Chapter Twenty #2
They took as direct a route as Pel could manage from memory and the lay of the land, cutting across fields and avoiding roads that might have other travelers as often possible.
It was a nightmarish journey. Pel clutched at Tor the whole time, wondering if a cart would have been smarter, but it wouldn’t work well in the foothills of the mountain or the little path he remembered to the cave.
Worry hummed through him constantly. What if Tor fell off?
Or they were spotted? Or… or King Forex suddenly appeared and tried to drag Tor to the dungeon?
Or armed mercenaries popped up and tried to kill them all?
He was nervous and sleep-deprived and suspicious of every movement, but he had a goal in mind, and he tried to focus on that. He spent every minute cradling Tor as best he could, their hands tangled together on the reins.
Goddess, please let Tor wake up. Please let him be well.
How long could a person stay in a magical coma? Was Pel doing permanent damage to Tor by not finding him a healer? Should he have tried to fling himself on Sovereign Gornexi’s mercy, maybe claimed that Pel needed a healer and tried to hide Tor?
He grimaced. The healer would know who they were healing, so that was unlikely to work.
They finally made it to the mountains as evening was setting in. They were lucky the days were long at this time of year.
Away from Tond, Pel had almost gotten used to the wide open space and lack of mountains, but now that he was back, the looming gray presence was exactly what he expected.
When Tor woke up, Pel would have to apologize.
Pel had tried, just once, to suggest that now that they’d made it back to Tond, perhaps the others would prefer to go home.
Beluna had flat-out scoffed.
Pel pulled Denil aside and made extra sure that the man was all right to stay.
Denil only smiled. “It’s actually been a fair few years since I let her tell me what to do solely because she has more direction than my entire family put together. I’ve made my choice.”
And so Pel led them up the mountain, where they were soon damp from the sprinkling rain. Thankfully, it was nothing like the deluge they’d experienced further south.
Honestly, Pel hoped for almost no parallels to last time—although from a life-saving standpoint, it was nothing short of highly successful, and he’d like that trend to continue.
But it somehow felt like the weight of everything that had happened before was following them around, getting heavier and heavier the more time passed.
Pel only led them astray twice—it had been years, all right?—but they reached the cave eventually, picking their way through the tree-lined slope until the entrance appeared. It was smaller than he remembered, but he supposed he’d been seeing it with a child’s eyes then.
It still had a neat stock of wood packed on one side, a fire pit near the entrance, and it was deep enough they’d all be able to fit inside, even if it would be cozy. They were getting rather used to cozy by now.
Pel’s knees wobbled as relief set in. He’d tried not to let himself think about it, but he’d feared he was leading them somewhere totally useless. He’d chosen to trust that this childhood memory of safety would protect them, but he’d worried that something had changed.
“You’re not even going to have the opportunity to miss your wife at this point,” Beluna told Denil with a wink. “You’re going to have to tell her that you’ve been sleeping with all sorts of bedfellows.”
He laughed. “That won’t surprise her at all—or worry her, when she hears that it’s you.”
Beluna raised an eyebrow. “Am I supposed to be insulted?”
Scoffing, Denil said, “She knows full well that you’ve never been romantically interested in me.”
“Not since I was twelve, anyway,” Beluna muttered.
Denil looked shocked. “You were interested in me when you were twelve?”
Beluna laughed even as her cheeks darkened. “Did you really not notice? Let’s pretend I never mentioned it.”
Denil’s grin was huge. “Yeah, no, we’re going to commemorate this forever. What were you interested in? I was scrawny.”
“You had a lot of potential,” Beluna answered with a shrug. “And it was so clear that you needed someone to take care of you. I wanted that person to be me. Or so I thought, until I finally realized that I wanted to mother you more than I wanted to do anything else.”
Grinning, Denil said fervently, “Thank goodness.”
They all laughed, and Pel managed a smile, though most of his attention was on Tor.
They’d got the bedroll and blankets out and had Tor carefully arranged…
as still and silent as he had been for the last dozen days.
His pulse was still stumbling along under Pel’s fingers, still no worse, but no better, either.
It felt like this was becoming a permanent state, which was so incredibly wrong for such an active, vital person.
Pel tried to push the worry aside. Just at the moment, they’d found Pel’s childhood cave. They had supplies for several days, and they were tucked away where no one was going to look for them.
Pel would need to make more decisions, and he’d need to think carefully about what they were going to do next—but he didn’t need to do that tonight.
Cavun got a fire going in the fire pit, sheltered from the rain but where the smoke could still escape outside. They’d mostly eaten dry rations for speed and discretion on the way here, so this was a nice change.
Pel was seated next to the supine Tor, and he ate mostly one-handed because his other hand was twined with Tor’s. Being connected eased something inside of him, even if he didn’t understand why.
They turned in early, all of them exhausted. If he actually got a full night’s sleep, perhaps Pel would be capable of deciding what needed to happen next.
Cavun insisted on taking the first watch.
“I will wake Beluna, she will wake Denil, and you will stay with Prince Torex.”
A protestation rose to Pel’s lips, but honestly, that sounded like the best idea he’d heard in a long time—possibly by virtue of the fact that someone else had made the decision and all Pel had to do was agree with it.
So he nodded his thanks and curled up with Tor at the back of the cave, wrapped around him and still holding his hand, trying to keep him warm and comfortable and well even though he feared that was beyond his power.
Keep beating. Please, just keep beating.
Pel startled awake, not sure what had woken him, and then he realized that there were voices at the entrance to the cave.
“Well, this is awkward.”
It was an amused-sounding female—but it wasn’t Beluna’s voice.
“This cave has never actually been occupied before, and I’m afraid that I was meant to be meeting someone.”
Pel rose from Tor’s side and came closer to the entrance of the cave where he could see a woman standing in the moonlight.
She looked to be roughly his age, maybe a little older, with golden brown skin and reddish-brown hair pulled back.
She was standing at the entrance to the cave with Beluna’s sword aimed at her.
Her hands were spread wide.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
“What do you want me to do with her?” Beluna asked.
Pel… did not have a plan. Was it safe to let her go on her way? She probably didn’t know who any of them were, but would she tell someone else that the cave was occupied? Might someone who would recognize them come to investigate?
But what was the alternative? Pel didn’t think the close quarters of the cave would be improved by kidnapping someone—especially if anyone came looking for her.
And then someone else was rushing out of the darkness with their own sword drawn. Pel reached for his—already strapped to his waist, a lovely perk of no beds and traveling while worrying they might be attacked—and stopped, abruptly, at the same moment that his assailant jerked to stop.
“Pel?”
“Bavil?”