His eyes darken. The blade of my words serves its purpose. He steps away from me, takes up his lantern and crosses back to the door.
But then he shuts it, sinks to the floor, folds his arms. ‘I’m not leaving.’
Dragging furs around myself like a shield, I open my mouth to protest.
‘I know what it is to suffer storms in your mind, Sparkles. I’ll wait here till you get back to sleep.’
The memory of those clamouring wretches, their grasping fingers and snarling faces, rises up, mixing with my dread of that vision in the moonstone. I’ll feel safer with Blayze close.
‘I need to speak to you all in the morning.’
‘Ready to tell us what happened in the Starshrine?’ Blayze lifts his scarred eyebrow, back to his normal irreverent self, all traces of that earnest, fearful man who towered over me erased.
‘Something like that.’
‘Try not to scream the place down again, eh?’ Blayze winks, leaning back against the door.
Some part of me wishes him closer still again, craves his warmth, the solidity of him, here in this bed.
I squeeze my eyes shut, blocking the errant thoughts from my mind before they can take root there.
For once, I’m glad of the weakened connection to Orthriel since the avalanche. It means I can’t be sure how much, if anything, my Guardian has gleaned of all that. Flopping back against the fetid pillows, I’m half-waiting for their lecture on the dangers of ill-starred attraction.
The rebuke never comes.
*
THENEXTMORNING, expectant faces gaze up at me like starvelings in a nest. Ones whose mother has returned empty-mouthed.
Maris leans back on her furs. ‘Caves at the top of that mountain, that’s where we’re going?’ Her eyes drift to the arched window behind me. Soon, they’re all looking, jaws slackening as they take in the height of the Astral Mountain. Blayze pales, and I don’t know if it’s the enormity of the challenge that scares him, or the idea of being forced back underground.
I square my shoulders. ‘We should leave as soon as possible.’
A moving target is harder to hit. Though I don’t tell them Arden’s snarling face is the main reason I want to leave Talini without delay.
‘We need to organise our supplies. Discard any deadweight, finish scrounging for things that might prove useful within the city walls. Astrophel, do we have enough ice-shoes to go around?’
‘Yes. And climbing axes. But we still need rope. Candles too. More lanterns if we can find them.’ Astrophel tightens his grip on the pommel of his sword, his expression sharpening as he shrugs off the uncertainties of future challenges to focus on the practicalities of the job in hand.
‘What about weapons?’
‘We’ve enough for one each,’ Blayze grunts. His eyes haven’t left the mountain. Sweat jewels his brow.
‘Medicinal supplies?’
‘Astrophel salvaged my case from Galtair,’ Tansy says, smiling at him. ‘A few things are running low, but it’s fairly well stocked.’
I nod. ‘We’ve enough dried starfruit to last the return journey, if we’re careful. And we should manage to forage snowberries and catch a few more hares as we climb. The furs will only go so far to protect us from exposure, but the tincture is still in our systems and the map Izarius gave me shows a series of shelters on the Astral Mountain – relics from when the Starfields were under construction. Hopefully, they’re still inhabitable.’
Inhabitable, but not inhabited. Guilt knots my stomach again.
I can’t wait till the time for half-truths is over.
*
ASTHEOTHERSbundle up the furs lining Briar’s makeshift sickbed in preparation for our departure, I slip unnoticed into the chamber Astrophel and Blayze have been sharing for the past two moonsrisings.
I’ve a job to do before we leave. One that requires privacy, and an act of petty theft.
