Without another word, he rises and brushes his hands together, dust shaking free. He turns to leave, but I step in front of him. With one hand, I grab his arm, and the other curls around his throat. I glare up at him. He glares right back, his ice-blue eyes like a piercing shard. I swallow, my pulse thrumming like wings.
“Go ahead and do it,” he says in a low, rough voice. “Kill the only person in this godsforsaken world who doesn’t loathe what you are.”
The insult lands hard, knocking the breath from my lungs.Everyone thinks you’re a monster.It burns me that he’s right. But I can’t let him see it.
I arch a brow. “Yours are the actions of someone who doesn’t loathe me?”
“Oh, I loathe you,” he says bitterly. “Just not in the way you think.”
He wrenches free. I could hold on, digging my fingernails into his flesh, but I let him go. For the second time.
How many chances will I get before I run out?
As he strides toward the mouth of the cave, Bryn scuttles in and darts up his leg before huddling into the crook of his neck. He glances outside, then shakes his head and drops his pack. He pulls out a bedroll.
“It’s too dark,” he says without looking at me. “We’ll have to wait out the night.”
Here? Together? After what we’ve both said?
But when I look outside, I find he’s right. It’s too dark to make out the path. The only alternative is to leap into the sea—and that thought is almost tempting.
Instead, I choose a place beside the fire. While we’ve been bickering, the firebird—who surely deserves a name by now—has returned with another bundle of twigs that feeds the flames back to life. I try not to think about Taliesin as I spread my bedroll on the ground, nibble on some travel bread from my pack, and let the warmth of the fire settle around me.
It isn’t long before I begin to drift, a song rising beyond my closed eyes. That of crackling twigs, the distant rush of the sea, and the hiss of a whetstone drawn against steel—until something else weaves between it. A soft hum.
I roll onto my side and open my eyes. Taliesin sits at the mouth of the cave with his head tipped back against the stone wall. He hums a quiet melody and taps his boot in time, Bryn curled in his lap and snoring softly. Firelight casts dancing shadows across his profile.
And I just listen.
I listen as something tightens and loosens in my chest all at once. I feel its pull, like a thread reaching out and winding itself around my soul. The tune is haunting in its familiarity. That should be impossible. It isn’t one of the Order’s sanctioned songs…so how does Taliesin know it?
How do I?
But instead of asking, I close my eyes again and surrender to the sound. It soothes the raw edges of my heart in a way I didn’t know I needed. And soon, sleep comes like a tide, drawing me into its depths.
I wake from a dreamless sleep.Alwaysdreamless. My back aches from the hard ground, but the blanket tucked around my shoulders has kept the cold at bay. Wait, the blanket?
I stiffen, and my eyes fly open. I fell asleep in my cloak, and another lies over me now. It’s wrapped around my shoulders and cocooning me in warmth and the scent of leather and rowan blossom.
I press my nose into the fabric, and a tickling goes through my mind. Itisrowan blossom. I’m certain of it now.
“Here.” A parcel of travel bread lands heavily beside me, spraying ash from the dead fire into my face.
I cough and roll onto my back to glare up at the silver-haired exile whose purple-stained eyes betray him. He looks likehe hasn’t slept. Again. Whenwasthe last time he did? Not last night. Not the night before, either. At the inn?
Not my problem.
If he wishes to deny himself sleep, that’s his choice. Especially after how thoroughly he insulted me last night.
“Get up. Eat. We need to leave.” His tone is clipped, sharp.
I frown and push myself upright, suddenly aware of my messy hair tumbling around my shoulders. I may not have the bruised shadows beneath my eyes the way he does, but I must look a sight all the same. What I would give for a water basin and a comb.
I reach for my pack, but he’s already hauling it out of reach.
I sigh heavily. “You seem like you’re in an even worse mood than last night. Has something happened?”
“I spotted footprints on the path. Fresh ones. Whoever took what was in that compartment passed through days ago, if that. They might only be hours ahead of us.” He scowls. “Before we stopped. We’ve already wasted too much time.”
