“Sorry…” I moved aside and gripped my arms, which silently screamed in protest.
Morco didn’t ask someone to take his place, and he continued to row at the speed of someone fresh.
More time passed, and the torch burned at the front of the boat.
I wanted to ask how much longer, but I didn’t want to seem like I was complaining about the length of the journey. The best decision was to stay quiet, stay invisible, and not give them a reason to think about me too much.
In the distance, I started to see it, the light of torches. It was faint at first, just a flicker of light like a candle in a cathedral, but then the color became more distinct. As we came closer, the light grew richer, and the details of the land became more vivid, a thick forest with tall trees and brush at the bottom.
Other boats were along the shore, so I assumed this was our destination.
Morco and Caius hopped out of the boat and pulled it to shore, so the rest of us could hop out without getting our clothes wet. I was grateful that I had changed into trousers and boots before I had been banished to the Depths. A dress would not have worked in a place like this. I probably would have drowned in the lake if I’d worn one.
Morco put out the torch in the sand and took the lead once more, stepping right into the line of crowded trees. It was dark, but he didn’t seem to need the torch to know his way through the forest.
One of the strangest things about this place was how quiet it was. I was used to birds on my terrace first thing in the morning, chirping in the garden, regardless of the seasons, but here…I heard nothing.
The light became brighter, bonfires in the distance, a golden hue from something that hovered in the air. Then I noticed the glimmer from the forest floor, the gentle glow from the firefly petunias.
We broke the tree line and came to the center of the forest, old trunks protruding from the earth in some places because they’d cut down everything that had been here to create this space in the dead center and hidden from sight. There were homes everywhere, little huts and two-story houses, bigger buildings in the distance, and a communal area with several tables out in the open near the bonfire.
A few people sat at the tables, and they immediately turned to look at Morco and the others, the same age, people in their late twenties or early thirties. Their eyes immediately went to me—like they knew I didn’t belong there.
One of the women sitting there stared at Morco like she knew him well. She left the table and headed straight for him, forgoing introductions like she didn’t need to waste her time with that. “What happened?”
“We failed.” Morco turned his head slightly to look at me. “Circumstances changed…”
With dark hair like his and green eyes, she was stunning. Taller than me, with drawings across her skin in black ink, she shifted her gaze to me and studied me like I was a strange animal she’d never seen before. “Who is she?”
“The circumstance,” Morco said. “I need to speak with my mother.”
Whoa, he was leaving?
Morco stepped away to depart.
“Wait.” I moved after him, knowing he was almost as much of a stranger as everyone else, but not quite. “Don’t leave me here with these people.”
He turned back to me, his look the harshest it’d been. “These people aremypeople.”
“I just mean I don’t know them?—”
“You don’t know me.”
“I just…” I swallowed, knowing how pathetic I looked right now. I’d lived a life in which I never had to ask for anything, and now, I had to plead for morsels of food and sips of drinks, for guarantees of protection. “I’m scared.” I dropped whatever front I had, dropped diplomacy and self-preservation and went straight to honesty. “I’m alone and I’m scared, and I just… I need to know what you’re going to do to me.”
The harshness remained in his gaze, but it slowly dampened like raindrops dropped on it from the sky. The change wasn’t significant, but it was enough to show that he was human. “I don’t know what will become of you.”
I inhaled a harsh breath, feeling worse than I had before I’d asked the question.
“I don’t know you. I don’t trust you.”
Fuck.
“But if you mean us no harm, then I will do you no harm.”
I felt my eyes close at the first sign of safety. “Thank you.”
“Stay here. When I return, I’ll decide what to do with you.”
