This time, he hesitated before he answered. “Yes. But none that can be tamed.”
“Like what?”
He continued to stare at the water, his arms on his knees. “I’m sorry that you’re here, but the sooner you accept your new reality, the easier it will be. Because there’s no way you’ll ever make it back to the surface. If there were a way, I would have found it already.”
I hadn’t had much hope to begin with, but whatever I’d had left died.
“I’ll take the first watch.”
“I’m not tired,” I said. “I don’t think I can sleep out here in the open like this.” Outside the ring of light, anything could linger. Just watching us. “You’re the fighter and know the terrain, so you’re the one who should be rested.”
I expected him to persuade me to rest, but he didn’t. “I only need a few hours.” He grabbed his pack and adjusted it to prop up his neck before he lay down. He removed the blade from the sheath and placed it beside him so he could reach it instantly.
He immediately lay down and closed his eyes, like he could go to sleep by will alone.
I stared down at him, seeing the way his hard features softened slightly as he relaxed. “You trust me?” Just a day ago, he said he didn’t trust me, but he seemed to think I was capable of keeping him alive.
“Like I said, I hear well.”
I thought he might open his eyes, so I stared at the water, watched it rise an inch up the bank before it receded again, hardly moving. Then my eyes shifted back to him, seeing him lying there with his big arms crossed over his large chest, one knee up while the other leg was flat. His hair was so dark, dark like the earth, almost as dark as the night itself.
I knew I’d stared long enough, and I forced myself to look at the water again, to listen to the silence as the small flames flickered from the torch. My thoughts drifted, and my past became my present. I wondered how Vulgaris had intercepted the crow, ifI’d been set up from the beginning and he’d outsmarted me the whole time. If I’d never had a chance to begin with.
It was hard to gauge the passage of time without the movement of the sun. The torch was about to burn out and plunge us into darkness, and that told me it was probably time to wake him up. Once that flame flickered out, I didn’t know how we would relight it if we couldn’t see an inch in front of our faces.
I reached for his arm, and my fingers felt the fabric of his clothing first before I felt…hardness. It was like gripping a tree branch on a climb, thick, hard, and warm. My hand immediately retreated like I’d stuck my hand directly into a blazing fire. It was a simple touch, but I felt like I’d violated his body, felt like I’d crossed a line.
He inhaled a deep and slow breath before he opened his eyes and stared up at nothing.
“The torch is about to extinguish.” I grabbed it from where it was positioned in the rock and held it out to him.
He sat up and dug in his pack for supplies. He grabbed a small vial of a purple substance and placed a few drops directly into the flames. The flames rose higher, hissing like a pissed-off cat.
“What is that?”
“Sap.” He returned the vial to his pack then stood and prepared himself to continue the journey. His blade was sheathed once again then hooked across his back before he placed the pack on top.
I remembered one of the men in his crew carried everything so the others would be ready to fight if necessary. “I can carry the pack.”
“Let’s go.” With the torch in hand, he began the journey once more.
I followed him and stayed in the light.
We walked like that for a long time, neither one of us speaking.
“Do you have children?”
His back was to me, so I didn’t know what his reaction to the personal question might be.
“Why do you ask?”
“I noticed a lot of the women are pregnant. You said you’re trying to repopulate…and you’re the chief…” His dark hair and matching eyes were striking, and his quiet command was so loud in the silence. Any one of those women could be having his child. Any one of those women wouldwantto have his child.
“No, I don’t have children.”
A faint rush of relief swept through me. It came out of nowhere, a cold breeze on a summer day. “Is there a reason why?—”
“Because I don’t want them.”
