The sorcerer glances down at my somewhat grubby white shirt, beneath which rests the locket. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you’re the first person in a hundred years who could touch that and live?”
“Respectfully, Elianna, you’re wrong. You make it sound like I’m some sort of chosen one, when all I am is a nobody. So much of a nobody that I fulfilled the Oracles’ weird riddle.” I wrap my arms around myself and huddle in my cloak.
She shrugs. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Artemisen will thank you and let you ride happily off into the sunset. But do you really want to involve your heart where it may have no possibility of a future?”
I look up and watch Kaelen riding and talking to Neville for several moments. “I’m not sure I have a choice. My heart may already be involved.”
She sighs. “I thought as much but hoped I could offer a bit of wisdom. Just … be careful.”
I can’t help the laughter that escapes. “Be careful? We’re headed to the Barrows, Elianna. That’s the opposite of being careful.”
After that, we travel at a fast clip for more than an hour, and I try to think about anything except the key we need to retrieve. Or the draugrs. Or kisses. Kaelen periodically swings back to check on me, but he doesn’t speak, just nods, so I do the same.
At one point, he and Andras ride off in the direction we came from, and don’t come back for an hour. When they return, they report no signof the two who were following us.
“Maybe the wolves ate them,” Trick, riding next to me, says dryly.
“Hello, the wagon,” Chitai calls out. She was ranging ahead of us on the road. When she stops her horse beside us, her eyes are sparkling. “I found a beautiful stream. We can camp and wash our clothes and maybe even ourselves.” Chitai gives Elianna a wicked smile. “You can wash my back, sorcerer.”
Elianna tosses her head. “Unlikely, warrior.”
When Chitai raises an eyebrow, not deterred in the slightest, Elianna glances at her from beneath her long lashes. “But maybe, if you’re very lucky, I’ll let you wash mine.”
Turns out the water is far too cold for our backs or any other body parts. The stream is a tributary that flows into the Altarran River, Kaelen says, and I can picture it on one of the many maps I studied in the library.
Trick and Kaelen have a temporary truce going, it appears. They go out together to hunt for our dinner. Both refrain from commenting about how they wouldn’t have to hunt if I hadn’t given all our meat to a pack of wolves, which I appreciate.
While we’re eating, I bring up the horrible truth hanging over our heads. “The Barrows. We need to come up with a plan. We won’t be able to just ride in there and ask nicely for the draugrs to hand over the key.”
“Soli—” Kaelen begins, but I hold up a hand.
“The Barrows,” I repeat. “Home of the draugrs, which, if you haven’t heard, are also called the spirits of the restless dead. Ideas for how we survivethat?”
Chitai points at me. “You’re the reader, riverlander. You know many, many things about many, many things, even those you’ve never seen. So, you tell us. What do you know about defeating the draugrs and surviving the Barrows?”
Everybody looks at me.
I look back at them.
They say nothing.
I say nothing.
Finally, I sigh and rub my temples, where a monstrous headache is pounding. “Well. There may be one way, but it’s so far-fetched … No. It can’t be real.”
“What, Soli?” Elianna taps her fingers against her cup. “What can’t be real?”
I shake my head.
“What?” Chitai demands. “No matter how arduous, dangerous, or deadly, we can take on this task. Just tell us.”
“It’s really, really horrible,” I mutter.
“Out with it,” Andras says, his dark gaze intent on me.
“Well. Somebody has to sing.”
When the maps tell you danger lies in a certain direction, the smarter path is always to set course around it, unless you have absolutely no choice. The sea carries sufficient danger that we’ve no need to seek out even more.
