Chapter 13 #2
His eyes found mine through the fire.
I looked away first. I wasn't sure why. Habit, maybe. Or something else I didn't want to examine.
“Get some rest,” Baxley said. “I'll take first watch.”
“I don't need—”
“Amarya.”
I closed my mouth. He was right. I knew he was.
I didn’t have a bedroll. I had a thick cloak, and I had learned long ago that comfort came at a price.
I lay down at the edge of the camp, close to the rock face, with my cloak pulled tight and my pack wedged under my head.
I stared at the sky and listened to the fire, the wind, and the soldiers’ low voices until they blurred together and stopped meaning anything.
I didn't sleep.
I waited until the camp quieted. Until the fire settled to coals and the watch changed, and Baxley's familiar silhouette settled at the northern edge of camp, his back to the rest of us as he kept watch.
I waited longer until I was sure they were asleep. The soldiers I didn’t care about; the mercenaries were the danger here.
Then I moved.
The snow crunched under my boots, but I'd learned years ago how to distribute my weight, how to make myself lighter than I was. I slipped between the rocks and into the dark beyond the camp's edge, and I kept moving until the smudge of firelight was distant enough. Far enough.
I crouched in the snow and breathed.
The cold bit immediately, deep and deliberate, the kind of cold Crystallese reserved for the deep watches of the night, when it thought no one was paying attention. I felt it in my fingers first, then in my jaw, then the slow creep into my chest.
My magic needed to be released. Too much had happened in too short a time for it to remain contained. I needed to release some of it, temper it, and tighten my control over it.
I dug my fingers through the snow until I felt the frozen earth beneath, and I pressed my fingertips flat against it as I drew the Glyph.
Warmth flickered upon contact. Subtle and hesitant, like a candle protected from the wind, neither summoned nor commanded, just recognized.
I knew it had been waiting.
I pushed against it slowly, just enough to push back the cold seeping into my skin. It traveled up my arm and spread through my chest, a quiet pulse of heat beneath my palms.
The warmth wrapped around me, and I felt a moment of guilt as the chill left my skin.
It would be so easy to do more.
The thought came the way it always came, steady, patient, almost reasonable.
I refused to let the thought become anything more than that.
One slip. One flare of warmth too bright in the darkness. That patch of firelight behind me would turn into a search party, and a search party would lead to questions, and questions would attract the kind of attention I couldn't afford. Not here and not with him watching.
I held what I had for three breaths, then four. Then I pulled back, smothering the warmth inside me until only the faintest ember remained. The cold returned immediately, sharper in its absence, but I was used to that. The price of restraint was always feeling the cold more intensely afterward.
The snow around my fingers had melted in a small, perfect circle. I quickly pressed fresh snow over it, smoothing the surface until nothing was visible.
I stood and turned back toward camp.
Nicco was standing six feet behind me.
My heart didn't stop. I want to say it didn't, and that was almost true. It might also be a lie.
I went still, the same way I always did when something unexpected happened, not out of fear but to assess. He was leaning against the rock face, arms crossed. He wasn’t looking at my hands. He was looking at my face.
“You're going to freeze,” he said.
“I needed air.”
He walked closer, close enough that I felt the cold clinging to his cloak. “There's air in camp, we’re outside, or had you failed to notice?”
“There are also eight soldiers in camp.”
His expression shifted. Not softening — nothing about him was soft — but something adjusted, recalibrated. He looked at me the way he'd looked at the road out of Skallfen, like he was noticing something, filing it away for later, deciding what it meant.
“Next time you need air,” he said, “tell Baxley.”
“Baxley's on watch.”
“Then tell me.”
I stared at him. “Why?”
He didn't answer immediately. He pushed off the rock and walked toward camp.
“Because,” he said, without turning around, “whatever's in Skallfen isn't the only thing north of here. And I'd rather know where you are.”
He disappeared between the rocks.
I stood in the dark for a long moment, cold pressing in from all sides, and I tried to figure out what to do with that. Whether it was a threat or something else entirely. I couldn't tell. With him, I was beginning to suspect I could never trust him.
Only a fool would, and I was no fool.
I walked toward camp.
While some things were easier not to examine too closely, others had a way of demanding to be seen anyway, whether you were ready or not.
I knew right there that I did not want Nicco to see me.
I pulled my cloak tighter and followed him back into the light.