We’re given packs of supplies by the loyal servants, one for Kalos and one for me. I sling mine onto my back and hold Kalos’s out to him.
He stares at me like I’m insane and crosses his arms over his chest.
Right. Okay, well, I shouldn’t be surprised. I end up strapping his pack to my front, and when I’ve got both, I take Dingle’s lead and say my goodbyes to Jemet and the others. They weep and genuflect to Lord Kalos, asking for his blessings while he ignores all of them.
Jemet grasps the hem of my dress, her eyes filling with tears. “Where will you go, Mistress? Where will you take our Lord where he can be safe?”
“She has no idea,” Kalos declares.
I ignore that and keep smiling. He’s going to be difficulttoday, I tell myself. He’s going to be pissy because I’m forcing him to get up and move. He’s probably going to be full of snotty comments so the best thing I can do is not let them get to me. Determined, I put on my cheerful can-do attitude like I would wear a cloak. It’s something I’ve gotten good at, when David was deathly ill from chemo and couldn’t take care of himself and vomited everywhere while I was sick with the flu. When work would call asking me to come in for another shift after I’d worked thirteen days in a row and yet the water bill just bounced.
There’s no one else to handle this but me.
“Let’s get going,” I say, steely determination in my voice. “Every moment we linger is another chance we give them to catch us.”
Kalos makes a gesture in my direction with his long-fingered, elegant hand. “Lead the way.”
I nod, shouldering the packs. I shift my weight, testing my sandals, and turn away from the temple grounds that have been our home for the last month. I face the swamp, which looks like nothing more than green sludge dotted with trees. Already the mosquitos are swarming. Already the day is getting hot.
“Come on,” I say to Kalos. “We’re cutting through the swamp.”
I just hope I don’t faint from leeches again. If I do, I can’t count on Kalos to pull them off of me. Hell, he’d probably throw a few more on me just to see how I react.
Lachesis said this wouldn’t be easy.
With Dingle’s lead in my hand and both packs weighing me down, I head to the stone lip of the terrace that makes up the edges of the temple grounds. There are steps down into the water at one spot, likely for a long-disappeared path, and I head there. The first few sludgy steps into the muck makemy sandals stick, and I kick them off and pick them up off the surface of the water when they float upward.
Then I grimly stride forward, barefoot, into the unknown.
I don’t bother to look behind me. There’s a faint sound of sloshing a few steps behind me, and I figure it’s either Kalos or a gator coming to eat me. At this point? I’d roll the dice and take the gator.
Time for me to take charge of our situation.
For the first time since I’ve arrived, I’m grateful about how miserable the swamp is. It’s awful, don’t get me wrong, but if I’m slapping mosquitos off my skin or my shoes are getting stuck in the mud, I know it’s the same for everyone else that’s traveling, and it’s much harder to move an army than just two people. The snakes and gators ignore both of us and Dingle, and I know it’s because of Kalos. It’s like we’re invisible to them—or maybe we smell bad to animal noses. Whatever it is, they avoid us like…well, like the plague. I deliberately pick a difficult path as we journey, going under half-fallen trees and sliding over muddy logs just to make our trail as obscure as possible. I don’t want us followed, and maybe if the route seems too illogical, we’ll lose them. My skirts are heavy with algae and swamp water, my skin is covered with mud and bug bites, and the packs I carry feel as if they get heavier by the hour.
But I’m alive, and I’d like to stay that way, so I keep moving.
To his credit, Kalos doesn’t complain as we slog through the mud or pause in the waters as a gator drifts past. He doesn’t speak at all, which suits me just fine as long as he keeps up. He never lags behind, and when I have to pause to help Dingle out of a particularly muddy hole, he doesn’t bitch.
He…doesn’t care. It’s the apathy, and in a way, it makes him the ideal traveling companion, because he doesn’t care enough to gripe. He doesn’t ask why I’ve got a goat with me. He doesn’t ask where we’re going. He just trails along beside me, just fast enough that I don’t have to snipe at him.
Even though my stomach has been growling all day, I don’t stop for a break until dusk, when I’m dizzy with hunger and fatigue, and the sunlight has disappeared so completely that I can’t see a thing. We find a muddy little island with a massive tree looming over it, and the low-hanging, drooping branches are a decent umbrella to hide underneath. I crawl under the canopy, close to the trunk, and settle in at the roots. I want to flop down, face first, but there’s too much mud.
Dingle chews on some of the leaves, and I figure that’ll do for his meal. I tie his lead to my ankle so he doesn’t wander away, and rub my face. Kalos just stands there, looking around, his robes plastered to his legs.
“What is it?”
The god frowns down at me. “Why are we stopping?”
“Because I’m tired and I need to eat.” My hands shake as I struggle to open the damp pack. I’m so fatigued I can’t see straight, and the hunger driving me mad is now making me weak. I fumble with the packet of food and grab a hard, round cornmeal-and-lard cake and shove it into my mouth.
“If we’re in danger, as you claim, we should keep going.”
“We should, but I’m mortal and fragile and need a break.” And I need to not lose my shit on him. He’s just being…apathetic. He didn’t sign up for this, whereas I did. I smile and offer him a bite of the food. “Why don’t you sit and relax for a moment? I think we’re safe right now.”
His lip curls and he leans away from the food, repulsed. “I don’t care if we are or not.”
“I care.” I take the food he dismissed and shove it into my mouth. So good. I don’t care that it coats my mouth with grease or that it tastes a little stale. I’m so hungry it’s delicious.
