Or maybe, her lack of complaining has more to do with her innate stubbornness. Based on the fiery glares she’s been shooting my way, it’s not a bad guess.
Her toes hook on an overgrown tree stump and she sprawls forward with a sharp cry. I thrust my arm out before she hits the ground, steadying her as gently as I can manage. Which turns out to be not gentle at all as I haul her twisting body up by the scruff of her jumpsuit, like a mama cat with her kittens.
How anyone has survived this long being so clumsy, I have no idea. “It’s no wonder the Boundary hunters caught you so easily,” I remark dryly, unable to keep the mocking look from my face as her eyes snap to mine, “You can barely walk properly, let alone run.”
Her eyes narrow, that stunning shade of green roiling like a storm at sea. “I can walk just fine, thank you.” Her words are clipped, but soft.
That softness is maddening, from her lilting words to her smooth, unmarred skin. It invokes a war of emotions within me: thrilling curiosity battling an unfettered rage at the unfairness of it all. I want to reach out and stroke her skin, to wrap myself in the tender tone of her words. I want to scream at the injustice of it all, that there is someone in this world who has been allowed to move through it untouched.
Everything about her is like velvet, from her lush lips to her pillowy soft curls to the curving roll of her body. Except—that moment, when she realized I was not letting her go, just before she went pliant—I saw something else. Her eyes sparked and her delicate jaw set, and I’dknownthere was something harder beneath her surface. Similians may have outlawed emotions, but they haven’t been successful in breeding them out entirely. At least, in this one’s case.
I’ve already spent an untold amount of time wondering what, exactly, it would take for the girl to release whatever crawls beneath her surface. And what it would look like. If it would share the same edges as what resides beneath my skin.
“Are you always so polite when being insulted?”
She purses her lips. “There is no need to be unkind just because you are,” she replies tersely. She pushes a sweaty tendril of hair off her forehead and takes another huff of air.
I slow my pace. “I think you’ll find there are plenty of reasons to be unkind when someone else is.”
She looks up at me, meeting my gaze for just a moment before dropping her eyes to the path in front of her. She does this a lot—refuses to meet my eyes. At first, I assumed it was out of the same fear that drives most people away from my gaze. It’s a natural instinct to avoid the darkness inside me, but since the first night, I haven’t seen anything resembling fear on the Lemming’s face. I’m intimately familiar with the emotion, the taste of it and the shape it takes. The way it coats a person’s mind until their entire being is slick with it, but there’s been no trace of it on the girl.
Anger and rugged determination, yes. A wish to do violence to my person, certainly. But no fear.
“I don’t believe that’s true.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Just because I’m in the Dark World, doesn’t mean my values automatically align with yours. We are all human and I will treat everyone as such.”
I scoff. Loudly.
Ridiculous Similian nonsense. “Some are less human than others,” I tell her, an edge creeping into my voice. She’s been kidnapped,twice,and somehow still thinks there is good in everyone? “You’d do well to learn that quickly. The faster you stop assuming everyone can be trusted, the safer you’ll be. You’re going to be severely disappointed if you go around thinking everyone has the same heart you do,” I pause, then add brightly, “Or severely dead.”
The Lemming purses her lips, biting back a barrage of responses. “You know nothing of my heart.”
It’s an odd thing for a Similian to say. A direct reference to the part of themselves capable of feeling something as traitorous as love or hate.
I stop, allowing her a moment’s rest. She takes a deep swig from Cal’s canteen and settles herself rather ungracefully on a low boulder.
“Is your heart what drove you out of Similis in the middle of the night?” My voice is low. Rough. I watch her intently. The small flick of her braid over her shoulder, the bob of her petite foot. “Because that doesn’t seem like something your brain would do.”
She looks up at me through a curtain of dark lashes. If it were possible for a girl to spit fire, I have no doubt she would. Soft hearted or not, she would scorch me, cleansing the earth of my sins. “You know nothing of my brain either.”
“Do Similians even have them? Seems a waste.”
The retort flies out of my mouth and I wince slightly. What’s the matter with me? I’ve already caused the girl enough pain. Am I really that desperate to reveal the ugliness inside me? To watch the familiar film of fear coat her features until she can no longer stand to look at me?
Her face flushes a deliciously vibrant color, lips pressing hard together. I find myself leaning forward, eager to hear whatever words would pour unbidden from them.
But she reins her temper in with enviable control, a perfect example of Similian restraint. I run a hand roughly through my hair, as if the feeling of my fingertips against my scalp will rein in my own.
“Where are we going?” her voice is level.
I swallow roughly, shooting my gaze to the sky and pointedly ignoring the way her fingers pass over the corner of her lips, wiping away the small droplets of water gathered there. The forest has a way of suspending one in time, but I’ve been crawling my way across its floor for as long as I can remember, fluent in the language of the trees. The tiny slivers of sun have disappeared so it must be past midday.
I heave a sigh. Too slow. We are going far too slow.
The thought makes my heart race uncomfortably, but I force air into my lungs. We will reach Nadjaa by the week’s end if I have to carry the Lemming across the entirety of Ferusa. It doesn’t occur to me to contemplate what will happen if I fail, because Idon’tfail. If my father’s training has granted me anything, it’s the ability to succeed at all costs. It’s already carried me this far.
