Chapter Twenty-Six
“How long,” I croak, more a demand than a question. Relief floods Kaelen’s face. “You’re back.”
I brace myself for recrimination, but he sweeps me up off the ground and into his arms, then holds me so tightly I start to cough.
“Here. Take some water.” He lets me go and scoops up a chunk of wood from the ground near the fire. It has a rough bowl whittled into it, filled with water, and I drink.
So thirsty. Parched.
“How long?” I try to make it a question. “The Zhagarn?”
“No sign of them or the Fell. Or our company, unfortunately.” A shadow crosses behind his eyes. “We landed here two mornings ago. So, we’ve been here for two full days and nights. It’s the third dawn. We need to go find out what happened to our people.”
“Sorry,” I manage, my throat and mouth so dry. My voice sounds rusty. This must have been bad enough that I didn’t talk.
Couldn’t talk.
“I tried.” I look down at my feet. “I couldn’t.”
“The Gray Mind. I know. Soli, I know.”
Bern, who’s been shuffling his feet next to us, nudges Kaelen aside and hugs me. “I’m so glad you’re back,” he says fervently. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
I nod but step away. “Didn’t do much. Sorry.”
“You saved my life,” he says seriously, and I flinch away from the naked gratitude in his eyes. “You saved both of us.”
“No. Kaelen did that. I just … blocked the rain.”
Kaelen puts his hands on my shoulders. “You did far more than that. If you hadn’t warmed us up, we might have frozen. And you bandaged our wounds, so we didn’t bleed to death.”
“Sorry I … went away.” I can’t look at him. At either of them. They’re so brave, and I fell down into Gray Mind after the goddess healed us.
“We tried to help. To talk to you, so you’d know you weren’t alone,” Kaelen says, pained frustration beneath his even tone.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, not knowing what else to say. Nobody but Trick ever cared when or even whether I came back, except in a general “who will scrub the floors if she doesn’t snap out of it” way.
But I’m not back. Not fully. When I come out of a bout of Gray Mind, it’s not a giant leap from one state of being to the next.
Instead, it’s a slow, plodding climb, step by tiring step, back into the light.
Not the light of day, although seeing the sun is better than waking up to more rain.
No, seeing the light break through the clouds of gray in my mind.
Cut through the fog.
Bring me a tiny sliver of hope that maybe the next time won’t be so bad … or that there won’t be a next time.
There’s always a next time.
But the only way to reach the other side is to make it through the horrible parts in the middle, as I once read in an ancient scroll. Well, it was more “goeth through that which plagueth you” language, but that’s what it meant.
The only way out is through. One goddess-bedamned step after another.
Pity that through is the hardest part.
“You’ll have to tell me what we need to do,” I say quietly. “It … it usually takes me a while to be fully functional again.”
His dark-purple eyes search my face, and I wonder how bad I look. My skin feels too tight, so I know I’m dehydrated. I’ve eaten nothing in days.
None of us look fresh, to be fair. Bern’s plain garb is a wrinkled mess of dirt and bloodstains. Kaelen’s shirt and pants are the same. I look down at myself and realize my boots are off.
“I thought you’d be more comfortable without them,” Kaelen says. “I dried your socks by the fire, too, before I put them back on your feet.”
I’m still too numb to feel humiliation sear through me like it would any other time, so I guess that’s something to be thankful for.
“Is there food?” I croak out the words.
“All the fish you can eat,” Bern crows. “And apples, too!”
“The fish in the river near the bank practically jumped into our hands,” Kaelen says wryly. “Not sure if the goddess had anything to do with that or not, but we’ve kept your fire going and eaten our fill of roasted fish.”
After I eat as much as I can fit into my shrunken stomach, drinking cup after cup of water, we put out the fire and prepare to head out.
I’m not nothing, I remind myself fiercely, not realizing I said it out loud until they look at me.
“No, you’re definitely not,” Bern says hotly.
“Thanks to Sergeant Neville, I made a fire, and I kept both of you as warm as I could, even during the hours-long rainstorm on that first day.” I’m not asking for praise; it’s more that I’m reminding myself just how capable I really am.
“Then I made another fire. I bandaged our injuries and stayed awake, watching for danger. I’m not nothing, even if I am a nobody, and I never will be nothing again. ”
The respect I see in Kaelen’s eyes pulls me another step up from the Gray, but I realize I must sound like I’ m boasting. “I know it’s not much. And then I fell … asleep. I didn’t mean to. I was just so tired, Kaelen. Some hero I am, right?”
I try to smile. “Captain Wavedancer would be ashamed of me.”
He crosses the short distance between us and touches my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. “You were amazing. Few people could have kept it together like you did, especially after what we’d been through. Wounded yourself, and with two injured companions to deal with.”
“Anyone could have—”
“No. Believe me. Anyone could not. And I know those books. I read them to Karrina. You, Solitude Grace, would kick Wynona Wavedancer’s ass.”
Bern starts clapping. “Definitely!” Then he looks back and forth between us, grinning, before walking out of the clearing.
Kaelen bends toward me. I’m still in shock over what he said about Wynona Wavedancer, but I snap out of it and cover my mouth with my hand in case he tries to kiss me. “Kaelen! I have horrible breath.”
He presses his lips to my neck, instead, and inhales deeply. Then he kisses the curve where my neck meets my shoulder, and there’s a tiny sting that makes me jump.
“Did you bite me?”
He blinks at me, his mouth falling open, and then we both start laughing. A clean, refreshing laughter that drives more of the fog, fear, and hardship from my mind.
“Let’s go, before Bern leaves us behind,” I say. “And I feel like this shouldn’t need saying, but don’t bite me!”
“I have no idea what that was about.” He shakes his head, looking so bewildered I want to stroke his cheek.
“The farther we get from Pallanhold, or the closer we are to Valourian, something in me is … changing. Turning primal. Feral, almost. Especially about you. I want to—No. I need to protect you. To keep you close. I don’t know if it’s Corvynne’s influence?
Maybe I’m susceptible to her powers. But I’ll fight it. I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”
“I was never afraid of you,” I tell him honestly. “I just wonder which Kaelen I’ll be dealing with sometimes.”
“I’ll work on it.” Kaelen holds out his hand, and I place mine in his.
Then we follow Bern, walking north.
“We’re going to miss that fire,” I say when the first icy finger of wind slices through us the minute we’re out of the sheltering overhang of the Barrows. I glance back at what I now know are the tombs of giants and their very restless spirits. “I wish we could go back and see if our people …”
“I know.” Kaelen kicks a tree branch out of our way. “But I have to believe that if they could get to us, they would have. Maybe they were injured, too, and had to rush to find a village. With the horses, they’d have been moving much faster than we were.”
“And we’re at least two days behind, because of me,” I say bitterly. “I’m so—”
“If you apologize again, I’m going to make you listen to me sing all the way to Valourian,” Kaelen threatens, and his humor breaks through my remorse.
After that, the three of us settle into an easy pace and light conversation for the next few hours, which makes the journey easier to bear. If my conversation trails off into silence periodically, Kaelen is kind enough not to mention it.
I suddenly realize we’re in Khyrrus. I’m actually in a different kingdom for the first time in my life. I inhale the fresh, crisp air and look around with curiosity. “I’ve never been out of Pyrrh before. Never out of Pallanhold. It’s beautiful here.”
He looks around, noticing the gentle hills and the trees dressed in their red-and-gold harvesttime finery. “It is. It looks like southern Valourian.”
“You must miss it. Home.” He wears his sorrow on his skin when he speaks of his lost home—eyes darkening and jaw clenched.
“I do. Rather, I miss Valourian as it was. I’m sure much of it is destroyed now, after ten years of Zhagarn rule,” he says bitterly.
After we scramble up a slight hill, Kaelen slants me a long, slow look.
“It’s funny how you can be so beautiful in dirty clothes, with your hair wild around your face. Although I admit I like what you’ve done with your shirt,” he murmurs, glancing down at my midriff, bared from the strips I tore off to use as bandages.
I feel my cheeks heat and decide to pretend I didn’t hear him, because I can’t think of a single thing to say. “Let’s speed up. The sooner we find a village, the sooner we might hear word of our friends. And get food. If you still have any coin?”
He nods and pulls a small leather bag from his pocket. “Yes. This in my pocket, more in my boot, some hidden in the wagon. We have plenty for food and rooms at an inn.”
“And a bath?” Please, please let him say yes.
“And a bath.” There’s a wicked light in his eyes. “Maybe you’ll let me wash your back.”
“Kaelen!”
Before he can say anything else to make me blush even harder, Bern reaches the top of the hill and turns to shout back at us. “Kaelen! Soli! We found a village!”
According to a painted sign nailed to a wooden post, we’ve reached Merrion, and we can see at a glance the place has had its own troubles. We follow the road through fields of scorched crops toward the town and soon encounter villagers.