Chapter 29 #3
“Not these berries.” He pointed at the cake, taking the fork she’d abandoned and letting the piece of cake disappear in his mouth.
“These are Criu berries, sweet and a hint tart.” He swallowed, throat bobbing and eyes closing for a heartbeat, thick lashes brushing the top of his cheeks, and Lory’s heart ached from the perfection of the image.
Even now, when she should have been pestering him for answers, his beauty stole her voice.
“It’s the dream,” he said as if reading from her mind. “I’m not half as pretty in real life.” A self-deprecating chuckle followed his words, eyes flickering open. But he was wrong. Not that Lory would admit that out loud.
“Are you reading my mind?” Not that it was the worst of her problems if he could.
“Only in dreams—since a dream is happening in your head, I’m in there already, anyway.” A shrug, and he took another bite of cake, humming as he savored its taste before swallowing.
Great. So, she had no secrets in her dreams—not when Khayrivven was around. Again, a hundred things she could say ran through her mind, but she chose the one she was most afraid of: “Won’t they consider your visiting my dreams interfering? They’ll make you kill me.”
Khayrivven’s eyes iced over, but his hand reached across the table, capturing hers in a gentle grasp.
“They won’t know if I’ve nodded off just for a moment.
That’s why you need to wake up, Lory, so I don’t need to worry a wild animal will tear you apart in your sleep, or you’ll be overrun by Criu rebels and tortured for information, or that one of your fellow students will try to end you. ”
Lory’s fingers twined with his on their own accord.
“The faith you have in me, Khayrivven Falcrest, is only outmatched by the faith you have in the gods.” The smug grin she gave him dispersed as serious eyes met hers, full of hope and pain, of unspoken sorrow and a burden that might one day break him.
“You have no idea of the faith I have in you, Lory, and I’ve long given up on the gods.” His voice started to fade away, the silvery light disrupted by bursts of gold. “Wake up, Lory.”
“Wake up.” A pair of ungentle hands stirred her from bone-deep sleep, her body aching in places she hadn’t even known it could ache as she rolled into a sitting position and lifted her eyelids to warm morning light.
How long had she slept?
“Time to get going,” Tabi murmured, slinging her pack over her shoulders and sheathing her swords.
Behind the bushes, Thal and Aiden were folding up blankets and shoving them into their packs, and when they were done, they emerged with bread and cheese in their hands, chewing.
“Breakfast before another day of fighting?” Thal offered her half his bread, but Lory was already pulling out her own provisions.
“What’s the plan for today?” Tearing into the cheese, she savored not needing to starve the way she’d done most of her life. “Should be easy enough to avoid thirty-eight Ashthorn students on vast mountains like this.”
Unfortunately, she seemed to be the only one considering this good news.
“Some of the students have serious tracking skills, especially the thornlings.” Tabi shot her a glance. “My brother is one of the best trackers Ashthorn has ever brought forth, and if some of them can do only half of what he does, you’re fucked.”
Well, wasn’t that lovely?
“They could have found us during the night,” Lory pointed out, earning a headshake from Aiden.
“You had a good head start.” He chewed on his bread, then sipped from his water canteen. “But we were very lucky none of them found us. So, let’s get out of here before they can catch up.”
He started walking without waiting for agreement or even putting the direction they should be heading to a vote, and again, Lory wondered how well he knew these mountains.
“Any particular reason you’re headed south? Want to cross the mountains and disappear in Criulias?” Thal prompted as he fell into step beside the ice wielder.
Aiden shrugged. “Just trying to get as much distance between the camp and Lory as possible before next nightfall. I’m not eager to have Falcrest gut me for failing to protect his favorite student.”
Something dark and painful coiled in Lory’s stomach. Had Khayrivven made Aiden come here to watch over Lory like a bodyguard?
“Favorite is a bit of an understatement,” Thal commented. “I bet it will rip out his heart if we let her die out here. Naturally, gutting us would be the consequence.”
The darkness in Lory coiled tighter.
“Stop talking like that. He’s not going to kill any of you, even if I die out here—which, by the way, won’t be any of your fault.
They are hunting me, not you. Well, Aiden, perhaps, for his criminal past and besmirching the Ashthorn name with his general unworthiness”—she sighed at the unfairness—“and his loyalties to me, but apart from that, none of you need to be here. Khayrivven can’t make you—”
“First of all, he could. He’s our superior,” Tabi cut herself off before she could rage herself into a panic. “And second, we’re here because we chose to be.”
Thal and Aiden nodded their agreement, even though the gut feeling that it wasn’t the only reason Aiden had come didn’t leave Lory.
“Now move your asses. We have ground to cover. Keep your eyes and ears open and your weapons ready. Magic use only in emergencies—we don’t want to alert anyone with flashy tricks.”
When they reached the first cresting peak of the mountains three uneventful hours later, Lory almost believed that thirty-odd hours longer weren’t that bad at all.