Chapter 5
LUALHATI
By the time we got the wagon halfway unloaded into the saloon so that I had somewhere to sit and Warden Hallum’s big, horned, alien-horse-looking animals called shuldu wouldn’t get overwhelmed by the weight, the sun was setting.
It seemed to grow in size, ballooning and bright orange, the cloudless sky steeped in shades of translucent violet and rose.
It turned the snow pale pink, the shadows cast by the trees, buildings, various fences, and posts, now the colour of rich red velvet cake.
I leaned out of the wagon, waving at Tasha and the others who stood watching from the saloon as Warden Hallum led us away.
It was a bit of a bumpy ride, but I didn’t mind.
It was really setting in that I was actually here now.
And something about the watercolour hush of the sunset in this quiet place, that held-breath anticipation of night coming, made my chest tighten with a tingly sort of longing.
I hadn’t seen a real sunset in ages. Sometimes, I’d go to one of the Elora Station simulators to pretend I was outside.
But it was never the same. Never the same as this colour, this flush, this blush.
And it never had this crisp, clean, snow-chilled air to breathe in.
Usually, I chose to simulate hot destinations – beaches and rainforests.
There was something nearly magical about this slow, steady wagon ride through the prickling-cold sunset.
The sun was behind us, which made it feel like we were driving right into the oncoming night.
Ahead, the sky was giving up its warmth, breathing indigo instead.
Three moons rose, and the brightest stars I’d ever seen winked into existence.
Maybe it was silly, but it felt as if they were there to welcome me.
“Beautiful,” I whispered, hugging myself with pleasure. I knew this place wouldn’t be perfect. And my own life certainly wasn’t. But this moment, this sky, this rhythmic roll of the wagon, could be. Just for now.
“Pardon?”
Warden Hallum’s stern voice ever-so-slightly deflated the poetic beauty of the moment.
Dark fell rapidly around us, but I could see him clearly enough beneath the silvered moonlight.
Except for his face. He was still wearing that broad-brimmed hat with the badge on it, and it cast the hard lines of his features into meaningless shadow.
He was seated on the front bench of the wagon, holding the reins for his two big shuldu in his hands.
Unlike where I sat now, he wasn’t protected by the sides or roof of the wagon.
Snow began to fall just then, gentle as tiny drifting feathers, dusting his hat and shoulders.
“I said, ‘Beautiful!’” I repeated. “It’s beautiful here.”
He gave a stiff grunt in response to this. Somehow, the wordless sound conveyed meaning to me anyway. It was a grunt that said, Really? Hadn’t noticed. Glad you’re enjoying the scenic ride, but how about you just let me focus on getting us to where we’re going.
He did say he’d wanted to arrive before it got dark. Well, it was just about fully night now. And we still hadn’t arrived at our destination.
I wasn’t bothered by it. But I didn’t think Warden Hallum was the sort of guy who tolerated things like mistakes or lateness. Especially in himself.
“Beautiful but cold!” I added on a whisper to myself, rubbing my hands together.
It had been cold earlier, sure. But it had been sunny, and I’d been in and out of the warm saloon, so the air hadn’t had time to really bite me.
I was just trying to see if I had secret, dormant psychic powers or X-ray vision to tell me which box beside me had things like gloves and hats in it when the wagon stopped.
“Oh!” Forget the boxes. “Are we here?”
“Here?” Warden Hallum twisted to look at me from the open front bench of the wagon. “We can never be anywhere but here.”
“I mean, are we there yet,” I clarified, fighting a somewhat exasperated smile at his literal interpretation of my words. “At the station where I’ll be staying.”
“No,” he replied. He faced forward once more, but didn’t seem to pick the reins back up. His hands busied themselves in front of his body, doing something I couldn’t see. I frowned at his tense back.
What the heck was he up to?
My skin prickled with new goosebumps that weren’t from the cold.
I mean, I didn’t exactly think this starchy warden I’d been assigned to, the one responsible for overseeing the actual convicted murderers here, would go all serial killer on me now.
But a girl could never be too sure. Slowly, holding my breath, I unzipped the side of one of my tall leather boots and pulled it off.
The spiky heel of it was the only weapon I had at hand. It would have to do.
In a sudden movement, Warden Hallum spun around to face me on the bench. Then he froze. I couldn’t see his eyes beneath the dark brim of his hat, but I could sense where they had ended up.
“Why are you holding your boot?”
My toes curled awkwardly in my exposed sock.
I’d gone with glamourous polish for my look today – hair, makeup, beautiful and expensive clothes.
But the socks didn’t quite fit the rest of the look.
They were an old pair my lola had given me.
Bright pink, with little happy cartoon faces and fruits all over them.
“Well, why have we stopped?” I asked, as if that were somehow a reasonable answer to the question of why I’d removed my boot in the sub-zero temperatures. My breath spiralled visibly out of my mouth. My toes screamed at me to stop being stupid and put my boot back on.
I didn’t. Not yet. Not until I knew what this weirdo warden was up to.
I was glad for it, too, because he then stood without warning, towering.
I raised the boot in front of my chest, holding it by the sole and aiming the heel at him like a stunner.
Meanwhile, he actually did have a real stunner on his belt.
Such a thing would have me unconscious before I even knew what hit me.
He made no move to touch it, though. I only noticed then that his shirt was halfway undone, and he was making short work of the rest of the buttons.
“You said you were cold,” he replied.
The words filtered into my head very, very slowly. So slowly I didn’t actually make any sense of them. The reason for this new and very concerning onset of soup-brain?
Abs. Lots of them. Right in front of my gawking face.
Now it was my turn to say, “Pardon?”
“You said you were cold,” he repeated.
Oh, lordy. He had the whole fucking shirt off now.
“Yes!” I squawked. “I’m cold. Because it’s cold out here. So why are you getting naked?!”
He paused in his movements. Still shirtless. Still rippling with thousands of abs. Millions of them. Where did he get them all? And where did my brain go?
“You and I,” he said, his voice a low growl, “have very different definitions of the word ‘naked.’”
I scrambled to catch the shirt he then tossed at me, dropping my boot in the process. It landed with a dull thud on the cold wood.
“Put that on,” he said. Despite his earlier confirmation that I wasn’t under his command, his words were laced with unmistakable authority.
And they were laced tight. Just like the rest of him.
“It should fit over your coat. Or you can wear it in your lap like a blanket. Put your hands beneath it to keep them warm.”
The man wanted me to use the heat generated by his billions of abs to keep my fingers from falling off.
Well, that was better than deciding to kill me out here and bury my body where no one would ever find it, I supposed.
“And put your boot back on,” he said – a bit curtly, I couldn’t help but notice. He picked up the reins once more, every muscle in his back and shoulders bunching and shifting with the movement.
“What about you?” I held the shirt awkwardly in front of me. It felt weirdly pervy to use it while it was still warm from Warden Hallum’s body. I waited for it to get nice and impersonally cold. Even if I did use it, it would only be to trap my own body heat, not his.
It felt nice on my hands though. Damnit.
“What about me?” he asked. The wagon started up once more.
“Won’t you be cold?”
“No,” he said at once. “I only wear it because it is part of my uniform. We are not affected by the cold weather the way humans are. You noticed Rivven without a shirt earlier, I presume?”
“Of course I noticed!” I said, slightly offended he thought I would have missed a detail like that.
Although, to be fair, I hadn’t been struck with a sadly terminal case of missing-brain-itis by Rivven’s bare physique the way I just had been by Warden Hallum’s.
Rivven’s lack of shirt hadn’t really registered as anything significant, especially since we had spent most of the time inside the cozy saloon.
“There you have it, then.” His response was certain, final. As if that explained everything.
“I guess I do,” I murmured. The garment was cool now, kissed by the night air. I laid it over my lap, putting my bare hands beneath it. It made quite a big difference. “Thank you.”
He didn’t respond to that, instead keeping his focus ahead.
And I kept my focus on him. Without his shirt, the incredible rigidity of his posture was even more apparent.
His spine was an unflinching, straight post, the kind you’d trust to hold up a whole house.
His muscles, though, were a different story.
I watched them ripple and stretch anytime he moved, all fluid power around the unyielding frame of his bones.
Frankly, his body was an incredible thing to watch at work.