And with that, she whirled on her feet, stomped inside her home, and slammed the door in our faces.
“Well,” I said.
Ragnar sighed. “Well.”
“What do we do now?”
“You heard her,” he said, frowning at the door. “I think it’s best we leave. As adept as I am at fighting, I don’t want to hurt anyone just for a few kegs of ale.”
And despite the situation—despite my empty coin purse and soggy socks—my shoulders felt a little lighter. I smiled up at him. “You know what? I’m happy to hear you say that.”
* * *
The trek up the mountain was hard going. As fit as I was from hauling my wagon across the islands, I had to pause a few times to catch my breath. Eventually, we crested the ridge, marching up the final steps just as the sun was marching down the horizon. I sat hard on one of the abandoned carts, grateful for a seat that wasn’t coated in mud. Rubbing my tired legs, I sighed and then took the last swig of my canteen.
Ragnar remained standing, frowning at the carts.
“Aren’t you tired?” I patted the empty spot beside me. Granted, he’d have to squeeze in close to me to fit. But after all the exercise and fresh air, I was feeling quite bold about it. I was a grown woman who ran her own damn business. I could sit beside a handsome man without combusting.
His frown deepened. “Weren’t there five carts when we passed by here earlier?”
I looked around. There were four now, but I hadn’t counted them before. “I can’t say I paid them much attention on our way down.”
“There were five.” He slowly circled the carts, then pointed at the ground. “Muddy tracks, heading off into the distance. Someone took one of these after we started down the path.”
Pulling my legs up to my chest, I failed to comprehend his agitation. It was just a missing cart. “I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re for, Ragnar. People use them to take things to and from the docks. And then they leave them here when they’re not in use, since it’s impossible to take them up and down the steps.”
“Or they use them to take things from taprooms that aren’t really taprooms,” he murmured.
Ah. My eyes widened. I saw where he was going with this now. “You don’t think Ivar took one, do you?”
“He was suspiciously absent from his house, and his wife was acting very odd. Think about it.” He paced across the churned mud. “If he did steal our kegs, wouldn’t he and his wife be on edge, expecting that someone might show up on their doorstep? And so when someone did—whenwedid—he went running.”
“Except he couldn’t have carried all the kegs up this path by himself. One or two, maybe, but no more than that,” I countered.
“Unless he had help.”
Sighing, I hopped off the cart, my boots sinking into the mud. More water oozed through the leather, transforming my feet into a soggy mess again. I’d been looking forward to dropping onto a bench beside Nilsa’s hearth and having at least three servings of her stew while wearing a dry, clean pair of woollen socks.
Ragnar noticed my shiver and frowned. “We can head back to Riverwold. I meant what I said earlier, it’s just ale.”
“I know.” I hoisted my pack higher on my shoulder. “But as long as we have a thread we can follow, we should find out where it leads us.”
18
RAGNAR
Up ahead, the track vanished into the gloomy woods that sprawled across the coast. Shivering, Lilia tugged her cloak around her, her body bent forward into the harsh wind. Instinctively, I stepped around to the other side of her, so that I took the brunt of it. Still, she trembled, then stumbled over a root sticking out of the ground.
I caught her arm. She tensed at my touch, swallowing as she gazed up at me. Something within me clenched. Slowly—far too slowly to seem natural—I released her. She pressed her lips together and pulled back into herself.
“You’re cold,” I said, stating the bloody obvious like a fool. “Is it normally this bad here in the winter?”
“Not usually, no,” she said quietly. “It can get chilly at times, but it’s usually nothing this harsh. The Elding must be causing issues with the weather. If only Reykur was here, he’d stave off the worst of it. ‘Course, I’d worry it might rain on him, then.”
Rain and dragons didn’t mix. It was the only weakness of their scales.
“I can help,” I said, calling upon the force of my fire. Unrelenting pain tore through my skin, the heat of that power seeping from my pores.
