Chapter 21 A Glimmer of Trust
A GLIMMER OF TRUST
Gessa drifted up from total blackness, the first true sleep she had known in a decade. The first thing she registered was a sense of safety so foreign it took her mind a moment to catch up to it.
She opened her eyes. The morning was cold and grey, the air thick with a damp mist that deadened all sound. The fire had burned down to a pile of pale, smoking embers. She shifted, her body a landscape of dull aches, and turned her head.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Ky was awake, sitting a few feet away, but he wasn’t on watch.
His gaze wasn’t fixed on the menacing woods, but on her.
In the dim, pre-dawn light, with the hard mask of the instructor momentarily set aside, the weary lines around his eyes seemed to soften.
His gaze held a quiet, unguarded tenderness that was so alien, so different from any look a man had ever given her, that it stole the air from her lungs.
For a long, silent moment, they were not a recruit and an instructor, not a protector and his charge.
They were simply two people, caught in a quiet intimacy that had no place in their desperate situation.
The intensity became too much. He was the one to break it, his expression shuttering as the familiar walls slammed back into place. He cleared his throat, the sound rough in the quiet morning. He gestured with his chin toward a piece of cold rabbit wrapped in a large leaf.
“Eat,” he said, his voice now a command. “We need to get moving.”
Her heart hammered against her ribs from an emotion she couldn’t begin to name.
“I... I need a moment,” she mumbled, the excuse about necessary relief felt a flimsy shield for her turmoil.
She scrambled to her feet and slipped away into the misty woods, her mind reeling, not from fear, but from the bewildering warmth his unguarded look had ignited within her.
She found a secluded spot behind a thick, moss-covered tree, her body still trembling with a weakness that was now laced with a confusing new energy.
She leaned against the rough bark, her breath coming in short, unsteady gasps.
Tenderness. That was the only word for the look he had given her.
It wasn’t the pity of a kind stranger, nor the appraisal of a man looking at a woman.
It was something quieter, deeper. It was a look that had seen the broken edges of her and had not flinched away.
Polan’s so-called love had been a cage, his affection a prelude to a demand.
This felt... different. It felt like being seen.
The thought was so overwhelming, so terrifying in its fragile hope, that she had to press her hand to her mouth to stifle a small, choked sound.
She stayed there for another long moment, her heart a wild bird in her chest, before forcing the feeling down.
There was no time for this, not now. Survival.
That was all that mattered. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped back out into the clearing.
When she returned, Ky was already packed, which amounted to little more than dousing the fire and securing his knife.
As she took a step to follow him, her legs trembled, and the world tilted sickeningly.
She put a hand out to the rock wall to steady herself, frustrated by the weakness that clung to her like a shroud.
“You’re riding Night,” Ky stated, his voice flat, leaving no room for argument.
“No,” she protested immediately. “I can walk. I won’t be a burden.”
He turned to face her fully, his expression serious.
“This isn’t a discussion about burdens, Gessa.
It’s about facts. Creating a stable Ley tunnel is one of the most draining things a Wayfinder can do.
What you did... that wasn’t a tunnel. You tore a raw, unstable hole through reality.
The backlash should have killed you. Most Wayfinders would be unconscious for a week, if they woke up at all.
Your weakness isn’t a failing; it’s a testament to the fact that you have more raw power than anyone I’ve ever seen.
But it has a cost. And you will pay it by conserving what little strength you have left. ”
Humbled, and finally understanding the true severity of her exhaustion, she could only nod.
Ky turned to his soul-beast, who had been watching the exchange with unsettling intelligence.
They shared a look that needed no words.
Night let out a low, rumbling sigh of assent and took a step forward, deliberately lowering his powerful body to the ground, making himself less intimidating.
He was still a mountain of dark fur and muscle.
Ky helped her onto the massive lynx’s back, his hands firm and impersonal at her waist. She settled onto the warm, solid expanse of Night’s back.
The coat was impossibly thick, and she had to fight a sudden, childish urge to lean forward and bury her face in that deep, living velvet.
She was struck by the feeling of the powerful muscles moving beneath her and the strange, disorienting intimacy of the act.
As they traveled, Gessa, from her vantage point, had a clear view of Ky.
He winced with every step, his limp worsening on the uneven ground.
His pride prevented him from complaining, but she saw the truth of his struggle.
Guilt gnawed at her. Here she was, riding like a lady on a hunt, while he suffered with every step.
She was the reason they were in this mess, and he was the one paying the price.
The feeling of helplessness was infuriating.
They stopped for a brief rest by a stream that cut through the forest floor.
Ky sagged against a rock, his face pale and slick with a sweat that had nothing to do with the cool air.
He dragged himself to the water’s edge, splashing the icy liquid on his face before cupping his hands and drinking deeply, greedily.
Gessa slid off Night’s back and knelt beside him, doing the same.
The shock of the cold water was a welcome jolt to her system.
As she drank, her eyes scanned the stream bank, a habit from her own past. She spotted a patch of familiar plants with broad, velvety leaves.
She knew them. They wouldn’t cure anything, but mashed into a paste, they had a cooling, soothing quality that could ease the fire of an aching muscle.
Seeing him subtly trying to rub his injured thigh, she made a decision. She gathered a handful of the leaves, crushing them between two flat stones until they released a fragrant, green paste.
“Let me see your leg,” she said, her voice quiet but firm.
His head snapped up, his eyes flashing with a proud, defensive anger. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” she countered, her own voice surprising her with its steadiness. “I’m not a Healer, but I know herbs. This will help.”
He stared at her for a long moment, his pride warring with the clear, undeniable pain in his eyes. He finally gave a short, clipped nod of assent. The act of him relenting felt like a quiet earthquake.
“May I have your knife?” she asked, her voice steady.
Without a word, he pulled the blade from the sheath on his belt and offered it to her, hilt first. The gesture was an unspoken transfer of trust. She took it, the weight of it solid and serious in her hand, then reached down to the hem of her thin undershirt and cut two long strips from the bottom.
She handed the knife back to him, hilt first, and met his wary gaze.
“It’s the thigh, isn’t it?” she stated, her voice quiet but firm. “I saw how you were favoring it in the mud. The poultice needs to go on the muscle.”
With stiff, reluctant movements, he unlaced the side of his breeches and pushed the fabric aside.
He exposed the long, powerful muscle of his thigh, and the intimacy of the gesture hung in the air between them, sharp and sudden.
The skin was marred by a network of pale, silvery scars that radiated out from the main injury site higher on his leg—dangerously close to his groin.
It was a silent testament to an old agony.
Night lay a few feet away, a silent, powerful guardian, his blue eyes tracking her every move, not with menace, but with an unwavering scrutiny.
Kneeling before him, Gessa hesitated for only a heartbeat, her throat suddenly dry.
She forced herself to be clinical, focusing on the task.
She gently applied the cool paste, and the contact of her cool fingers on his warm, tense skin sent a jolt through them both.
The muscle beneath her hand clenched like stone, and she heard his breath catch in a hiss.
The sound, she realized with a jolt, was not just one of pain.
It was something else, something tighter and more raw, though she couldn’t begin to name it.
She kept her eyes down, her focus on the circular motion of her hand, pretending not to notice the sudden, charged tension in the air.
When the poultice was applied, she used the strips of her undershirt to bind it carefully in place.
It was the first time she had ever cared for him, the first time she had touched a man in years without fear, and the sheer novelty of it all made her own hands tremble.
She tied off the final knot and quickly drew her hands back, her heart hammering against her ribs.
Ky watched her for a beat, his expression unreadable, before he adjusted his clothing with a stiff, deliberate motion.
“Thank you,” he said, the words quiet and rough.
He pushed himself to his feet, his gaze already scanning the path ahead, the instructor once more in command. “We’ve lost enough light.”