“Old dialect,” I sign. “Like the kind you translating in your book?”
I glance at the corner of the tent, at the carefully wrapped books stacked beside Alexus’s pack.
He gives them a thoughtful glance. “Yes. Exactly like that.”
I’m curious, proving him right. Patience isn’t a virtue I possess, but for now—for him—I’ll wait.
Mannus whinnies again, more insistent, which is unusual. Alexus ignores his animal and takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger one last time. “Lohanran tu gra,” he whispers before stealing another kiss.
Reluctantly, we pull apart. Alexus reaches for the old iron key, discarded with his clothes, and slips the leather over his head as I move to the tent flap and loosen the ties.
I peer out at the still sleeping campsite. The banked fires have long-since died, and a thin mist of silver fog creeps across the ground while daybreak lightens the wood. I’m reminded of my last morning in my mother’s cottage. Like then, I dread the day, but for very different reasons.
With a final glance over my shoulder, I catch Alexus tugging his trousers over the loveliest backside I’ve ever been blessed to see. He grins and winks, and I can’t help but smile as I throw up my hood and slip outside.
I make it a few strides before I step on a thick twig. The echo as it snaps in two cracks through the wood. Frozen in place, I glance at the other tents, waiting to be caught.
“Don’t move,” a low, tight voice commands from behind me. “Show me your hands.”
My heart stutters to a halt, and Mannus whinnies once more. Damn. The second time wasn’t a wake-up call.
It was a warning.
I inch my hands into the air to prove I’m unarmed.
“Now turn around,” he says, his voice a demanding whisper. “Easy.”
There’s something about that voice. Even ground down to a hush. Something that makes me forego reaching for Alexus through the bond.
With my hands still lifted in surrender, I do as I’m told and eye the man behind me.
A man aiming an arrow at my heart.
10
RAINA
The man before me looks so different, even though I’ve seen him in the waters for two weeks now.
His sun-browned skin is windburned, his unkempt hair hanging over his eyes. He even wears a scruffy beard on his usually boyish chin, and he’s lost weight, making him look like someone else entirely.
But I know the hand-carved curve of his father’s yew bow.
As tears build on the rims of my eyelids, Finn approaches with unsure steps, bow still raised in his gloved hands. He pauses, breathing hard, blinking, as though he thinks he might be imagining me.
Though I’m thinner too, I’m sure I otherwise look much the same. Still, I’m certain he envisioned the worst end—that I met death weeks ago at the tip of an Eastlander’s fiery arrow. And from his expression as I lower my hood, he’s realizing just how wrong he’s been.
Finn slackens and lowers his bow. “R-Raina? Am I… Am I dreaming?”
Though there’s six strides between us, I catch the crack in his voice and the gleam in his eyes, dark irises shining like polished stones. Something pinches in my gut. I’ve always hated seeing Finn cry. It’s a rare event, but it destroys me.
Loria, be with me now.
I shake my head and sign, “No, Finn. You are not dreaming. The Eastlanders are gone, and we remain.”
With whip-quick movements, he slips his arrow into the quiver at his hip, slings his bow across his chest, and starts toward me, a man determined, just as he’d been the night of the harvest supper. He even wears the same clothes. The forest-green jacket Betha made him—rumpled and stained with more things than I care to imagine—and his crisp white tunic, now torn and dingy. But the sight of him takes me back in time, regardless.
An arresting, white smile breaks across his face. Faster than I can think of what to do, he lifts me off my feet and swings me around as he howls his joy through the forest.
