Chapter Ten
I bolted up with a gasp as I was suddenly pulled from the whispering void.
As I tried to catch my breath, I glanced down to make sure Ellyn and Karrida were okay, and when I saw them sleepily frown from the sudden disturbance, I shot out of bed to check on the rest of the farm.
I’d had enough premonitions in my dreams not to underestimate the meaning of what happened last night. That pitch-black prison had kept me there for a reason, and if Drakar and Shaar had forced me into it, then it was a warning.
I scrambled to put some clothes on before I raced through the rest of the house. Nothing seemed out of place as I barreled through the quiet rooms, and I earned a grumpy growl from Fang as I rushed through the living room and out the front door.
The shard had been residing in the barn, so I raced there first, only to find it floating beside a lump of hay a few of my cows were munching on. It drifted closer as I entered with a flushed face and a heaving chest, but I held my hand out to stop it.
“Is… anything amiss?” I panted. “Any unwanted visitors? Any sign of… well, anything?”
The shard remained still and silent, so I took that as a no.
Relief flooded through me, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling that the dream had been a warning.
“Did you show me what I heard last night in my dream?” I asked the purple crystal, only to be met with silence again.
The shard had been the one to show me almost every premonition I’d had. That meant I’d either conjured up the hateful whisperings of Drakar and Shaar, or they had somehow infiltrated my head.
I hoped it was the former and not the latter, but I couldn’t let my guard down, and I definitely wasn’t going to underestimate those two assholes.
“There’s king’s soldiers skulking around town,” I informed the shard after I finally caught my breath. “They’re looking for you, so you need to stay hidden in here at all times.”
The shard finally thrummed. It was a hot, angry pulse, but I didn’t back down.
“I don’t care if I’m in danger, you cannot show yourself around them,” I warned. “If you do, they’ll take you back to the king, and you’ll probably be destroyed.”
The shard stilled at that, and it lowered several feet in the air, as if my words had stunned it.
“Look, I don’t like keeping you cooped up in here anymore than you do,” I admitted. “But this is for the best. I don’t want you to be taken away from me, and I definitely don’t want you to be destroyed.”
The shard let out another thrum, but this time it was lower-pitched, like a sad whine.
“That hay bale will have to do for now,” I said as I pointed to the mound of straw. “You could maybe even get into the silo if you had to. But I wouldn’t recommend flying away from the farm if those guys show up. Who knows what’s waiting for you in the forest?”
The shard hummed again and sank a little lower to the ground before it floated toward the hay bale, which would be its sad, depressing, new home.
I sighed in defeat and glanced over at the animals cooped up in the barn one more time before I shut and locked the door behind me.
Ellyn and Karrida were standing on the porch with concerned frowns on their faces, and I immediately felt a pang of guilt at barging out of the house so frantically without an explanation.
“Is everything alright?” Karrida asked as she clung to the porch railing.
“Was it the shard?” Ellyn added as she rested a hand on the half-dwarf’s shoulder.
“No, I just… had a bad dream,” I admitted as I climbed the steps. “I thought Drakar or Shaar were here.”
“The shard showed you the dream?” Ellyn’s bright blue eyes widened like saucers.
“No, I think it was just my own imagination,” I said as I pulled them both against my chest. “I hope so, at least.”
“What happened in the dream?” Karrida asked as she wrapped her arms around my waist.
“At first, there was just a black void,” I recalled with a frown. “But then I heard my name being whispered by Drakar and Shaar.”
“That sounds frightening,” Ellyn said as she rubbed her palm against my chest. “No wonder you shot out of bed.”
“I should have let you know,” I said. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Ellyn reassured me. “It’s good that you checked the farm.”
“I can’t sense anything here that shouldn’t be,” Karrida added. “We’re safe.”
“Yeah.” I sighed and buried my face in Ellyn’s hair. “For now.”
“Hey, not to change the subject or anything, but there’s something I noticed in the spare room,” the ginger-haired woman said as she pulled out of my grip and looked at Ellyn and me with a knowing smile. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
All of the worry and concern I’d had about my dream trickled away as I thought about the nursery we’d started building in the spare room. Ellyn blushed as I glanced at her, and she looked at Karrida with a shy smile.
“We… might be trying to have a baby,” the pale-haired elf confessed. “Very hard.”
“That’s amazing!” Karrida gasped and held her hands to her heart. “I can’t believe you two have kept that a secret!”
“Well, it’s a recent decision.” I chuckled. “We’ve started on the nursery, but there’s still a lot we need to do.”
“Like what?” Karrida asked as she bounced on her toes. “Can I help?”
“Well, we need to get a mattress for the crib, as well as some other bits for the baby,” I said. “I was thinking Midhallow would be the perfect place to shop. With that attack yesterday, I doubt Shaar is going to strike again soon. So, now’s the opportune moment.”
I was still a little shaken by my dream, but I refused to live in fear and let Drakar win.
“What about Karrida’s pull?” Ellyn asked and reminded me why the half-dwarf had followed us home in the first place. “Should we investigate that first?”
“The pull can wait,” Karrida said with a bat of her hand. “It’s still there, and from what I can tell, it’s not moving.”
“So… it could be something stationary?” I asked. “Can you even sense something like that?”
“I can sense all sorts of things.” Karrida shrugged. “And whatever’s out there hasn’t moved an inch.”
“Then maybe we can go to Midhallow today?” Ellyn suggested. “You can drop off the goat cheese to Josee on our way out.”
“And make up a few crates full for Thror,” I agreed before my brow furrowed. “Although, making the trip is going to be risky.”
“We can manage,” Karrida said as she confidently squared her shoulders and tilted her chin up.
“You’re coming with us, huh?” I smirked.
“All the men building the watchtower don’t take me seriously,” Karrida said with an adorable pout. “I’m bored of just standing there while they hammer away. Consider me your hired muscle.”
Ellyn and I both laughed at her declaration, and the frown that scrunched up Karrida’s face was possibly one of the cutest things I’d ever seen.
“Hey! What’s so funny about that?” she demanded with a stomp of her bare foot against the wooden porch.
“Nothing, nothing!” I raised my hands in surrender. “It’s just… you’re five feet nothing.”
“But I can use a sword now!” Karrida pouted and crossed her arms like a petulant child.
“I know you can,” I soothed, followed by a soft kiss on her forehead. “Come on, Muscle. Let’s get changed.”
“I’ll get the goat cheese prepared,” Ellyn said as we all headed back inside. “Can you lay my armor out for me?”
“Sure thing,” I said as I steered Karrida back toward the bedroom. “We can pick Karrida’s up on the way through town.”
“Hopefully, my father will already be working on the wall so he won’t protest,” the half-dwarf snorted. “Otherwise, you’ll have to convince him to let me come with you.”
“I’m sure I can butter him up,” I joked. “And if not, you’ll just have to be hired muscle for the wall.”
“I’d rather not.” Karrida scrunched up her freckled nose and shook her head like a wet dog. “Not with the new watchful eyes burning holes in the back of my head.”
“Have the soldiers been watching you closely?” I asked as my grip inadvertently tightened on her shoulder.
Karrida paused in the doorway of my bedroom and shrugged.
“One of them stopped me when I looked for you in the inn before you and Ellyn arrived,” she said.
“I had a feeling that’s where you two were headed, and they asked me what I knew about the recent attacks.
They also mentioned the patched cracks in the cobblestone, but I told them they were formed when the wall appeared. ”
“Good, that’s good,” I sighed and relaxed my grip on her. “If they ask you any more questions, tell them to piss off.”
“I might word it a little more kindly than that, but I will.” The ginger-haired woman giggled and leaned up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to my cheek. “I won’t let them find out about the shard, Noah. You have my word.”
“And I never questioned it,” I said with a smile. “But I don’t want you feeling like you’ve got eyes on your back.”
“We all do now,” Karrida said as she jumped onto the bed and threw herself against the covers. “That’s just how it’s going to be until the King’s Hands leave.”
I hated that she was right with every fiber of my being, but there was no way we could make them leave. Gladewood had officially been put under the microscope, and we were going to have to put on our best performance in order to get out of this unscathed and unrobbed.
While Karrida lounged on the bed, I slipped into my clothes for the day. I wanted to be well-protected in case we did encounter anyone on the road to Midhallow, so I dressed in my Mystican attire. That consisted of loose brown pants, a long white-sleeved shirt, and my chest armor and vambraces.
I also pulled on my pair of big brown leather boots that hugged my calves, and then I attached my gun holster and sword sheath to my belt. It had been pretty chilly when I’d run outside like a madman earlier, so I picked out a fleece-lined jacket to wear over the top of my armor.