The horse has no response to this, and I shake my head at my foolishness. My mind loves to come up with silly and unimportant paths to meander when I’m most afraid or in pain. If I’m thinking about toads, I can’t be thinking about what the Zhagarn did to that poor ferryman. Or how lucky he is to be alive.
Or how much it would hurt to have my scalp ripped off my head.
I catch my hands tightening on the reins again, and I breathe in and out, deeply, three times, forcing myself to relax. Then I touch the locket through the cloth of my shirt. We’re safe. We have three warriors, two soldiers, and a sorcerer in our company. Trick even proved he knows his way around a knife fight.
I’m the weak link, but I can learn. Iwilllearn.
Wewillretrieve the keys.
When we stop, I plan to ask Chitai to teach me to use a dagger.
As if thinking of her draws her to me, I see her emerge from a grove of Pyrrhan sugar apple trees. She aims her horse at the wagon and canters up to me but doesn’t signal me to pull the horses to a stop. Instead, she falls in next to me and tosses me a couple of apples.
“Is the Air Touched well? Are you?” Chitai’s pale curls are heldback from her face with the blue cloth tie she’d worn on her arm. There’s now an intricately designed gold armband on her biceps in its place. Her eyes are hard but hold a hint of worry, and I wonder again just who she is and what her story might be.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m fine, too,” Elianna says wearily, climbing onto the wagon seat next to me. “I’ve little skill in healing, so attempting it always tires me out. And this … this was a major task.”
Chitai inclines her head with what looks like grave respect. “We believed he was dead, and we weren’t far off. If that’s what you call ‘little skill in healing,’ then your expert healers must be truly impressive.”
The sorcerer sighs. “Maybe. If I didn’t have that already-activated potion in my bag, there would have been little I could do except make him comfortable while he died.”
“He was lucky you were with us,” I say.
“I agree,” Chitai says, her gaze intent on Elianna. “I never had much use for magic wielders—”
“You and most of this ignorant world,” Elianna growls.
I hold my breath, afraid the warrior woman will take offense, but Chitai just laughs. “But then again, I never knew any were so beautiful. I’m far from ignorant, Air Touched. I love to learn new things. And the subject I’m most interested in right now is you.”
Her slow smile is so hot it makes me blush, but I may as well not be there for all the attention either of them pays me.
Elianna says nothing for a long moment, and then her lips curve in a smile of her own. “This may be an even more interesting journey than I imagined. But protecting our quest is more important than any dalliance.”
Chitai glances at me before returning her attention to Elianna. “We’re at war. There’s no use trying to pretend otherwise. And there’s one thing to remember.”
“What’s that?”
“Being with me could never be a mere dalliance.” Chitai leaps up and lands on her feet on her horse’s saddle in a feat of skill that makesme gasp. She balances effortlessly while the horse keeps moving, and I don’t know whether to be nervous for her or applaud her skills. Quick as thought, she reaches out and touches Elianna’s hair, flashes a brilliant smile at us, sits back down on her saddle, and canters off.
I turn to Elianna, my mouth still hanging open. “What was that?”
Her wry expression holds reluctant admiration. “I’m not sure.”
She holds up the hair Chitai touched, though, and I see that a strand the thickness of my thumb was cleanly sliced off halfway up. “But now she has my hair. If she were a sorcerer, she could cause me great harm with thaumaturgic principles. I’m not exactly sure what the significance is to a desert-born warrior.”
She stares thoughtfully after Chitai, but I’m still stuck on the part where the womandared to cut off a hank of a sorcerer’s hair.
“She cut your hair?”
Elianna rolls her eyes. “Try to keep up, Soli. Give me the reins, and I’ll drive for a while. Maybe you could hand me an apple and get us some water? I need to stay hydrated after expending so much energy, and I doubt we’ll stop for lunch today.”
She’s right—we don’t stop for lunch. Or for any breaks, until I tell her we either stop or I’m going to wet myself. I’m not sure why I’m the only one on this trip who needs regular bathroom breaks, but there it is. I’m not a warrior, and I don’t have a cast-iron bladder.
Naturally, the minute Elianna pulls the horses to a stop, everyone but Andras, who’s still far in front of us, converges on the wagon to find out what’s wrong. My face and chest flush with mortification, but Elianna casually waves a hand before I can stammer out a response.
“Using magic makes me need to urinate,” she says flatly. “Any problems?”
