I wondered if I would let them.
PartTwo
Fateful Fruits
Chapter12
Asterie
We’d been walking, climbing really, for at least a week uphill toward Kullworth. We would reach the town tomorrow. With each pine passed, the night grew closer and the mountain air grew colder. The Hussa mountain range was known for its low temperatures at night, even in the late spring, and this night was particularly cold.
My feet began to dissociate from my mind. I’d tripped over countless roots and rocks all day, and my hands had been scraped raw from catching myself so many times.
As if my thinking about falling had summoned a rock to form in front of my toe, I stumbled once more. Fenris grabbed me by the elbow to prevent my fall.
“You can make it further,” Emmerick encouraged me over his shoulder.
Each day, he’d pushed me for one more hour when I’d grown tired from riding—he was a hardened soldier. While traveling with him, he treated me as one too. Despite my exhaustion, I’d refused to be the reason to slow him down.
Fenris stopped Emmerick with a cuffed hand on the Constable’s shoulder. Emmerick had insisted on using the binding cuffs on Fenris to restrict his magic while traveling. The warlock’s wrists were loosely bound together, allowing for enough mobility for him to be able to climb.
I thought the cuffs were unnecessary. We’d already made Fenris swear in blood that he wouldn’t try to escape or harm us after we had unbound him.
“She should rest,” Fenris said wearily.
The two of them bickered over whether I should or shouldn’t carry on, like I wasn’t present.
I huffed impatiently at their squabbling, unable to hide my boiling annoyance.
“Enough!” I groaned.
They both turned to look at me, and my back straightened.
“I would like to stop for the night.” I couldn’t deny my exhaustion. My legs felt heavy, and I feared I couldn’t force them to carry me further with any sense of reliability.
Fenris smirked at my words while Emmerick sighed up at the sky where the sun was beginning to set.
We walked only until we found refuge from the mountain winds in a shallow cave and settled for the night. Our breath was visible, and the whir of the wind outside the cave made me thankful we had found some, albeit meager, shelter from it, unlike the past few nights. If it were the winter months, we likely wouldn’t have made it this far.
After eating a meal of stiffening bread and cured venison, we hunkered down for the night.
A fire crackled, and a flurry of embers scattered above toward the cave’s low ceiling. Emmerick was already snoring from the corner. His ability to find sleep anywhere was enviable. But I, on the other hand, still wasn’t used to sleeping in such conditions—I longed for Fenris’ sofa.
Luckily, in Belray, we would stay at an inn. The thought of a bed, pillows and warmth lightened my mood. The stability of Henosis was at risk, and I longed for material things.Pathetic.
Yet, even sleeping on the forest floor in those mountains, I had no nightmares. Not since we were united with Fenris.
My knees drew into my chest as I stared into the feeble fire. I willed my eyelids to grow heavy. It wasn’t working. Instead, my mind restlessly rolled through the what-ifs and what-thens.Who awaited me back at the tower? What had the Sisterhood done when they realized my tower was empty? Would they let me leave once more to go to Luz?Shivering at the uncertainty, I slid my hand into my pocket to clutch the useless moonstone.
Amara often reminded me,“Conserve your power or it will rule you.”
So many Oracles of the past had gone mad. Driven crazy by not knowing what paths led to where—not knowing what version of events was reality and what was merely a possibility.
It was easy to get lost in a conjecture. Each path pulled at the fabric of your mind. Just like a body could grow tired from the use of Source magic, a mind could be exhausted all the same.
I wondered if my inability to conjure anything was simply exhaustion.
Fenris lay by the fire, his legs stretched out and his hands behind his head—wrists still bound by the cuffs. The light danced off his features and accentuated the beauty in them. My gaze trailed down to where his scar disappeared beneath his shirt collar. I now knew that it ran down to his pelvic bone. Immortals rarely were left with scars, so I grimaced to think about what he must have endured to keep that one.
