“Did youbiteme?”
He blinks at me, his mouth falling open, and then we both start laughing. A clean, refreshing laughter that drives more of the fog, fear, and hardship from my mind.
“Let’s go, before Bern leaves us behind,” I say. “And I feel like this shouldn’t need saying, but don’t bite me!”
“I have no idea what that was about.” He shakes his head, looking so bewildered I want to stroke his cheek. “The farther we get from Pallanhold, or the closer we are to Valourian, something in me is … changing. Turning primal. Feral, almost. Especially about you. I want to—No. Ineedto protect you. To keep you close. I don’t know if it’s Corvynne’s influence? Maybe I’m susceptible to her powers. But I’ll fight it. I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”
“I was never afraid of you,” I tell him honestly. “I just wonder which Kaelen I’ll be dealing with sometimes.”
“I’ll work on it.” Kaelen holds out his hand, and I place mine in his.
Then we follow Bern, walking north.
“We’re going to miss that fire,” I say when the first icy finger of wind slices through us the minute we’re out of the sheltering overhang of the Barrows. I glance back at what I now know are the tombs of giants and their very restless spirits. “I wish we could go back and see if our people …”
“Iknow.” Kaelen kicks a tree branch out of our way. “But I have to believe that if they could get to us, they would have. Maybe they were injured, too, and had to rush to find a village. With the horses, they’d have been moving much faster than we were.”
“And we’re at least two days behind, because of me,” I say bitterly. “I’m so—”
“If you apologize again, I’m going to make you listen to me sing all the way to Valourian,” Kaelen threatens, and his humor breaks through my remorse.
After that, the three of us settle into an easy pace and light conversation for the next few hours, which makes the journey easier to bear. If my conversation trails off into silence periodically, Kaelen is kind enough not to mention it.
I suddenly realize we’re in Khyrrus. I’m actually in a different kingdom for the first time in my life. I inhale the fresh, crisp air and look around with curiosity. “I’ve never been out of Pyrrh before. Never out of Pallanhold. It’s beautiful here.”
He looks around, noticing the gentle hills and the trees dressed in their red-and-gold harvesttime finery. “It is. It looks like southern Valourian.”
“You must miss it. Home.” He wears his sorrow on his skin when he speaks of his lost home—eyes darkening and jaw clenched.
“I do. Rather, I miss Valourian as it was. I’m sure much of it is destroyed now, after ten years of Zhagarn rule,” he says bitterly.
After we scramble up a slight hill, Kaelen slants me a long, slow look.
“It’s funny how you can be so beautiful in dirty clothes, with your hair wild around your face. Although I admit I like what you’ve done with your shirt,” he murmurs, glancing down at my midriff, bared from the strips I tore off to use as bandages.
I feel my cheeks heat and decide to pretend I didn’t hear him, because I can’t think of a single thing to say. “Let’s speed up. The sooner we find a village, the sooner we might hear word of our friends. And get food. If you still have any coin?”
He nods and pulls a small leather bag from his pocket. “Yes. Thisin my pocket, more in my boot, some hidden in the wagon. We have plenty for food and rooms at an inn.”
“And a bath?” Please, please let him say yes.
“And a bath.” There’s a wicked light in his eyes. “Maybe you’ll let me wash your back.”
“Kaelen!”
Before he can say anything else to make me blush even harder, Bern reaches the top of the hill and turns to shout back at us. “Kaelen! Soli! We found a village!”
According to a painted sign nailed to a wooden post, we’ve reached Merrion, and we can see at a glance the place has had its own troubles. We follow the road through fields of scorched crops toward the town and soon encounter villagers.
The first few people we meet are grim-faced and wary of our bedraggled appearance, especially when they see Kaelen’s sword. But the prince can be very charming when he tries, a skill no doubt learned during all those years in Pyrrh.
Within a very short time, we have the bones of the story from a white-haired, wrinkled man sitting on a tree stump, whittling. He tells us about how a small group of Zhagarn and Fell swarmed past the village, headed south.
“They came to the edge of town, but there weren’t more than a dozen of them altogether. We met them with fifty armed men and women, so they decided we were more trouble than they wanted,” he says, grinning up at us.
“Setting fields on fire while they traveled, I see,” Bern says somberly.
The man nods, his brief glimmer of amusement gone. “We’ve no idea what we’ll eat this winter.”
