CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Liv
Three months.
I sigh as I stare through the windows of the little inn nestled in the hills below my mother’s farm. The late afternoon light dances across the leaves, turning them golden.
No. It’s not the light. The leaves are changing as the nights grow cold and the days grow short. Summer is drawing to a close. And there’s still no sign of the husband I failed to bring back from Silver City.
I shake my head and wipe my cracked, dry hands on the apron.
I don’t even have it in me to argue with my mother anymore when she tells me about someone’s nephew down the valley whose wife passed away, or a friend of a friend’s son who might be looking for someone to go to the Harvest Festival with him.
“You sure you don’t need me tonight?” I call as I lean out of the kitchen door.
I’ve been here since before dawn, baking bread and getting ready for the afternoon rush, and honestly, I feel like I could curl up in the corner and sleep until spring. But I’m so close.
We’re so close, I mean. With the coins from Pytr and the ones I’ve earned working here, I almost have enough to buy the old farm next to my mother’s. Not that I’ll be able to do anything with it, not on my own. But I won’t be on my own forever. Right?
The innkeeper, Marjory, hardly looks up from the stack of parchment with numbers scratched across it. She waves a hand at me.
“Go home, Liv,” she says.
“You sure?”
Marjory looks up and meets my gaze with a scowl I feel in my very soul. I’m not related to her, the woman who’s run this little inn with an iron fist for the past three decades, but I still see myself in those sharp eyes.
I grin. “Okay, okay, I’ll go home,” I say.
Marjory mutters something under her breath that I don’t bother trying to catch. I untie my apron, hang it on the wall, and turn to look once more at the clean and empty kitchen. Tonight’s stew bubbles on the fire. Rows of recently scrubbed bowls and mugs sit on the shelves. If he doesn’t come back—
I shake my head, trying to knock that thought to the ground.
It sneaks up on me when I’m not paying attention, when I’m distracted and exhausted, the thought that I could end up pouring drinks and balancing ledgers here for the rest of my life.
That perhaps my future is a narrow bed in the attic of this old building, and not running the abandoned farm next to my mother’s plot that’s been empty for almost a decade.
“Good luck tonight,” I say as I walk toward the door and grab my cloak.
Marjory snorts at me, which I take to mean goodnight. I push the door open, step into the last flush of light, and turn my head toward the sun. It’s still warm, that sun, but it’s getting close to the horizon. As soon as it drops below the hills, the air will turn cool.
Leaves rustle in the breeze as I start the long walk up the road.
It’ll be dark by the time I get back to my mother’s, or close to it.
Every time I drag myself up this hill in the gathering darkness, I think about that narrow bed in the attic, the room Marjory offered me.
Perhaps it wouldn’t feel so empty, that hard little bed. Perhaps I could get used to it.
I shiver as the wind picks up. The road follows the curve of the hills here, occasionally opening up enough to glimpse the shining ribbon of the Ever-Reaching River far below.
We came here as children, my mother dragging me and my sister along the road for what felt like forever.
It was always windy, this bend in the road where the distant river was so small and shiny it looked like something you could pick up and hang around your neck.
I stop at the curve, the one where the meadow plunges toward the river.
Wind tugs at the edge of my cloak. The sun sinks into the western hills, and in the glow of the fading light, the Ever-Reaching looks like it’s made of molten gold.
I stare at it as the wind pulls on my hair and cuts through my clothes, watching the tiny specks of the river barges travel up and down.
Leaves scuttle across the road, making little scratching sounds, like wild animals running for shelter. I turn to watch them drift away, leaping into the tall grass.
And there’s someone else on the road.
I freeze. It’s not that rare to share the road, but still, I am a woman, traveling alone, on the edge of night. I shift slightly, feeling the press of the knife that hangs off my belt. I could fight, if I had to.
But the best thing would be to keep moving.
I turn, watching the figure from the corner of my eye. And there’s something— Not wrong, exactly.
No, the opposite of wrong. There’s something familiar about the way that distant figure moves along the road. It’s like an echo, the distant, distorted reflection of something I should recognize.
I shade my eyes and squint through the streaming light of the setting sun. He moves like a man, someone tall and strong.
My feet move across the road before my mind has a chance to catch up. I’m still thinking it’s not possible, it’s been too long, and sometimes a man who leaves his wife doesn’t want to be found.
But my body isn’t listening.
My heart knows who it is, who it has to be, even as my vision blurs with the hot sting of tears and my trembling legs run down the road, following the scattered leaves.
It’s Pytr. Of course it is. He’s carrying a small, dark bag over his shoulder, and he’s holding a bouquet of flowers. Cheerful golden flowers that bob and wave in the wind like a dozen autumn suns.
I make a sound that’s nothing like words, and then he starts running too. My husband drops his bag at his feet, sweeps me into his arms, and crushes me to his chest. And for a long time, all I can manage to do is cry.
When I finally pull myself together, the sky is dark and the Ever-Reaching shines below us like a silver thread in an indigo tapestry. I run my hands through his hair and over his face, touching every part of him, like I’ll never let him go again.
I want to tell him how desperately I missed him, how long and lonely the nights have been for the past two years, and how sometimes it felt like I’d been waiting for a lifetime.
How I would have kept waiting, even if it took my entire life.
How the window in the room Marjory offered me looked out over the road, and I knew I’d watch that road for the rest of my life, waiting for the man I love.
But I can’t find the words. And so, when I open my mouth, only one thing comes out.
“Welcome home,” I cry.
Pytr pulls me into another crushing hug, then kisses me long and hard, and for so long that I remember all of our previous kisses, every one blurring together. When we part, the last of the light shines on the tears running down his cheeks. I reach up to wipe them away.
“You waited,” Pytr says. “Thank you.”
“Idiot,” I reply, with a smile. “You think I could ever want another man?”
Pytr laughs, soft and low, and I don’t think there’s ever been a more beautiful sound.
He hands me the flowers, stoops to pick up his bag, and then wraps his arm around my shoulders, just like he did the very first time he walked me home.
The warmth of his body sinks into mine, making me feel like I’ll never be cold again, and the soft, subtle perfume of the golden flowers I hold close to my chest fills the air as we turn our backs on the Ever-Reaching River and walk home together.
What about the other Elites? Remember Reznyk, Pytr’s friend who said his bed wasn’t a defensible position? You'll find his story in Monster of the Dagger Mountains.