“Whatever her friend was up to, her death was something I would wish no one,” Roman said.
It was brutal. The merls were inhuman in their violence and eating habits. Both Roman and I had known immediately what it was we saw but couldn’t break it to Feyra. A feeding shackle was horrible to hear about, let alone see. She would have died slowly, painfully.
“But the larger problem of its emptiness is quite worrying.” Roman rolled his shoulders. His face was uneasy. “I’ve never heard of it being abandoned. Either things are going very right in the world, or very wrong. And I would tend to think the latter.”
I took feed out for the horses and hooked the bags around their necks. I poured the final water skin for the horses in a small travel trough. “Have you been able to talk with my father?” I asked.
Roman shook his head. “No, his dreams are quiet. That may be the distance, but then, other packs have been unreachable too.”
“It really is the beginning then,” I said. My fur bristled at the thought of it. The end of Lady Skol. Well, thechancefor the end. There was still a very real chance that we,I, could fail. “How long do you think it will take us to reach Jebra?”
Roman shrugged. He began to make a small fire, also taking his teapot from his belongings. “It is hard to say. How quick we ride, how long she can hold off her wolf? Two weeks I’d say. But who knows what other surprises are in store? There are too many unknowns.”
I nodded, squatting down next to the fire he was building. He lay large pieces first, then stacked on some smaller pieces, finally, starter brush and kindling. All of it crisscrossed in a climbing vent for the air to race around. I grimaced at what he was building.
“I’m going to go see Feyra,” I said. “I’ve not felt her in my mind for a while, and plus,this.” I held up the last water skin.
Roman didn’t reply, he watched his flames, the crackle of the fire growing and snapping. He was in deep thought. For the first time in my life, I wondered what other things he knew but didn’t tell me of. I had followed him unquestioningly all these years. As my guide, and more of a father figure than my father, I had hung on his every word. He had always seemed wise and all knowing.
But a new emotion had appeared on his mind today as we rode, even now as we spoke,unease.Everything I had lived for, had already been taught to him long before me. He had been on the path of his prophecy from birth too. Always to be a teacher. Always a leader. Yet there were things he’d never told me of even in his prophecy.
It was why he’d built that particular fire. The fire that represented everyone’s prophecies. One person, one prophecy, was merely a tool in the building of others. And every person held many similar factors within their own life and fates. Everything intertwined and coalesced.
I descended in unease, down the small stairs that had formed from the breaking rock and found myself in a hidden oasis. It was beautiful. Looking at the water shining like that of the Pools of Prophecy, a sense of magic enveloped me and I didn’t feel uneasy anymore. I felt–
I felt like I’d seen this place.
In my dream. The dream I’d had about Feyra. We had made love. I’d been so sure that it was the Pools of Prophecy, yet… there was something here.
I found Feyra kneeling at the edge of the water, all the bags were full and she was staring. I sat beside her, not saying anything. She continued staring and I waited. I wondered about her scarred heart, about her prophecy. I wondered what it was. I felt like I needed to know.
“I find it hard to trust you,” she said.
I kept silent and tried to see what she was watching in the waters.
“I want to, and yet, I feel that if I do, it will be a disservice to–to Agatha.” She pulled herself away from the water now. “But I need to trust you, that’s the problem.”
“You don’t need to trust us. You only need us as guides,” I said, but Feyra laughed like I didn’t understand.
“That’s the problem,” she said, quietly. “I see how you look at me.”
I blushed. Now I was looking at the water.
“You said so yourself, that we were destined to be lovers. But I–” she stopped.
“You what?” I asked, turning back to her quickly. Her face was blue and radiant, but troubled. My heart hammered in anxiety.
“Never mind,” she said. She thought about her words carefully. “I was going to say that I am a poor girl of Lassig. But I suppose that doesn’t matter here.”
I laughed, despite myself. “I am a guide of the Warlands. A poor Lassigian girl to me is a queen.”
“So you see me as a Queen?” she asked, a coy smile on her face.
My blush deepened. “Well–I mean, I just mean you could be a queen with your beauty.”
She raised an eyebrow and smiled.It was the smile from my dreams with parted lips.
I’d stuck my foot in it now.She probably thought I was the cheesiest idiot there was. The way she smiled at me only made me feel more awkward about it. I’d always pictured this talk going differently—being more confident for one. Less humiliating on my behalf too.
