“I love cook here. Eat you…no,” I blushed. “Cook for you. You eat.” I could feel my face heating but Daska just laughed. He took my hand and brushed his lips across my knuckles sending a flutter somewhere further south than it should.
“Bowls in my hearth for healing, I get you some for cooking. Just yours.”
‘Oh, don't want cause trouble,” I said hastily.
Daska looked confused. “Not trouble, just bowls. Ellie cook, Ellie happy, so I get bowls for Ellie.”
“Thank you,” I said, smiling at him, feeling that warmth I always did when we sat this close. Since the moment in the clearing, Daska had kissed me again, but only once, and I wasn't sure what to do about it. As I spoke to him, I couldn't help but watch his mouth, remembering how his lips felt on mine, and I noticed his eyes kept slipping down to my mouth as well, like he wanted to kiss me but never tried. Maybe he didn't want to in public. Even in Ice Age cultures, people talked.
Daska said something, slow and careful, and pointed at the mountains in the distance.
I caught maybe half of it. Something about... direction? Travel?
He tried again, using his hands this time. A sweeping gesture, then a pointed question, his dark eyes searching mine.
“Where are you going with your pack?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. I honestly didn't know what to say. How did you explain time travel to a man who had never even seen a clock face
He waited, patient and still, and I felt the weight of his hope pressing against my ribs.
"Far," I managed finally, the word thick in my throat. I gestured vaguely toward the horizon. "Danger. Home." None of those words were quite right. I didn't even know if "home" existed anymore, if I'd ever find the way back to
I tried to draw a map in the dirt with a stick, but how do you map time? I sketched a rough approximation of the mountains, then made marks for the camp, for the valley where our team was camped, for the direction we'd been traveling before everything went wrong. I dragged the stick along, trying to show we'd been moving east, and he nodded slowly but I could tell it meant nothing. Explained nothing.
Frustration built behind my breastbone, hot and helpless. I wanted to tell him the truth, that I wasn't from here, that I'd been come from another time, that I had no idea if we'd get back. That even if we could, I wasn't sure I wanted to anymore.
But the words didn't exist. Not in his language, and barely in mine.
Daska touched my hand, gentle and grounding. His thumb brushed over my knuckles. Once, then again.
We sat like that, knees touching, hands linked, neither of us moving. The camp noise faded into background static and all I could hear was the thud of my own heartbeat and the crackle of the fire.
He said my name—"El-lie"—like it was something precious, and I wanted to cry.
"Ellie."
The voice was cold, clipped, and entirely unwelcome.
I jerked back, pulling my hand from Daska's. Nathan stood three feet away, arms crossed, expression carved from ice.
Daska tensed beside me but didn't move.
"Can we talk?" Nathan's tone made it clear it wasn't a request.
I stood slowly, brushing dirt from my borrowed furs. "Wait," I murmured to Daska, hoping he understood.
He frowned but stayed seated, watching Nathan with the wariness of someone assessing a threat.
I walked far enough away that we wouldn't be overheard, though with Daska, I was more worried about him objecting to Nathan's tone than Daska understanding our words.
Nathan looked… strained. Thinner than he'd been two weeks ago, with dark circles under his eyes and a tightness around his mouth that spoke of sleepless nights.
Part of me wanted to ask if he was okay.
The rest of me knew better.
"You're spending a lot of time with them," he said, nodding toward the fire where Daska still sat, watching us.
