Chapter 23 #2
I close my eyes, steadying my breath and my heart, and when I open them once more, Rylan has Merlin by the reins, leading him to where his horse is tied to a low-hanging branch of the tree so dense it shields us from the rain.
“How did you know this was here?” I muse as I fold my arms under my cloak. The rain is no longer on my skin, yet the cold seeps in from my wet garments.
“I guessed.” I turn to see Rylan shrugging off his dark coat and hanging it over a small branch. He runs a hand haphazardly through his wet hair, and it’s almost mesmerising.
“You guessed?” I recall what we are talking about.
He looks up at me through his dark lashes, his eyes the colour of the trees that surround us.
“The river is just down the bank.” He points to where the forest floor slopes just beyond the protection of the large tree we are taking cover under.
“Trees with dense cover like this are usually the kind that soak up moisture from the waterways, like a willow tree.”
My brow twitches as he explains. He knows things I wouldn't expect a blacksmith to know, but maybe that's because he’s not simply a blacksmith. I don’t know exactly what he is. Not yet.
My eyes take their time drinking him in as he walks over to his horse and reaches into the saddlebag.
The back of his shirt is wet, like the rain slipped down the gap under the collar of his coat, leaving the light material covering his back damp.
The fabric clings to the lean muscles that flex with every movement of his arms, and I can't tear my eyes away.
“Enjoying yourself over there?” He sends a smirk over his shoulder.
My eyes fly to my feet as I clear my throat. I fear if I try to deny it, my voice will falter, so I stay quiet as I approach Merlin. Opening my own saddlebag, I pull out my mother’s journals so that I can find the jerky hidden at the bottom. Though my fingers don’t close around anything.
“Are they…” Rylan’s question falls away, and when I turn, his eyes are fixed on the journals in my grasp.
“The journals,” I say, forgetting about the jerky as I drift towards him, remembering that his mother had journals of her own. “I thought I could fill my alone time with some light reading,” I add.
“May I?” he breathes, his hand out in front of him.
I just nod in response and gesture to the small curve in the base of the tree trunk. It is just wide enough to fit the both of us so long as our arms are pressed against one another. I hand him one of the journals.
His fingers are careful as he unwinds the strap wound around the leather binding before delicately opening the first page.
“She tended to write out of order,” I say as he flips the page, revealing one of her drawings that I’m becoming so familiar with. But this one isn’t a plant or a trinket—it’s a ship.
I lean further into Rylan’s side, peering at the intricate drawing and the small paragraph beside it.
The gods know I never did enjoy being in the water, much less being on it. Though this time I had little choice. Battle against my discomfort, or battle against the forces that turned my home into nothing but a wasteland.
“Arizaya?” I mutter, my breath coming out as a puff of heat in front of me.
Rylan’s brows are furrowed, his bottom lip between his teeth. “It must be.”
I didn’t want to flee. I wanted to fight, to get back what was lost taken from our land, but it was too late. I was too late. Even the gods knew.
“Even the gods knew?” I repeat aloud.
“Wha—” Rylan flips the page. “Where is the rest?” he asks.
Realisation falls over me. “The chances are that is all she wrote about it,” I say, gently pulling the book from his grasp and into my lap. “And if there is anything else, it’s most likely not in this book.”
My numb fingers thumb through the pages as I look for any other sketch that looks at all related, but there is nothing. This keeps happening. I think I have found something, anything that could hint at what happened in Arizaya, or how she got here. Except now we know one thing.
“They came on a boat.” I turn my head, and when I do, Rylan’s hand is inches from my face. My lips part, but I can barely pull in a breath, not as his knuckles find my cheek.
“You’re freezing,” he breathes, his finger gliding along my chilled skin. His touch is warm somehow. Even my arm that is pressed against his is warmer than any other part of my body. I almost think I see a speck of gold in the space between us, but I think it’s simply his eyes shining in the dark.
“Take the cloak off.”
My breath is entirely lost to me. “What?”
“It’s making you even colder,” he explains, his hand dropping to pull on the small tie that holds the cloak together. He pulls it loose, and as it falls from my shoulders, I feel utterly exposed and utterly paralysed.
I can’t speak when he puts my cloak aside, nor when his hands find my ankles, pulling my legs over his lap. “Rylan.”
“Would you rather freeze?” he says, his brows raised. No, I wouldn’t. The words stay inside my mind.
The moisture captured in the now heavy fabric of my skirts will only make Rylan colder, but he doesn’t leave any room for question as his hands rest over my lap.
“A boat, you said?” he draws me back to our earlier conversation, his breath falling upon my cheeks.
I blink rapidly, looking down at the journal in my grasp to avoid his penetrating gaze. “You don’t need a boat to get anywhere in Nameria,” I whisper.
His brows draw together as I tentatively meet his eyes once more. “You think Arizaya was on a different continent?”
“Or it was a different continent,” I say with the slightest tip of my head.
I watch his eyes as he works through the idea. “How is it that no one has heard of it then?”
“Maybe they have,” I say. “Maybe we simply aren't talking to the right people.”