My pulse spikes and I draw my dagger, but it’s only Kyor and Elska returning.
I try to ignore the huge sense of relief I feel that he’s back, unharmed. I move to intercept them, and Kyor slides off Elska.
‘Okay?’ I ask.
‘Els can still taste it on the air, but only faintly. We think it doesn’t want to come into the forest with us. It could be scouting around the edge, waiting for when we come out. We need to be wary, but for now, I think we’re okay.’
He looks wrecked. Exhausted. He’s been working overtime, trying to keep us safe.
‘What do you need?’ I ask. ‘Food? Drink?’
He shakes his head and looks at me with pleading icy eyes. ‘What I really want … is a hug. Please, would you hug me? Just for a moment.’
The simplicity of the request cuts to the core of me, and I nod, unable to voice a reply.
Wordlessly, he draws in a long breath, expels it slowly, and then wraps his arms around me, pulling my head into his chest. His warmth and comfort encircle me, and there’s something about the way he holds me that stirs in my memory.
It’s the way he held me after we lost Llin.
This embrace is as much for me as it is for him.
The hold continues longer than it should, both of us silently breathing in the scent of the other. It isn’t awkward, even though it should be. I should still be raging at him, but day by day, hour after hour, the anger is slipping away from me. It’s like trying to hold water with your hands. Why did he have to come? Why does he have to look at me the way he does? Like hedoeslove me? Like it wasn’t a farce.
It will be my undoing.
‘Maybe you should curl up with Elska tonight?’ he suggests as I finally pull away.
‘What?’ I can’t help but laugh. ‘I’ll hardly sleep well worrying I’m going to have my head ripped off in the middle of the night.’
‘She wouldn’t do that,’ Kyor replies, his tone teasing. ‘She’d want an audience.’
An involuntary chuckle cracks from my throat, and I realise it’s the first time he’s made me laugh since all our shit happened. And it feels good.
He tucks a loose strand of my white-blonde hair behind one ear. ‘Seriously though, she’s a great pillow.’
‘It’s fine,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t think she’d want me that close.’ Then, before I can stop myself, I lean forward and kiss him gently on the cheek.
‘Thanks for the hug,’ I tell him.
It takes everything in me to walk away. To fight the coldness that is life without his arms around me. Damn Caz and her talk about bones. Am I seriously considering letting him in again?
No. That way madness lies. Kyor and I can be friends one day, perhaps, but that is all.
Bones break and heal again, but a torn heart never does. Every flutter of it hurts.
Benny and Rubenare sharing a horse today, so Caz and I can have a horse each. It’s kind of them, but I cynically wonder if it is so they can talk secret rebel-talk as we move.
‘What did you see exactly?’ Caz asks as the midday sun forces some splintering rays onto the forest floor. ‘In this most recent vision of yours. The ring one?’
‘I was standing on the ground,’ I begin. ‘I was in the forest, and I could see my mother’s ring there, just within reach. That’s really all it was.’
‘So itcouldbe a vision. You know, seeing the future?’
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘It wasn’t the future. It was the present. It was the same moon that was above us at the time. Exactly the same. The same cloud formations around it and everything. Look, I know it sounds strange, but I feel like …’ I voice my suspicions aloud for the first time. ‘I don’t know – it’s like I’m shifting into another body somehow.’
‘Another body? Like another person’s body?’
From Caz’s concerned expression, I think twice about telling her the full truth. It’s not just another person’s body at all; I feel like I’m shifting into something far more avian.
