Chapter 78 Taera
Taera
I’m not used to wearing a sandscarf anymore, and I stupidly leave it back in the hut.
The dry, dusty air burns my throat as I dash down the road, eliciting strange looks from anyone hurrying home.
I don’t care. I have to reach Nikolai in time.
I imagine what the Taera from a month ago would think of me now and laugh breathlessly.
Let him have waited.
Let him not have lied.
My legs carry me down the sandy shortcut, which is longer than I remember, to where I first saw him. It’s a long sprint—several minutes. My legs burn when I pass the last stub of a tree. Wheezing, I see Nikolai.
I cry out in relief and stumble the last steps into his arms.
“What’s wrong?” Nikolai scans the path even as his arms wrap around me. He can sense my desperation, my fear, I’m sure of it. The feel of him, solid, nearly undoes me.
“You waited,” I manage, gulping air. I’m sticky with a sheen of sweat that’s already smeared with silt, but I made it to him.
“I said I would.”
“You told the truth.” I hug him, and after a moment of stiffness, he melts into our embrace. Magic skips across my skin, sparkling into him.
“I did,” he says. He smells like everything good about the desert. But he pulls away too soon. “It’s already after sundown. If I don’t leave soon, the Halls won’t appear.”
“Of course,” I say.
“Goodbye, Taera.” His voice is rough.
He turns. The pale wood of the carriage appears, opening to him, and he steps up.
“Nikolai!”
He turns back. “Taera?”
“I want to go with you.”
His lips part as he stares back at me. As if he hasn’t heard me correctly. I’m unable to breathe as his brow furrows, his eyes clouding.
“You—”
“I want to return to the Halls of Glass,” I say again. My chest tightens. I didn’t consider he might not take me with him. What if this decision belongs to him, not me?
“It’s not safe,” he growls, but he doesn’t close the door.
“I know.” I jog after him, reaching out a hand. Nikolai extends his own gloved hand before flinching and retreating. He clenches his fingers around the doorframe instead. Something cracks inside me.
I grab both sides of the door, stepping up on my own. I slip past him, take a seat on the bench I consider to be mine.
Nikolai stares at me, his eyes wide and wild, like he’s debating either throwing me out of the compartment or grabbing me and kissing me. Whatever storms churn within him are still a mystery to me. But now we have time to unravel them.
The door snaps shut of its own accord, sealing us inside. The carriage jolts forward, onto the sand.
I smile, giving myself over to the desert.
I’m going back.