The angle of the world tipped sideways. I pitched out of the saddle, and Fear’s arm closed around my ribs hard enough to wake me.
“I’ve got you,” he said, low against my ear.
It happened twice more in the next hour. But each time I found myself braced against his chest, held so protectively. He wouldn’t let gravity claim me. When I rested my temple against the underside of his jaw, his pulse was against my cheekbone. I breathed in the smell of leather, horse, the saltiness of his sweat after the long ride and found my fingers tangled in his tunic.
“Rest,” he murmured, before the next slip carried me into something that was not quite sleep and no longer waking.
In that haze, I dreamt wild thoughts.
I might love him.
We finally stopped for the horses’ sake in a place Kiegan chose without consultation and Fear did not debate: a low shelf of rock that backed against a rise, defensible on three sides with a clear line of sight to the south.
Fear spread my bedroll for me, but he didn’t unlace his boots. He sat beside me with his sword in his lap. “I’ll take first watch.”
I took the hint and left my boots on too. The three of us clustered together against the dark night, passing the last of our food around. When I reached into my pack, I found the knife warm, even through the now-dirty tunic in which I’d wrapped it.
I unwrapped the knife and turned it in the moonlight. It seemed to glow, beautiful and eerie.
A strange urge came over me to touch the knife to my skin. I slid my sleeve up, touched the knife lightly to my wrist. Lightwas trickling from beneath my sleeve, but not there. I pulled my tunic over my head and found the glow came from a place just above my heart, where something glowed beneath my skin.
When the tip of the knife met the glowing spot, something red and hard pressed up through my skin, eager to meet the knife. A crystal etched itself just under my flesh, stretching the skin slightly. The sight should have sickened me. But all I wanted was to slice my skin open with the knife, to free the enchantment.
“Cara.” Fear’s voice came quietly from the other side of the fire. When I glanced up, his eyes were watchful, and he had eased the sword from his lap. He looked coiled, as if he were prepared to defend against an entirely different threat.
“What is this?” I hadn’t felt afraid until I saw his face, and now suddenly an awful feeling swept over me, the kind one has after almost falling.
“I think that’s my tracking spell. The knife pulls it to the surface, gives you the option to cut it away.”
I turned the hilt in my grip. I had the sense of a door slightly ajar. I suddenly wanted to press it into my skin. To let the knife drink more of my blood and feel out the enchantment. “We could test it.”
“Do you want my spell cut away?” Fear’s voice was carefully neutral, as if he would try to accept either choice.
“No.” His tracking had saved my life once, and I wasn’t stupid. “Though I’d like to be able to do the same for you.”
The hard line of Fear’s mouth eased slightly.
“No cutting into you when we’re not yet out of orc territory and being stalked by Obsidian.” Kiegan sounded grouchy even by his standards.
I rewrapped the knife, but reluctantly. Only because they were both watching.
Fear and I argued about whether or not I would take a watch, and he made some rather offensive comments regarding my mortal senses. Kiegan fell asleep immediately, leaving us to sort it out.
I allowed Fear to order me around because it had been a long day, and resisting Fear was always exhausting, and I fell asleep almost as quickly as Kiegan.
I dreamt of fire again, but this time, I was not alone in the flames. I was in the castle where I had stolen the knife, and the satyr was screaming, and the mortal with the grooves worn through his skin stood slack-jawed as flames crawled up his clothes. Then I was running, and the flames were behind me, and I could escape.
But that was not enough.
I sat up, my breathing ragged. For a frantic moment, I could not make sense of where I was.
“Cara.” Fear was still looking out at the night, his voice hushed.
“It’s nothing. I had a nightmare.”
“That’s notnothing.”
When he shifted toward me, I leaned into his side. He adjusted the blankets around me so that I was still covered, but I hardly needed them when I had the warmth of his chest, his arm closing around my back. “What did you dream?”
