What if Khala was in danger?
And I left her in the cabin all alone.
“I have to go.” I sped up toward the gate of the keep.
“But you can’t fight the duke’s entire army on your own.” Agor jogged alongside me.
“I will if I have to.”
“No. I’ll get Becca and the others,” he said. “They will all be by the main bonfire right now anyway. We’ll catch up with you.”
I nodded, not slowing down even for a second.
I still had more questions than answers, but if Khala was in danger, I had to be there for her.
I didn’t take a single break on my way back to the cabin, walking all through the remaining night and the following morning. And all this way, my thoughts chased me.
Without talking to Khala, I feared I wouldn’t know the entire truth. But the truth wasn’t my priority at the moment. I just wanted Khala to be safe.
I knew she was on the run. I knew she was scared. I didn’t know the entire situation with her husband, but I knew Khala, and I knew that things between us were real. Her body never lied when I touched her. Her smiles were real when I hugged her, and so was her happiness when she gave me her enthusiastic permission to court her.
I didn’t care what the duke called her. She wasn’t his bride or his wife. She was mine, and she wanted to be with me, not him.
Sunrise found me on the trail, trudging through the wet grass and moss knolls. Finally, a couple of hours later, I came to the cabin.
“Khala!” I ran into the clearing by the fire pit.
Our tea kettle was set to boil on the grill, but the fire was dying, and Khala wasn’t anywhere I could see.
Heavy steps sounded inside the cabin. I hurried to it, but the door flew open before I reached it, and Pip poked his scruffy head out.
“Hey, Grat,” he greeted me. “I left the ale inside. Or do you want me to take it down into the cellar?”
“Where’s Khala?” I demanded as hope and terror led a brutal battle inside me.
“Who?” He stared at me blankly.
“A human woman. Is there a woman in the cabin?”
He smirked. “Well, I didn’t bring any with me. Did you?”
I raked my fingers over my skull in frustration.
“She has to be here somewhere.” I searched around the cabin, in the cellar, and even in the creek in case she decided to build another water contraption.
But Khala wasn’t here.
I rubbed my eyes, racking my brains about where she could be.
“Hunting!” It dawned on me. “She really took to hunting lately. I bet she decided to go look for something to practice her skills with the bow and arrow.”
Then I spotted an empty bowl at the edge of the tall grass by the creek. Khala’s footprints were in the wet dirt all around it.
“Too small for an orc, too large for a kid,” Pip noted, looking at the footprints from behind my shoulder. “Did your human woman leave them?”
“Yes. She isn’t here, and I’m afraid she may be in danger.”
“Well, she was here not so long ago. The coals are still smoldering in the fire. And these footprints look fresh,” he said.
