Chapter 19 #2
I reach for her, bloodying her fingers as I help her to her feet.
There’s a flicker of softness, of relief in her eyes, as she goes limp in my arms. I hold her close, our chests heaving as one, till we catch our breath.
She eventually draws back, shifting her weight awkwardly on the forest’s blanket of frosted pine needles.
‘I’m… I’ll be all right,’ she falters, hand once more pressing to her head. ‘We should get back to the others before we lose the light.’ She looks towards the slain bear and shudders. ‘You saved my life.’
I’m about to reply that she saved me first, that we saved each other.
But my own giddy feelings of relief are subsiding now we’re out of immediate danger, anger rising in their place as I remember why we’re standing in this glade.
She’s had me chasing after her, half out of my mind with worry, almost got us both killed…
and for what? Because she wouldn’t listen. I tighten my grip on her shoulders.
‘What were you thinking, going off alone?’
Her expression hardens. ‘I don’t need another Watcher,’ she mumbles, shaking me off and turning for camp. She stumbles but manages to keep her balance.
‘Orthriel’s back,’ I shout after her, regretting the harshness of my tone, hoping news of her Guardian might stop her from running off again.
It works. ‘Already. Then why didn’t they…?’ She trails off.
‘Are you hurt?’ I ask, drawing level with her.
She wheels around, lilac eyes flashing. ‘What do you care?’
‘I swore an oath to protect you, Princess.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Of course, it’s about my father. It’s always about him. Did you see those fields? Do you know what your precious King has kept from us?’
‘I saw, but—’
She shakes her head. ‘How can you defend him? There are things you can’t unsee, Astrophel. You ask if I’m well? No, I’m beside myself – as you should be.’
‘He’s trying to protect the realm as best he can.’
She laughs. ‘Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night.’
‘He’s not to blame for this, the sand-rats are.’ Blayze’s smirking face rises in my memory again. ‘It’s not for us to question how the King chooses to manage the mess they made.’
‘And who will, if not us?’ she says, nostrils flaring.
‘Save your bile for the foul creatures you’ve made our bedfellows.
They cursed our land; they displaced our people.
Your father is making hard choices on our behalf, trying to salvage what he can.
’ I choke back memories of the rotting fields, the shivering air-refugees, the horror of the Gaspings.
Not the choices I would have made in his place, but that’s putting the cart before the horse.
My time as ruler will come. My duty now is to support the present king.
Leilani clenches her jaw. Fierce. Beautiful. Dangerous. ‘Who are you trying to convince here, Astrophel?’
I draw close to her again. Close enough to feel her breath on my face, for that delicate perfume of violets to envelop me. ‘I’m glad you’re safe. I wouldn’t have forgiven myself if anything had happened to you. Try to remember I’m not the enemy here.’
She searches my face. ‘Are you not? When did that change, then?’
As she strides back to camp, and I hasten after her, I wonder the same.
*
LATER THAT NIGHT, I’m woken by muffled sobs leaking through the walls of my tent. There’s a moment before I’m fully awake when I fancy I’m a boy again, back at the palace. But then the whimpers turn shrill. A single word repeated.
‘Fire.’
Leilani never cried out intelligible words in her sleep before. Not that I remember.
Did Arcuri forget to damp-down the campfire before he turned in for the night?
I get to my feet, drag on my boots. Not stopping to lace my nightshirt, I push open the tent flap.
There’s no evidence of burning when I sniff the air, and the moonslight reveals the fire’s been properly doused, but the horses – five beautiful greys loaned to us by one of the plantation masters – are spooked, pawing the ground beneath the trees they’re tethered to, ears flattened.
Could disgruntled plantation-workers be smoking us out of their woods, fearing another fever outbreak?
I cross to Leilani’s tent, wrench it open.
But there are no flames, no intruders, only a girl in the grips of a night terror.
Hair snarled, limbs jerking, face scrunched.
I bend close and shake her gently awake.
Her limbs relax and her expression smooths as she escapes the clutches of her dream, but I regret rousing her the moment her eyes flicker open, widening in shock to find me leaning over her.
Regret it still more as those eyes travel over me.
She’s only clad in a perilously bunched nightshift, and I’m…
I hastily fasten my laces, averting my gaze from the slender range of her bare thighs.
‘Forgive me, you were having a nightmare. I was just ensuring…’
Cheeks blanching, she gathers her furs about her. ‘I’m fine,’ she lies.
She’s pale and her eyes have a wild, haunted quality I’ve never seen in them before. Not even after the hoarclaw attack. ‘Is it… Have you recovered from before?’ I look away, unsure how to broach the subject of her magic, the toll summoning starshine might have taken.
‘I’m fine,’ she says again. But her shoulders are trembling. ‘Just a dream,’ she whispers, biting her lip. ‘Flames. A woman. Her face… her face was…’ She presses her eyes shut. ‘Don’t worry, it was just a dream. Go back to sleep.’
I hesitate. Her chest is rising, falling, too fast.
‘Get out,’ she says, drawing the furs to her chin.
I consider staying, but her rebukes over my lack of propriety at the Thawtide celebrations loom large, and Orthriel might materialise at any moment; I don’t want to contend with their disapproval too. I mutter something about hoping she sleeps soundly and back away.
Spits of rain spatter cold on my neck as I step into the darkness.
I look to the heavens. The start of the Thaw storms is the last thing we need.
Something moves in my periphery. I spin round, hand drifting towards my sword, my body still primed, on high alert, after the hoarclaw.
But it’s only the Clanschief, rubbing a hand through sleep-tousled hair.
‘Everything all right?’ He jerks his head towards Leilani’s tent. ‘I heard screaming.’ Taking in my clothes – or lack thereof – his brow lifts. ‘You two made up then, eh?’
‘Oh, drag your thoughts out of the gutter. Leilani’s had a nightmare, that’s all. She’s suffered with them since she was a child.’
He takes a step forwards, frowning. ‘And you’re leaving her alone? Again? After what happened with that bear…’
‘I’m respecting her privacy.’
‘Like you did at Thawtide?’
‘Leave me alone, Arcuri. Leilani’s none of your concern.’
His raises his hands, backs towards his tent. But not before hurling his parting blow. ‘Should’ve known you’ve not got it in you to make a woman scream, Peacock.’
Back on my bedroll, furs drawn close to guard against the chill, the tortured expression in Leilani’s eyes, that shrill cry of ‘fire’, echoes my mind, reverberating like the raindrops now battering my tent.
She’s a Seer. Visions can present as dreams.
There are things you can’t unsee. Isn’t that what she said?
What is it the Princess dreamt? What horrors might she have seen?