Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
OSKAREN DID NOT TELL THEM ANY MORE THAN THAT. THIA SUPPOSED the girl was worried they might leave her in the night if they had too much information, which was honestly fair, since Thia would have.
The sea lay to the east, Oskaren surmising that it would probably take them between ten to fourteen days to make the journey.
Fourteen days.
Which meant they would have very little time to actually deal with Xercae if they were going to return within the king’s deadline.
Their goal for the first day was to reach a town near Cyning called Huckleton.
They would make camp just outside and leave Oskaren there while they entered to acquire supplies.
By “acquire,” Thia was fairly sure that Dess meant “steal.” But she couldn’t begrudge him, since she had seen Thran counting what was left of their coin that morning.
She wasn’t familiar with the currency, but she knew exactly two copper pieces likely wouldn’t get them far.
Or at least, that was the proposed plan, until Oskaren protested.
“I told you,” she growled, placing a hand on Thia’s shoulder. “The Storm Crow stays with me.”
Annoyed at the presumption, Thia yanked herself away. Off balance, Oskaren stumbled forward, though she nimbly caught herself from falling. Then it was Thia’s turn to smirk. “The Storm Crow can make her own decisions.”
To her shock, Oskaren didn’t seem angry. She grinned, as she often did, but this one caught Thia off guard with its lack of bite. But then the girl looked away abruptly, and she wondered if she’d imagined the softness.
She chewed her lip. “Fine,” she said after a moment, mostly to avoid slowing them down further. “Dess and Thran will go and take Mavrel, in case they run into trouble. I’ll wait with Oskaren.”
Agreed, they set off again. It was a pleasant walk to Huckleton, through a sparse wood that was nothing like the veil of Black Forest. The foliage was thin and leafy, allowing beams of sunlight to cascade onto their heads in a haze of emerald and gold.
They reached the town just as twilight fell, opting to camp for the night and enter in the morning.
With birds murmuring overhead, the temperature warmer than the first leg of their journey, Thia was asleep almost instantly.
When dawn arrived, they ate a delicious breakfast of what Dess called lylaberries, which they plucked from the bushes that surrounded them. To Thia’s eye, they were akin to a burgundy blackberry, but the flavor was something like a raspberry and cherry combined.
Then Dess and Thran departed for Huckleton. Mavrel seemed happy to accompany Thran when Thia asked, nestling into the older man’s shoulder.
When they were gone, Thia reclined against the largest trunk she could find, which was just wide enough to support her back comfortably.
Oskaren, in turn, did not settle, but unbuckled her jerkin and tossed it aside. She was reaching for the hem of her shirt and had just started pulling it over her head when Thia started.
“What are you doing?”
“Relax, Faelyn, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.” But she turned her back as she yanked the garment the rest of the way off, bare from the waist up, save for the wrap covering her chest.
Thia was about to avert her gaze when she saw it. A large welt marred Oskaren’s tricep, sticky and red. Oskaren twisted, trying to inspect it to no avail.
“That looks deep,” Thia commented. She must have gotten it plummeting from the rafters.
Oskaren ignored her, scooping up her waterskin. She poured a few drops over the cut, but Thia could tell even from a distance that it would do very little to clean anything. She watched the girl struggle for a few seconds longer, then relented.
“Here.” She pushed herself to her feet. “Let me.” She rifled through her pack until she found the healer’s pouch Sorscha had provided, then crossed to Oskaren.
The girl watched her warily, running a hand through the hair across her forehead.
Thia tried not to notice the way the action moved the cords of muscle over her ribs.
She had inspected Oskaren’s injuries before, but outside in broad daylight, it was different somehow.
And, now that they were more than strangers, it was harder to view the girl solely as a patient.
She cleared her throat, reaching for the injured arm. “May I?”
Oskaren nodded, and they both sat.
Thia examined the wound, fingers pressing gingerly around the edges.
It wasn’t so deep as to be concerning, and it was clotting nicely.
But it had tiny bits of hay and other debris stuck in it.
She opened the pouch and fished around until her fingers found what she was after.
Tweezers, a little bigger than she was used to, and made of what was perhaps iron.
She sanitized them with a little vial of alcohol also from the pouch, then set the items on the ground and began the painstaking task of removing the foreign materials.
She targeted the largest piece of hay first, Oskaren’s fixed attention making her all too aware of her movements, and pinched the tweezers around it.
It came free, along with a string of coagulated discharge, and the girl expelled a harsh breath. “Did that hurt?”
“Let’s play a game,” Oskaren said, instead of answering.
The idea was appealing, to fill the stretching silence and distract from the soft skin of Oskaren’s back where she braced her wrist for balance. “What kind of game?”
“Question for question,” Oskaren replied. “For every one of my questions you answer honestly, I’ll answer one of yours.”
Thia raised a brow. “How do I know you won’t just lie?” Oskaren shrugged, nearly sending her wound into the sharp end of Thia’s tweezers. “Argh,” she sputtered. “Stop moving.”
“Sorry.” But the grin Oskaren flashed said otherwise. She did turn away, though, so she was no longer craning her neck, and Thia had better access to the injury. “It wouldn’t be much of a game if I lied. It will be fun,” she added, when Thia still didn’t acquiesce.
Thia scoffed. “I suspect your idea of fun is different than mine.”
Oskaren huffed. “I promise. I’ll play nice.”
She let out an exaggerated sigh. “Fine.” Oskaren might have agreed not to lie, but Thia had made no such promise.
If Oskaren was surprised by Thia’s agreement, she didn’t show it. She voiced her question immediately, which made Thia wonder if she’d had it on her tongue for some time. “What’s Kansas like?”
Thia was reminded eerily of Dess, when the boy had stretched out on a log and asked nearly the same question. But while Dess had seemed like a child preparing for a bedtime story, Oskaren was still, a picture of disinterest.
Thia didn’t believe it, not when the girl prompted her with a soft hum. But why? She didn’t need a game to ask that; Thia could have just told her.
“By all means, wait until I’m gray.”
Shaking her head, Thia returned her attention to the wound, thinking through her answer.
She’d told Dess about the joys of modern life, but somehow that didn’t feel as important now.
What she missed was the surety of knowing what was expected of her, her place in the world. And those things were gone.
She decided on the simplest answer possible. “It’s warm,” she said. “Not like here. Fewer trees too. Sometimes we get these wild storms….” She paused, remembering the one that had brought her here. Her mouth twisted. “It’s home.”
“It sounds dangerous.”
In spite of herself, Thia snorted. Compared to Eldris, it was nothing. “Hardly.” She inspected the wound again, snagging a small stone. “My turn.” Oskaren nodded in confirmation. “Why the curiosity about my home?”
“Because,” Oskaren said easily. “You have a home to go back to.”
Thia peered up at her. “What happened to your home?”
Oskaren tsked. “Not your turn.” She ran her unoccupied hand over the back of her neck. “Why, when he killed your parents, are you so adamant that I shouldn’t kill the king?”
Thia opened her mouth to reply that killing was obviously wrong, but slammed it again when she realized that wasn’t the truth. “Because he would kill you first,” she said instead. “And I need his help.”
“So if neither of those things were true, you would help me kill him?”
“Not your turn,” Thia retorted, relieved she didn’t have to answer. Uncomfortable, because she was no longer sure. She moved to a stuck thread next.
Oskaren waved her hand in the air, gesturing for her to go on. “Apologies, my lady.”
Thia scowled. “Why do you call me Faelyn?”
Instead of answering, Oskaren said, “Why do you care what happens to me?”
So Thia asked, “Why did the king take your heart?”
Oskaren’s playful tone turned sharp. “How does it feel to know that you’re completely useless to us all except as passage to the king?”
Thia winced. She should have expected it after asking the girl the most painful question she could have, but the words didn’t sting any less, likely because she’d thought them herself. “Sorry,” she muttered.
Oskaren turned, and her fingers found Thia’s cheek. She froze, but then Oskaren let them fall just as quickly, blowing out a pained sigh. “Of course you are.”
They sat in silence. Thia’s skin burned in the absence of the girl’s touch. Oskaren’s face was impassive, as though nothing unusual had occurred.
“Am I healed then?” Oskaren asked after a moment, and Thia started, remembering herself.
“Not quite.” It was cleared of debris at least. She set the tweezers down and snatched the alcohol again, which she poured over the wound.
Oskaren inhaled sharply. “Ouch.”
“The price you pay for attacking your friends.”
“Dess is hardly a friend.”
“What is he then?” It was a real question. Oskaren called him brother, but he was adamant that he wasn’t. Hostility was rampant on both sides. “Your enemy?”
They faced each other, Oskaren’s stare was too intense. “Is that your next question?”
The game. Right. “Yes.”
She pressed her mouth into a line. “If that’s how he feels, good.”