Thank you for teaching me.
Vann’s gaze flickers to my lips, and I wonder if he misses hearing the old tongue spoken freely. I remember the comfort of coming home after a long day of speaking a language that wasn’t my own and settling into familiar phrases like soft pillows.
Perhaps we are similar in that way, too.
He swallows, his throat tight as he watches me. “Forgive me for sleeping last night,” he says, his voice low.
Then he picks me up again.
I shake my head and nestle into his arms. “You are allowed to rest.”
He grunts. Then says, “We need to go back to camp so we can keep moving. I can carry you for now, do not worry.”
Without another word, he stands.
I don’t resist. My body is heavy, my limbs ache from everything we’ve just endured. I rest my head against his chest as he begins walking us back toward the camp.
Strange,I think. I can’t hear his heart very well. But I let myself enjoy the moment. We needed to continue.
Arion wants me at his side, and I need to be fixed so that never happens.
Normally, I would panic, but right now, I feel a strange kind of safety that I haven’t felt in a long time. In a world that’s often been cruel to me, he’s a rare thing—someone who’s both the storm and the calm.
Chapter 25
ARLET
We move with haste after the tent is packed up.
The terrain grows rugged, the incline steepening with every step, and in certain places, the path is barely wide enough for one person to pass at a time.
I ask Vann to put me down, knowing that my body is capable of pushing itself hard. Trying to find a way to walk with him carrying me would only slow us down.
I want to be far from Arion and his men.
It doesn’t take long to find a tall pass—a jagged scar cut through the mountains, its mouth yawning and swallowing the light of the afternoon sun.
“Should we go over it?” I ask, eyeing the steep slopes rising on either side that are covered with loose scree.
Vann shakes his head. “We’ll go through. It will be faster, which should please you.”
I bite my lip, but say nothing as I follow him inside.
It’s worse here than I imagined.
The air is thin, and each breath is sharp in my lungs. The path itself is treacherous. It’s narrow. Loose rocks skitter beneath our feet with every step, some tumbling into deep cracks. They vanish before I can hear them land.
The wind howls through the passage, blowing between the towering walls of stone, tugging at my coat, and whipping my hair across my face. The further we press on, the darker it becomes. Shadows stretch long and eerie across the path, and the sound of the wind is broken only by the occasional distant crack.
I force myself to keep walking, my hands brushing against the stone wall for balance.
My heart pounds against my ribs. The cold seeps into my bones, and the tension in my muscles only makes everything worse.
Vann moves ahead of me with sure steps, unaffected by the shifting ground. His silver hair contrasts starkly against the dark stone. I focus on that, on the steady rhythm of his movement, using it to ground myself as we continue forward.
A scream shatters the silence.
It’s high-pitched, desperate. And it echoes off the stone, ricocheting through the narrow pass. I’d spent enough time in the school house to recognize a dozen different types of shouts.
