Then he seems to reconsider.
“Do you feel an episode coming?” he signs. His struggle to hide his panic is painfully obvious.
I look at him with one eye closed, wincing. “No…” I motion. This is different. Maybe it has something to do with the dampener. I blink and open both eyes, resisting the urge to squint as I stare down at my bracelet. “I’m fine,” I mumble aloud to Osheen, my focus still on the dampener.
He gently waves his hand to draw my attention, and I turn to him, waiting for him to say something. After a tense moment of wordlessness, he signs,“If we find Taig, the three of us… we should flee Erleya. Build a life together elsewhere.”
I blink at him, combing through his words in my mind.Flee Erleya? “If?” I ask aloud. Perhaps too loudly, because Alys glances over from where she’s been stroking Mirren’s ecru mane. I turn to Osheen again, returning to silent signing. “There’s noif. We aregoingto find Taig.” And then I intend to stay put; I am already tired of fleeing.
“It’s good to have hope but…”
I press my tongue against the roof of my mouth to keep from saying something hurtful to the man who’s looked after Taig in my absence. Until he was caught, of course. But this whole fantasy he has of us fleeing Erleya together is not my desire. I don’t know what will come next once I find Taig. We’re ultimately heading toward a place where the rebels dwell; only the gods know what will come of that.
I fiddle with the leather of my bracelet, running my finger over it. My mother gave me this bracelet when I was very young and made sure I understood that it was not to be taken off. I’ve never questioned it. Never had to. I’ve always assumed it was valuable, and she feared that I’d lose it.
Who would’ve thought that she feared I’d losecontrol?
For three days, we lie low in the forests close to the Veil, before we set off toward Dubh Carrig. The foliage seems sparse even forspring—the pine trees appear emaciated, oaks and other deciduous trees barely blooming. Strange …
One week drags by—forest turns to flatlands, dirt roads replace brick roads then morph into winding, grassy pathways. We ride through rolling green hills with majestic black mountains all around us.
I tug my fur-lined cape, stolen from a clothesline, tighter around my neck. A cold gust of wind sweeps into the valley, and I tighten my arms around Osheen’s middle, pressing my face against his back. Kilkenny rides along beside us and I swear there’s a flash of something like discontentment across his face.
He becomes increasingly broody the closer we get to his childhood home in Dubh Carrig. It’s the only true stop we have planned on the way to the rebellion base in the Verge. I’m unsettled, but I keep my mind on the thought of wrapping my arms around Taig again.
Overhead, thick, dark clouds roll through the dimming sky. A surprisingly decent road stretches out before us and soon, we’re walking between rows of brick houses, workshops, and forges. The scents of metal and smoke cling to the air. Beside us, Kilkenny sits even straighter in Ghendor’s saddle. He glances sidelong at me, his face drawn.
“Welcome to Dubh Carrig,” he signs.
All the houses in this valley are built identically—one story of crude black brick and gambrel roofs of stone and steel. The homes blend into the backdrop of the black hills surrounding the village. Still, they each have a touch of something unique.
Kilkenny dismounts Ghendor as drizzle chills my skin. The cottage before us has a door with a knocker welded into the shape of a bull’s head. Massive horns curl out from either side, and there’s a ring through its nose.
My legs and rump are sore from the last ten days of nearly constant riding, my back aches, and my first few steps on the gravelwalkway are unsteady. Alys and Osheen appear similarly afflicted, but Kilkenny—of course—appears unbothered.
He smiles at the knocker as we approach. “We’ve always called my sister bull-headed,” he signs.
The pride that briefly gleams through his mask when he speaks about his sister is touching. The only thing he’s told us about her before now is that, at twenty, she’s seven years his junior.
Raindrops begin to seep into my cape and a gale whips curls around my face as Kilkenny grabs the bull’s nose ring and raps it three times against the door. Moments later, the door swings in and a petite young woman stands in the doorway, her very presence rivaling the storm brewing out here.
Her eyes are dark in the candlelight, angular and slender like Kilkenny’s, but deeper set. She shares his high cheekbones, but unlike the warm undertone of his complexion, hers is like moonlight. Her straight hair falls to her shoulders, colored muted blue from her roots, then darkening to deep brown from midway to tips. Something like recognition crosses her face and she steps forward, not even flinching when the intensifying rain showers down on her.
“Tiernan?” she asks.
Kilkenny swallows and nods, his throat working as if he wants to say something but doesn’t know what. “Hi, Cloda,” he says at last. He starts to smile, hesitantly.
Then his head snaps to the side from the force of a slap.
CHAPTER 44
Durvla
The petite woman’shand is still raised, rings on her middle finger, index, and thumb. That slaphadto hurt. I fear she’s about to go in for another slap when Kilkenny steps back and puts his hands up to block her onslaught. The young woman squints at him and then at the rest of us as though she’s only just noticed our presence. There’s no remorse on her face, only ire. She tucks her hair back, revealing several small, metallic rings around the outer shell of her ears. As Kilkenny presses his hand to his reddening cheek, the woman folds her arms over her chest.
“Alright,” he says at last, the tension pulling even tighter between him and the young woman. “May we come in?”
“No.” There’s nothing on her face nor in her body language that suggests she’ll change her mind.
