I spy Danhy emerging from the laundry tunnel. Her gaze catches mine. She nods once at me in unspoken acknowledgment of our pact.
I nod back.
She glances around furtively, seeming to wait for Tage’s departure before crossing the space. She speaks low and for my ears only, “I’ll get everything ready for tomorrow. Tage wakes early and flies out to surveil.” So that’s where he was when I woke. “He moves in a circular path from our cave, expanding outward, surveying the ground, but I have a plan that will keep you under cover as you move south. He won’t see you. Trust me.”
Trust her? Oddly, I do. At least when it comes to this. Getting rid of me is the one thing she won’t fail at.
“Tomorrow?” That soon?
Her expression goes cold. “I thought you wanted to leave. To return to your family.” She glances in the direction Tage departed. “Perhaps you have a reason to stay. Perhaps youlikecertain things about life here in the pride.”
She means Tage.
Likinghim feels too simple, too soft a description, and my feelings for him are anything but simple and soft.
Looking back at me, she says flatly, “You know the longer you stay, the harder it will be to leave.”
My chest lifts on a deep inhalation. It already feels hard. “Tomorrow it is.”
34
Avoidable Things
Supper is an awkward, stilted affair.
The spread of food is generous, as always, and I eat until my belly is uncomfortably full, determined to make this last meal in the pride sustain me for as long as possible and fortify me on my journey.
Even so, I finish long before the others, who tackle eating with the same zeal and intensity as every other task in their lives.
Conversation is light between the gluttonous bites and swallows, but I glean more of what happened in the Crags while I was left with Cyphus.
For the humans it had been a bloody clash on both sides with more casualties suffered for the army of Veturland. This gives me some comfort. I’m of the north. I need the Borderlands to remain a safe place. Not just for me, but for my family, too.
The army of the Lord of the Borderlands succeeded in pushing the army from Veturland back, north of the Crags. In the aftermath, soldiers on both sides had gathered their wounded and left.
“Their dead will be buried beneath snow by now,” Danhy mused.
“More like food for the wolves,” Merik counters.
“They didn’t even take their dead with them?” I ask tentatively, still uncertain of my voice in this company of dragons. “That doesn’t seem usual.” No matter the colors they wear, whether from the north or south, soldiers always collected their dead and gave them proper rites.
“They can’t endure the Crags long enough to do that. It’s too cold for their frail, vulnerable bodies.” Danhy looks me over consideringly. “You seem to tolerate it well enough, though.”
“We keep the cave warm.” Tage nods to the great fire, as though this is explanation enough of my tolerance of the cold.
“I live in the Borderlands.”Livedin the Borderlands. “It gets pretty cold there, too.”
“Not like here,” Danhy counters.
I nod in awkward agreement. Nothing I’ve ever experienced is like here.
I look at Tage beneath my lashes as I tear a bit of bread and pop it in my mouth, chewing despite my fullness.
Merik speaks up. “Maybe your spell helps.”
As much as I want to change the subject from me and all the things that make me different—the enemy in their midst—his suggestion makes me ponder, and I can’t help asking, “As inhelpsme withstand the cold, you mean?”
Merik shrugs and motions to the air surrounding me with a hunk of mutton between his fingers. “Your spell haloes you. We all see her aura, right? Yellow and pink?” He pops the meat into his mouth, speaking as he chews. He arches a quizzical eyebrow.
