Her eyes lacked confidence, but they were packed with grit. She didn’t look away, didn’t wane in her stare by her sheer force of will. It was a different kind of strength. Ever since she’d slept on my shoulder, she’d been distant, almost ashamed, when she had no reason to be. “We were just planting the seeds.”
An explanation I didn’t need. “Come on.” I nodded toward one of the tables so she would follow me.
Caius and Liam both took a break from their work to look at us, but they turned back to the dirt when we walked away.
I sat on one side of the table, a thin slice of tree bark in the center between us, along with a dagger.
She sat across from me and looked at the items, as if she couldn’t make sense of them. She lifted her eyes to mine in search of an explanation.
“The bow and arrow. Can you draw them for me?”
“You don’t have a quill and ink?”
I didn’t know what a quill was. “We used to use ink and parchment, but we’ve lost those luxuries through our many journeys.”
“Oh.” She reached for the dagger and held it by the hilt before she started to carve the soft wood, first making a curve and then another straight line. “This is the wood, something stiff but also flexible. And this is the string, something that stretches and snaps back. We used to use horsehair woven with other fibers. I’m not sure what you have down here, but I’m sure there’s something.”
I examined her drawing and tried to understand it. “Then what?”
“You take an arrow…” She carved a picture, showing a sharp, pointed head attached to a wooden shaft with feathers. “You can carve a rock into a sharp point and use the feather so it’ll fly farther. You put it to the string and pull the wood back, creating tension in the string, and then you aim and release. It launches the arrow with enough force that it can pierce flesh and sometimes impale armor. I’m surprised you don’t have anything like this down here, but I guess that makes sense since you didn’t have any enemies before the Knives.”
“We were originally from the surface and may have had such weapons, but perhaps that knowledge died once we were banished, and most of the older generation was killed off in thefall. We lost a lot of our history and our culture. None live now who can tell it.”
Her eyes deepened in pity. “So, none of you knows a sunset, knows the feeling of rain on your skin, the breeze in your hair? It hurts to know such beauty and lose it, but it hurts a lot more to realize you’ve never known it at all.”
I could live without those things, but there was something I couldn’t live without. “I’ve never known peace—and I’m afraid I’ll die without ever experiencing it.”
Her eyes dropped like my words burned her heart.
I pressed my finger to her drawing. “Help me make this.”
“I wasn’t a craftsperson,” she said. “Honestly, I didn’t have any skills because I lived in the castle.”
I disregarded all that. “You’re more capable than you give yourself credit for. If Vulgaris had been the one banished down here, he would have died in the fall. I know you can help me with this. I need you to help me with this.”
The confidence was dead in her eyes, but she had the strength to look at me. “I’ll try my best.”
I’d seen a fragile girl fall into the lake and swim to shore. Had seen a liability, another mouth to feed when we already didn’t have enough to feed ourselves. But now, I saw a whole different woman—a savior. “I know you will.”
I chopped down various branches from the trees on the island, taking a collection of different woods to bring back to thecamp. None of them fit her description in contour and bend, but perhaps we could mold them into shape through carving, heating, and using water. I dragged back everything I found and dropped it into a pile.
When I looked up to find her, she was examining her garden, which looked like nothing more than a graveyard of soil.
Behind her, Krull sat at one of the tables with a bowl of stew—and pierced her back with his stare. He hadn’t noticed me yet because his eyes were glued to her like a hunter and his prey. He must have eventually felt my stare because his eyes shifted to me.
Then he shifted them away quickly, like we’d never made contact.
My arm continued to ache in pain like it was still boiling, but the burst of anger I felt masked it. I left the pile of branches behind and crossed through the maze of tables to approach him, attracting some stares from the others, as if they could feel the tension in the air.
Krull ate his stew like he didn’t notice my approach.
I dropped onto the bench across from him.
Like a man rather than a coward, he looked up to meet my stare with mutual hostility.
I stared back, my anger doing all the talking.
He didn’t say a word.
