She grinned. “Not meant to be.”
“I’m not perfect.”
“Oh, I know.”
“Or shiny,” he muttered. “What does that even mean?”
He was practically glowing right now, with the sun at his back lighting up the gold in his hair like a halo.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “You don’t have to climb with me. You just keep watch down here.”
“What am I supposed to do if you fall?”
She shrugged. “Get out of the way. You could try catching me, but I wouldn’t advise it. We’d both die then. Or at least break enough bones that we’d be stuck here until the witch found us.”
A gruesome end. All kinds of ways to get yourself killed out here even before the witch came along.
He blew out a breath. “You’re certain you can make it?”
“Easy.”
She kicked off her boots and shoved her socks inside. The pine needles were cool and slick underfoot as she stepped up to the rock. It was true she hadn’t climbed in a while, but it had been one of her and Toby’s favorite pastimes. It was what they’d been doing that one time Toby cracked his head open and she’d thought he was going to die. She probably shouldn’t mention that to the witch hunter.
She’d never fallen before. Well, not far. She’d never broken anything important anyway.
She dropped her jacket onto her boots and looked up to study the rock again, picking out a path before she started up.
The first twenty feet were easy. Her body remembered the old movements and she made steady progress up the wall.
Reach, hold. Find a foothold, push. Fingers searching for the next ledge. Test it for stability. Push again. Her muscles had started out stiff. The ones she was using now were different from the muscles she used to ride the horse, and it took a while for them to warm up. Eventually, they did, and her movements smoothed. She fell into a rhythm. Up and up. By forty feet, she was just beginning to sweat. By fifty, her muscles began to burn. There was a faint tremor in her limbs. She strained to reach the next hold.
When she was stable, she paused to catch her breath. She looked down.
The height didn’t bother her, but it clearly bothered Casrian, even from the ground. He stared at her like his attention alone could keep her from falling. His whole body was tight as a bow.
Did he care?
She supposed he must on some level. He was a decent man. He’d probably care about any guide he hired. He obviously cared about the men under his command, and she was working for him at the moment.
“Almost there,” she called down.
“Be careful.”
She laughed and turned her attention to the last stretch.
She’d drifted too far to the right, she thought, and there was a crack in the cliff face she didn’t really want to deal with. Who knew what kinds of poisonous snakes and insects, and sharp-toothed rodents lived here in the cursed woods? Best not to tempt fate by sticking her hands into any dark holes.
She didn’t see any good holds to the left though. She might just have to… No.
There.
A flaw in the rock. It was narrow, but it would do. She’d only needed that hold for balance. She stretched, caught it with her fingertips, repositioned her foot. And she was up. Only another eight feet, all curving in toward the top. She scrambled up the last of it and hauled herself, panting, over the edge.
She looked around and let out a breath of relief when she saw she was alone. She collapsed onto her back for a moment and stared up at the sky. The air was fresher here. She hadn’t realized the woods smelled so bad until she was clear of them. She’d blamed it on the swamp, but they were well away from that. She’d just gotten used to the smell of rot.
She drank it in, feeling like she was shedding a week’s worth of filth from her body and mind. Once she caught her breath, she stood up and looked around again. The ground was rocky near the edge of the cliff, with sparse tufts of low grass springing up in patches. A few trees farther back, stunted and short. They stretched the length of the ridge, though there appeared to be a drop beyond.
Below, woods extended all around. It was like she was on an island amid a rolling sea that extended for miles in every direction. The trees didn’t look sick from here. They looked beautiful. Reds and yellows fading toward brown with the approaching winter. Still, there were enough leaves on the trees to make it difficult to see down to the ground. There were no flashes of light reflecting off metal. No movement nearby except for a few birds and squirrels. No smoke.
