Chapter 34 Tamsyn
TAMSYN
NONE OF THE SURVIVORS REMEMBERED ANYTHING.
In the absence of their memories, they readily accepted the story we concocted of raiders attacking and slaying Stig.
A few even claimed to have memory of the attack and Stig’s valiant fight for his life, proving just how suggestible a fractured mind could be.
We left the cage of dragon bone behind, gathered up the wounded, and loaded them into the wagon.
We would send a convoy to collect the dead.
Mounted on a horse, I looked back over my shoulder, staring at the lonely cage with its bones almost as white as the snow flurrying around us.
The cage that rendered me weak and powerless now sat in so much blood and gore and death.
I hoped never to see it again. I hoped never to have to transform and kill again.
My gaze caught and held on Stig’s lifeless eyes staring up from the snow.
For the first time in a long while, I felt free enough to hope, and it was a wondrous thing.
And yet I knew the world was an unfair and dangerous place, more dangerous than I ever realized, even as someone who was once forced to take the punishments of others.
Sometimes, though, the only way to survive was to bare your fangs.
As snow flurries began to fall faster, we huddled in our cloaks and furs and pushed on, determined to reach the Borg even if it meant traveling through the night.
“Are you all right?” Fell asked beside me.
Smiling, I nodded, then assessed his shoulder. All evidence of purple blood had been removed. He would need to learn to control his blood. That would be one of the first lessons I taught him, along with all the other things I had learned from my time in the pride. “What about you?”
“Oh, this.” He gave his shoulder a dismissive glance. “It’s nothing.”
I rolled my eyes and urged my mount on.
We rode into the night until we crested the final mountain and looked down, the Borg finally in view. Hundreds of lights dotted the darkness, illuminating the chaotic network of cottages and buildings nestled among the dips of hills and valleys marking the end—or beginning—of the Crags.
I could see there was no fog, no blanket of protection. It had vanished with Fell all those months ago. I sent him a glance. He would bring it back. Among other things. Prosperity. The future he had been working to build for his people.
We sat atop our mounts, side by side, overlooking the place where we would make our home, where we would build a place for all things, magical and not.
We stayed like that for a long moment as the others continued their descent around us, quickening their pace, so close to their destination.
I stretched out my arm between us. Fell took my hand, his bigger one engulfing mine. Even through our gloves, our palms reacted, surging through the fabric to reach each other.
“Are you ready?” The wintry frost of his gaze warmed me. “I haven’t forgotten I promised you a bed.” His deep voice reached me on a sudden curl of fresh fog, and I smiled.
The world was a vast place, full of dangerous things, some human, some magic. We would plant roots here … with our lives stretching long and winding before us, a tether that could be cut short at any time in this life full of sharp and snapping teeth.
For now, though, we were here … together, forming our own pride.
I nudged my mount ahead. “I’ll race you there.”