Chapter 12 #2
“Not at all. I hope you make it there one day.” I want to tell her that I’ll take her myself, that I’ll show her all of the most beautiful hidden coves that no one knows about, that I’ll introduce her to Cece and Math and that I’ll help her find all the pieces of her family left there.
But I can’t. So, I just hope that one day our paths cross there and I can make good on these silent promises she’ll never hear.
“Me too.” After a few moments, she asks, “What about your parents?”
“I know nothing about them, really,” I tell her with a shrug.
“I know nothing of my father, and not much of my mother save that her name was Aura. One of them must have had Gifteds in their line somewhere—how Barony knew, I’m still not sure—but he thought there was a chance that we would be as well. ”
She frowns. “We?” My heart freezes for a minute at my stupid, stupid mistake, but I try to keep my expression blank.
“I had a twin at birth, but she died.” It’s a bit of the truth. The person I was died the day I fled all those years ago. “Anyway, Barony adopted me and got lucky that I did have a Gift, I suppose.”
“Lucky would be an understatement, I think. Not only did he get a Gifted against the odds, but he got one with a formidable Gift—and one of the most powerful Gifts I’ve ever heard of to boot.” She shakes her head. “It’s almost as if the Makers orchestrated the whole thing.”
My brow furrows, suddenly feeling like my entire life truly has been planned by the Makers. But why? Why me? Why now? What the hells does any of it mean?
“Well, I would have preferred for them not to have orchestrated me being kidnapped, personally,” I say dryly. She smiles at that.
“Oh, come now, we aren’t so bad as that, are we?”
“I do like Mia. And Cookie’s cheese bread.”
She snorts and I grin at her.
“Well, it will be nice to be in a proper town again for a few days,” she says, looking wistful.
We’re to arrive in Tithmoore tonight and remain for a few days to rest and gather supplies before setting off for Duskthorne.
“Real beds. Real baths. Real shopping.” I quirk a brow and she hikes a shoulder. “What? I like to shop.”
“You are a woman of many facets, Odessa Grayvern.”
She winks. “That I am, princess. That I am.”
Tithmoore is much larger than I ever realized, the kingdom made up of twelve different sectors with King Ryker’s palace at the very center.
The army has been given lodging across three of the sectors, and Odessa was right: being back in a proper town is truly amazing.
I stayed soaking in the tub in my room until the water had turned cold the first night, just luxuriating in the honeyrose oils.
The citizens had been a mix of awed, terrified, and respectful of Soren, who had waltzed right into the middle of the kingdom by my side as if frost cats strolled into town every day.
Though Tithmoore hasn’t pledged an allegiance to either side in this war, they welcomed the army and offered any assistance they may require.
I’m told they would have offered the same to any other kingdom, but from the quiet mutterings I heard while walking through the markets with Odessa our second day here, I think many of the members of this kingdom would gladly choose Duskthorne. Which is crazy...isn't it?
“Captain,” Julius, one of the higher-ranking officers—though not as high as Odessa—calls as he approaches us from across the tavern we’d found.
I’m slowly learning some of the ranking distinctions and pecking order, so to speak, within the army, but still don’t know much.
“You’re needed.” We both immediately stand, though I throw back the rest of my drink before we leave. Julius eyes me with a bit of amusement.
“No need to be wasteful,” I say, grabbing Odessa’s cup and draining it as well before wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
Odessa laughs lightly and we make our way to the inn where Blackheart and some of the other officers are staying—and me, of course, since the prisoner can never be too far from the jailer, apparently.
To be fair, this prisoner is still plotting ways to escape, so Blackheart keeping me close is wise.
A group of soldiers is standing outside when we arrive and Blackheart looks up, beckoning us over with two fingers. Well, he’s probably actually only beckoning Odessa, but I come anyway.
“I need you on this scouting team,” Blackheart tells her. “I’ve been doing my best to keep you here with Mia but—”
“I understand,” she says quickly, inclining her head. “She’ll be alright here.”
I hover on the edges, not really a part of the conversation but not wanting to walk away either as they start talking about logistics and other things I don’t understand, and apparently I’m making that obvious. Tristan steps to my side.
“King Ryker told us of rumors of a large contingent of Lyannian and Karthanian soldiers moving in from the northeast. Not so large that we can’t handle them, don’t worry,” he adds, “but we want our best scouts to go out and confirm the information.”
“And Odessa is one of the best?” I ask.
Tristan nods, pride shining in his hazel eyes as he looks to the woman. “She is one of the best archers in all of Duskthorne.”
“And what happens if the rumors are true?” I ask, trying not to sound worried.
“We’ll meet them in battle before we reach Duskthorne,” he says simply.
My stomach drops at that, the idea of them going into a large battle.
I know there have been fights along this journey, but this seems different to me.
“Not to worry,” he says again, smiling, as Blackheart dismisses the group and they all disperse to gather their things I assume.
I thank Tristan for explaining things and make my way over to Odessa, falling into step beside her easily as if we’ve been doing it for years instead of weeks.
“We leave within the hour,” she says.
“Are you…are you afraid?”
She purses her lips. “No one’s ever asked me that before.
” She mulls it over before answering. “Yes and no. I’ve trained for this for half my life.
I am not scared to fight, but I think if you aren’t afraid of death, you have nothing to live for.
” She glances up the path towards the small cottage she and Mia are staying in.
“And I have something very important to live for,” she adds softly.
Fiercely. As if daring Noxum himself to take her from this world.
I lay a hand on her forearm and she meets my eyes.
“I’ll look after her. You have my word.”
She smiles at me and places her hand over mine, squeezing gently.
“Thank you. I know she’s safe here and that everyone will take care of her, but it’s comforting to know there is one more set of eyes watching over her.”
-Make that two,- Soren says inside my mind. I glance over my shoulder just as the cat jumps down from the top of the building lithely, landing as silent as death. He stalks towards us, nudging my back with his forehead affectionately as he passes and sits beside us, tail curling around his paws.
“He says to make that two sets of eyes.”
Odessa smiles and the cat inclines his big head to her.
“I appreciate you both.”
Mia says that she doesn’t mind staying by herself, but doesn’t fight too hard when I insist that she stay with me and Soren instead.
Blackheart has the men bring a second bed into my room and though it groans a bit under his weight, Mia beams when Soren leaps atop it and curls up beside her.
She falls asleep almost immediately, her head resting against his chest and fingers tangled in his fur, and my own chest warms as I watch the two of them.
The next day, I accompany a group of soldiers out to the mountains on the southern edge of the kingdom.
Blackheart offered additional hands to assist with the harvest of the chryil crop, the root vegetable that grows within the caves deep inside the mountain.
Chryil is only grown here in Tithmoore and one of their most lucrative trading items throughout Hypathia, but this final harvest of the season before deep winter arrives is what will help to feed the entire kingdom until spring.
King Ryker was more than happy to accept the assistance of Blackheart’s men to expedite the process as much as possible.
Mia, of course, wanted to be included and is doing her fair share from what I can tell.
Though I wouldn’t mind helping, I still have a part to play.
I may not be acting as awful as Tesni, but she wouldn’t be caught dead doing manual labor, especially for free, so I merely stand in the shade of a blood pine, it’s red leaves and sap giving the tree a sinister but beautiful look.
Soren is off hunting, so I’m standing alone when Blackheart steps up beside me.
“You’re not nearly as sneaky as I originally thought, you know,” I say without turning to look at him.
“Oh really?”
“I used to think you were silent as Noxum himself stealing in to take souls, seeming to appear out of thin air.”
“And now?” I can see out of the corner of my eye that he’s suppressing a smile, his arms crossed over his broad chest as he watches his men and the Tithmoore farmers bringing out carts full of chryil from the fields deep within the mountain and disappearing back into the mouth of the cave entrance.
“Now, I can sense when you’re coming. You can’t surprise me anymore.” I turn to look up at him finally. He meets my eyes and his lips pull up on one side into a crooked grin that’s somehow adorable and sexy all at once.
“Oh, I imagine I still have plenty of tricks up my sleeve that could surprise you, Red.” The words are innocent enough, his tone playful, but a slow shiver works its way up my spine all the same.
The implications. The possibilities. The desires.
I swallow hard, but don’t pull my gaze away as the heat between us seems to grow hotter and hotter.
I feel like I’m going to combust and I wonder for a second if playing Tesni all this time has somehow truly given me her Gift, if I’m making this heat between us.
“Tess!” Mia shouts, breaking the bubble that had surrounded us. I shake myself and turn to find her running towards me. She’s grinning widely, dirt smeared on her cheek and across her nose, and she holds up a beautiful flower with deep crimson petals. “For you.”
I smile and take the flower, gaping when I examine it more closely.
There are patterns of small golden stars running up the middle of each petal, as if the stars are shooting across them from the center of the flower, and that they’ve been dusted with glitter, a faint shimmer in the gold as I turn it in the sunlight.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper, holding the flower to my nose and inhaling deeply. It smells of the crisp, clean bite of snow and a hint of sweetness, like honey but not quite as heavy.
“It’s a daska,” says Blackheart and Mia nods emphatically. “We have them in Duskthorne as well—they manage to grow deep inside the mountains, despite not having the sun that most colorful flowers need. No one quite knows how or why.”
“Mum used to say that it’s because they’re the most stubborn of all flowers, that someone told them long ago that they couldn’t possibly grow inside the mountain, and so the daska did just that to prove them wrong.
” I laugh at that and she smiles. “She used to call Dessa daska instead sometimes because she’s so stubborn.
” Her smile turns a little sad, but she recovers quickly, waves, and darts off towards the mouth of the cave again.
“My mother used to tell a similar version, but she said that it meant that the most beautiful of things can be found in the darkest of places.” I meet his gaze again, the blue-gray dark and burning.
“It is a symbol of hope, of never giving up no matter how dark things seem.” I can’t seem to look away, his words sounding like a message he’s desperate for me to hear, but I don’t quite understand.
Does he mean the darkness of Dorian? That I need to hold onto hope throughout whatever ordeal I’m still heading towards?
I force myself to break eye contact first, frowning when I realize that we’re practically alone in the field.
Nearly everyone has gone back down inside the mountain to load up more carts.
Mia waves from within the cave, standing just before the long, man-made path that leads deep into the mountain’s center with a farmer waiting beside her and smiling warmly.
I smile and wave back, but my smile falls when the ground beneath my feet begins to shake.
Blackheart grabs my arm to steady me and yells sound out from within and from the few folks still outside, people shouting out warnings, words like “rockslide” and “cave in” slamming into my mind too quickly to process.
Before anyone can so much as move, the mouth of the cave begins to crumble before my eyes.
“No!” I try to scream, but it only comes out as a soft gasp as giant stones cover the entrance to the mountain, Mia’s wide, terrified eyes the last thing I see before the opening is just…gone.