shade crawling beneath her skirts and over her bare skin.
“Right?” Sloth says, rising from his sullen puddle, encouraged by how tightly I grip the reins. “It should be us. Only us. Ever.”
I blow out a slow sigh, running a hand through my hair until my spike of emotion settles. Inana must be sitting too damn close indeed for me to be feeling this way. If I don’t learn why her proximity does this to me—and fix it—I might just lose my mind well before our six months together are through.
Sloth whines, returning to a puddle, as if he too felt the subtle acheat the reminder that this arrangement is a temporary one. Before summer solstice, Inana will be safe across the sea. All my Summoners will be. Calvin too, if I can wean him off my blood in time and convince him to leave.
Whether I succeed at my mission or fail, I want all of them as far away from the Holy Continent as possible.
As the evening draws close to midnight, I realize my shadows aren’t the only ones acting strange. There aren’t as many this deep in the mountains as there are closer to more populated areas, so it isn’t the fact that I notice so few, or that they pay our passing no heed. It’s more the behavior of the ones I do see. They sprint past in wisps of darkness, all going the same direction we’re headed.
My gut hollows out, an internal warning that something is amiss. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” I say, and my shadows form fully around me, abandoning their sulking.
“I feel something ahead,” Pride says. “Something…drawing my attention. Not aggressively. Just attracting my interest. I don’t like it.”
I curse under my breath. It would be ideal if we could avoid yet another night of altercations, but I wouldn’t be a Shadowbane if I weren’t used to this kind of thing. A Shadowbane’s travels aren’t just for getting from one post to another. They’re for handling any serious threats along the way, ensuring the roads are safe for travelers. Even if I wanted to stop for the night, we still have hours left before we reach our resting place. If we want to arrive at our next post before the snowfall worsens and makes the mountain pass treacherous, we must travel as long as we can every evening. Even if it means dealing with issues every damn night.
Leaning back, I reach for the opening in the canopy. My eyes find Inana’s at once. So she was sitting close, just on the other side of the flap. Clearing my throat, I force my gaze from hers and say, “Masks on. Harlow, stay alert. If I call out or if you so much as sense trouble, start drawing. We don’t want to attract Shades, just to calm any that might take interest in us. I don’t know what it is, but we might have trouble ahead. Calvin—”
I don’t even need to finish. He’s already climbing into the seatbeside me, ready to take the reins if needed. My Summoners act too, donning their masks. Bard and Harlow get their tools ready, Harlow opening her sketchbook and laying out her quill and ink, while Inana climbs halfway out the opening to perch on the edge of the wagon. She curls her fingers around the back of my seat. My pulse quickens at her closeness. I face forward again, but Sloth turns around and lays his face between her hands. She idly strokes his ears, which sends ripples of secondhand pleasure down my neck.
Focus,I order myself, and shift my attention to the road ahead. Snow has begun to fall again, though only a few inches blanket the ground. Still, it’s enough to illuminate the darkness, the moonlight dancing over the glittering ivory. Another Shade races ahead, disappearing around the bend.
The roar of the river gets louder, which tells me we must be nearing the bridge that will take us east to the mountain pass.
We finally reach the bend in the road where the most recent Shade disappeared, and I catch my first glimpse of what awaits us. The bridge lies just ahead, a wooden structure wide enough for only a single wagon. I’ve seen this road congested during the summer when merchant travel is at its peak and several vehicles are awaiting their turn to cross, and it’s certainly congested now. Yet in a way I’ve never seen.
