Chapter 31 #2
I swallow, and make myself walk toward him, while the mount’s eyes track me.
Once I’m close enough, Cairn leans forward, and with an ease that can’t be anything but magical, he pulls me up behind him.
My thighs bracket his. My chest presses against his spine.
I have to wrap my arms around his waist or fall, and when I do, I feel the heat of him through the leather. The steady rhythm of his breathing.
The saddle shifts beneath me, adjusting to make room for a second rider. The mount’s magic, I think a little wildly, accommodating Cairn’s needs without being asked.
“Hold tight.” That’s the only warning I get before he touches his heels to the mount’s flanks.
It doesn’t run like a horse runs. There’s no pounding rhythm, no jarring impact up my spine when its hooves hit the earth. It moves more like water, flowing across the ground. Trees flash past too fast to see. The world becomes a smear of color and motion.
And I feel … exhilarated.
I love to ride, but this … this is something else.
Time loses all meaning. The sun climbs higher.
My arms ache from holding on. My thighs burn from gripping the mount’s sides.
And through it all, I feel Cairn. The heat of his body, the rise of his chest with each breath.
The steady, unhurried beat of his heart against my palms where they’re pressed to his stomach.
He doesn’t speak, and neither do I.
The sun is starting to sink toward the horizon when we finally slow.
We’re in a forest. I don’t think it’s the same one we started in.
The trees are older here, thicker trunks, and gnarled branches.
Cairn guides the mount through them until we come to a small clearing, where he stops.
He swings out of the saddle first, then reaches up for me.
His hands close around my waist and he lifts me down. For a moment, he holds me, my feet dangling from the ground, his palms warm on my waist and my hands braced on his shoulders, his face inches from mine.
Then he sets me on the ground and steps back.
My legs buckle, and I catch myself against the nearest tree, forcing my aching muscles to hold me upright.
The mount turns its head to look at me, and those eyes hold mine for a second.
Then it simply … dissolves. Breaking apart into wisps of moonlight and shadow, fading back into wherever it came from.
I stare at the empty space until Cairn breaks the silence.
“We’ll camp here tonight. I’ll take first watch. Therin, you’re second. Vel, you’ll take the last.”
They don’t argue, and my lips part when three bedrolls appear from nowhere on the ground.
I blink, rubbing my eyes, wondering if I’m imagining them, then blink again. My tired mind turns it over, trying to make it fit with anything I know about how the world works.
But it doesn’t fit. There’s no explanation except the obvious one.
Fae magic.
Vel takes the bedroll on the opposite side of the clearing, settling with her back against a tree. Therin claims another, reaching for the pack at his feet, and rummaging through it.
The third is near me. I lower myself onto it, mostly because my legs won’t hold me any longer. Every muscle in my body is in agony from hours of gripping the mount, and my thighs feel like they’ve been pummeled.
“Here.” A hand appears in front of my face, holding out a wrapped bundle. “Eat.”
I lift my gaze to look at Therin, who is already biting into a lump of cheese.
“I don’t understand. You can make horses and bedrolls appear out of nothing, but you have to carry food?”
Therin’s mouth curves. “Noticed that, did you?” He tears off another piece of cheese with his teeth, chewing and swallowing before he answers.
“Bedrolls are simple. Cloth and stuffing. There’s no real complexity to them.
Food is different. It has to nourish, which means it needs to contain what a body requires to survive.
The magic can make something that looks like bread, smells like bread, even tastes like bread.
But it wouldn’t sustain you. You’d starve with a full stomach.
” He taps the side of his nose, smirking.
“That’s where all those tales about not eating the food of the faerie folk comes from.
It’s the same with water. We can move it, shape it, and pull it from the air if there’s moisture to work with.
But we can’t create it from nothing. Not in a way that would actually quench thirst.” He winks.
“But we can steal food and drink from places nearby, if we know where it is.”
I unwrap my own bundle. Dried meat, hard cheese, a chunk of bread. My stomach cramps at the sight of it. I barely ate yesterday, and I’ve had nothing at all today.
“What about clothing?” I force myself to eat slowly, even though I want to shove it all in my mouth at once.
“Inanimate objects.” Therin shrugs. “No life in them, nothing that needs to function beyond existing. A bathtub just needs to hold water. A bedroll just needs to cover the ground. But food has to become a part of you. It has to break down, give you energy, keep your blood moving and your heart beating.” He grins.
“Magic is powerful, but it can’t replicate life. ”
The shelters. The bathtub. Was all of it conjured from nothing? Have I been living inside magic this whole time and didn’t even know it?
I don’t get a chance to ask because Therin moves away, stretching out on his bedroll, tucking his hands beneath his head, and closes his eyes. “You should sleep. Tomorrow is going to be more of the same. And if you fall off Selveryn, Cairn won’t stop to pick you up.”
Selveryn? Is that the name of Cairn’s mount?
I curl onto my side, pulling my knees to my chest. The bedroll is better than the bare ground, but it does nothing against the cold settling into my bones.
I close my eyes and try to sleep. It comes in fits and starts. I drift off, then jerk awake shivering. Drift off again, and wake to the sound of my own teeth chattering. The cold is relentless, pulling me back to consciousness every time I start to slip under.
I don’t know how much time passes while I lie there shivering. But I bolt to full alertness when an arm slides around my waist and pulls me backward.
I gasp, my entire body jerking, but he’s already there—solid and warm against my back, his arm locked around me, his chest pressed to my spine.
“Go to sleep.” His voice is low, barely more than a murmur.
“What are—” I try to wriggle out from beneath his arm.
“You’re shivering so hard I could hear your teeth from across the clearing. You should have asked for a fire. I’ve told you before, fae run hotter than humans.” His breath is warm against my ear. “Stop fighting me, and go to sleep.”
I want to argue. I want to shove his arm away and tell him I don’t need his warmth. I don’t need anything from him. But his body is so warm against mine and the shivers have already started to ease … and I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.
“I don’t understand you.” I don’t mean to say the words out loud.
“I know.”
“I hate you.”
“I know that too.”
His arm tightens slightly, pulling me closer. I can feel his heartbeat against my back, slow and steady. His breath stirs my hair, making me shiver for other reasons.
I should keep fighting. Instead, my eyes drift closed as his warmth seeps into me. My shivering stops. My muscles unclench.
The last thing I'm aware of before sleep takes me is the weight of his arm around my waist, holding me against him, and how easily I relax into his warmth.