Several steaming bites later, the ache in my throat had dulled enough for me to ask a question that had plagued me since I’d opened my eyes and noticed the change in the trees overhead. “Where are we?”
Garrick dipped the spoon back into the bowl. “A week away from the Memory Gate.”
I jerked my head back. Given my current state, the motion was feeble, which saved us both from having searing soup spilled across our laps. “How is that possible?”
“After what happened at the Devotion Gate, I thought it best not to risk angering the gods by drawing out the time between the gates.” That still did not answer my question. If I’d had the strength, I’d have sunk an elbow into his stomach. But as it was, I could only tilt my head slightly and try to level a reproving look at him.
“I carried you,” he admitted.
I’d dreamed I was floating.
Garrick lifted another spoonful of soup to my mouth. I took it, but swallowed it too quickly as my mind tumbled over its own thoughts. I coughed, trying to dislodge the misplaced soup from my airways. Garrick rubbed circles on my back until I stopped.
“You are the one who needs rest. I am not exactly waifish,” I finally managed to say.
The hand that he’d wrapped around my midsection to keep me upright curled into my stomach, caressing the soft rolls beneath the fabric of my shift and dress. “Do not insult either of us by implying that your weight is anything but perfect, or that I am incapable of carrying you whatever distance is required. I would not change a single thing about you, witch.”
The embarrassment I’d felt before was instantly replaced with a different sort of heat.
But Garrick spared me from having to think up a reply that wouldn’t end with both of us buried in the furs by slipping another spoonful of soup between my lips.
I finished the bowl, but Garrick did not move, and I lacked both the capacity and the will to do so myself. I slowly made note of our surroundings. We were tucked in against a wall of shale, the ground beneath us compacted clay that had frozen into permafrost. The clearing was small, barely wide enough for Isanara to spread her wings or Garrick to lie down all the way. As I’d noted upon waking, the trees were slimmer here, deciduous and ever-barren thanks to the curse. We were tucked away from the world. Even our fire was small by the standards I’d come accustomed to as we hiked through the mountains.
Were we… hiding?
I knew Isanara had not told me everything.
Would Garrick do the same?
“How did you pass through the Devotion Gate?”
Now that my body had seen to its first need, I was becoming aware of the places where I’d bled. I counted four wounds—one above each wrist and one in the fleshy muscle of each calf just above my ankle.
Garrick exhaled slowly. I felt it against my back. “It must have been the same as you. Taking care of her.”Her—Isanara.
He had offered her his protection more than once. He’d taught me how to use my power in tandem with fighting maneuvers to defend her. If the gods had granted the familiar as a way to test us both… but that did not make sense. Varian herself had admitted that the dragons predated the gods. They were not answerable to them. Dragons answered to no one.
The hairs at the nape of my neck stood on end in warning. I ignored them and every other instinct screaming inside of me. Between the sore wounds, my aching muscles, and a stomachthat was full for the first time in weeks, I did not stand much of a chance. Sleep was coming for me.
“No matter what decision I make, it turns out wrong,” I said. Exhaustion loosened my tongue and muddled my thoughts. “I lost my coven. Failed my sister and Kyrelle. Even Isanara…”
Garrick’s hand closed over my own, the bowl of soup set aside. “Koryn. You saved Isanara. You saved me.”
“But only because of the Mercy Gate, and because of the sacrifice that I owed to Xyta?—”
Garrick lifted my hand. I tipped my head back against his shoulder, watching as he stroked the calloused pad of his thumb over my knuckles.
“I think you have tried so hard, for so long, to be bad, that you do not even recognize when you are doing good.” He lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to my knuckles.
A new part of me began to ache. “You said before that there is no such thing as a good witch.”
He kissed the next knuckle. “I did say that.”
“Have you changed your opinion?”
His face answered, even if his mouth did not.
But I did not need Garrick to think I was good. I only needed him to see who and what I was, and stand by my side anyway.
