“My mother will be with her soon.”
“You should go. Be with her while you can. There’s nothing for you to do here.”
I frown. Ninon enjoys time alone. I, on the other hand, hardly know the meaning of the word. And in moments where I do happen to be by myself, I feel lost. Empty.
Always in the days leading up to when I leave for Dyeus, Ninon does this. She pulls away, turning into herself. I hate leaving her. The pain of knowing I won’t see her for an indeterminate amount of time stings like a popping ember landing on my skin.
“Have you been eating?” I ask her.
A wry smile curls her lips. “The food stores are near. I’m eating.”
I huff a laugh. “I’ll check on you again tomorrow night.”
“Stay with your sister.”
“I won’t leave you,” I say, scoffing at how ridiculous her request is. But she doesn’t look at me. She only folds her hands in front of her. “You’re doing this for me. If anyone ever found out, you’d be—”
“I know. But you have to. She needs you.”
I know that, too. “You’ll be all right?”
She looks back to me then, resolution settling into thesubtle change of her eyes and set of her mouth. I’ve seen that look before, in moments before she looses an arrow to kill. “I will. Don’t worry about me.”
“Impossible.”
There’s a tightness growing in my chest. I know I could be gone for months, maybe longer, while Alixor tries to impregnate me, but ever since that morning we rode out to collect the dragonsbane, I’ve felt like this is the end of something. What if something does happen to Ninon while I’m gone? “Why do I feel like you think you’re never going to see me again?”
“We don’t know what the future holds for us, what Erenmaag has predetermined.”
“Or what they’ve left for us to will,” I say, offering a counter to her invocation of the god of fate and agency.
“In the end, we can only wait and see which will prevail.”
“I will always take matters into my own hands. Nothing will happen to you, Ninon, and I will see you again.”
Ninon looks at me, brows pinched before they soften into something akin to understanding. “I believe that.”
I smirk, rising to make my way out. “You’d better.”
I stay with my sister for the rest of the day, but that evening, I need to hunt. A delivery from the farmhands came in the afternoon, and the northern sector is alive with noise as I enter, shouts rising in greeting. I smile, waving and ducking around mingling bodies as I make my way towards the stables, joining the women who are gearing up for the night.
“What are you doing here?” asks Haven, another huntress, as she finishes attaching her pack to her mare.
“The dust storms are weeks away. You need me to help stock the provisions.”
Haven blows air out from between her lips. “Sounds like an excuse to me.”
“I got restless,” I relent, running a hand down Aspabefore loading her up, too.
“Get your restlessness out with one of them.” She nods to the crowd of men sharing drink with the women or attempting to ply them with small pots of honey. As if any of us need encouragement. They’re as handsome as their dragon shifter fathers, though none hold the ability to shift. Their ears are gently pointed like ours, unlike our human counterparts in the world beyond the mountains. Sometimes, a group of men with their softly rounded ears from beyond attempt to pass over the mountains, seeking to serve the gods. They’re all taken in and given work in the fields, marked as all of us are who dwell below the safety of Dyeus. They’re not permitted to leave the fields to make deliveries, so I’ve never seen one myself, but the farmhands love to tell stories. When I say nothing, Haven raises a brow. “Or a few of them?”
I laugh and shake my head. “Not tonight.”
“I guess you are going to get plenty of that sort of entertainment in Dyeus,” she comments with a smirk and I roll my eyes skyward. “Where’s Ninon?”
Her and I rarely go on hunts without one another. That, and Ninon usually volunteers on the nights of the farm delivery since she has no interest in partaking in relations with men. Usually I’m the one that stays behind on this night if I can help it.
I know exactly where she is, but of course I can’t say. “I took her place tonight. She has her nose stuck in a book somewhere.”
