Chapter 19 #2
And then Baxley did what both of us had quietly decided not to do. And that just sat wrong. The guilt weighed me down. Not because I thought Baxley's choice was right, but because I wasn't sure anymore that mine had been right.
I turned northward and resumed walking. I could dissect it in my mind a hundred different ways, but it would make no difference. I couldn’t change the past, and agonizing over it wasn’t going to change it either.
I was still thinking about it when my foot found the uneven ground beneath the snow — a rock, or a root, something that shifted unexpectedly — and I stumbled.
Not badly. Just enough to break my rhythm, one hand going out automatically to catch my balance, fingers meeting snow.
The magic came instinctively.
Not summoned, just there, reflexive as a flinch, a pulse of heat that spread from my palm into the ground beneath me and radiated outward in a small, quiet circle before I caught it and drew it back inside me.
I straightened. Looked at my hand in disbelief.
The snow on my glove had melted, and the ground where I had fallen was dark and wet but already beginning to refreeze in the cold air.
I looked up.
Nicco was watching me from the front of the group, about twenty feet away. He hadn't moved. Hadn't said a word. His eyes were level and unreadable, and they stayed on me for exactly three seconds before he turned his head left and kept scouting the tundra.
I couldn’t move. My body was still. My magic was leaking out of me without the aid of a glyph. What in the shades was happening?
The sound of the soldiers grew closer, and I stepped forward, my sweep wide as I turned, covering the area with snow, checking to ensure there was no evidence of my mistake. I walked north, and I did not look at my hand again.
Some things were better not examined too closely. I said it often, and I was becoming less and less sure I believed it.
“Amarya!”
I turned back, a knot in my stomach at what I would face, but it was only Captain Marson.
“Captain?”
“How much longer before we can rest? The men are tired.”
Or he was tired and didn’t want to admit it. There was a small copse of trees about a league ahead, and I pointed at them. “Shelter.”
The captain nodded, and we resumed our trek.
The trees offered little shelter. They were sparse, and like all our trees in Crystallese, they never flowered. They were also the unofficial boundary in Crystallese I’d never crossed.
This was the farthest north I’d ever gone. As I approached, I scanned ahead of me.
North of here was nothing. Absolutely nothing. No people. Only mountains, snow, ice, and whatever creature lived here and could survive. There weren’t many.
I looked over my shoulder and saw Nicco behind me. When did he get so close?
“Startle you, bunny?”
It was the first words he’d said to me for the better part of a day, and it rankled me that his tone was as condescending as his look.
“Fuck off.”
Nicco laughed.
Nicco laughed.
And my mouth hung open in shock. “You’re laughing?”
He patted me on the shoulder as he walked past. “Don’t look so startled, Amarya, it happens.”
It did? When?
I turned and followed him when the others joined us, and I got more than one look, as if assessing whether I was okay.
The men made quick work of setting up a small campsite.
They had adapted to the conditions well over the last while.
Baxley and Larana circled the trees twice to ensure there were no surprises hidden among them, although since I could see through the gaps in the trees, I thought it was a waste of energy.
I packed my tin mug full of snow and waited for my turn to hold it over the fire. Armed with lukewarm, melting water, my pack, and a headache, I sat apart from the others, as I was wont to do.
When Baxley and Larana joined us, they sat with Nicco as they were wont to do.
I pulled my hood low over my eyes. The glare from the gray sky and the sparkling white snow was abusively bright today. I was also hiding the fact that I was observing my companions.
Twice now, my magic had come out, with no need for Glyph magic. Holding my mug to my lips, I took a sip and pushed a tiny trickle toward my fingertips.
“Shit!” I dropped my mug as the metal turned burning hot. I scooped it out of the snow quickly, my eyes wide as the snow hissed.
“Amarya?” Captain Marson called.
“I think I nodded off,” I called back, giving a half shrug. “Didn’t mean to startle anyone.”
“Your water has melted the snow,” someone piped up.
“I know.” I forced a chuckle. “Must have stood by the fire too long. Careless.”
A few half-hearted comments followed, and I did my best to appear normal, though all the while I wanted to demand what was going on.
Magic didn’t behave like this.
It was to be commanded.
Not free to act as it wished.
I looked down at my mug, almost sure it would be glowing red like molten metal, but a simple tin mug looked back at me.
A large hand descended in front of me, and I knocked it away, scooping my mug out of the snow before he could.
I looked up at Nicco.
“I’ve got it.”
Brown eyes that promised kindness and delivered none held mine. “Do you?” he asked, and I was sure he was asking more than whether I could hold a mug.
“I do.” I curled my arm inward, the mug at my chest, and felt relieved it was only slightly warm. Thank the gods for freezing snow. “I nodded off.”
“Of course.” His smile held no humor. “You had a busy night.”
He walked away before I could remind him I had not slept in Vorn’s bed.
“The trailfinder needs a nap,” he told everyone, his tone mocking. “She’s not quite herself.”
“I—”
“Don’t worry, bunny,” he said, turning back, his eyes cold. “We’ll keep watch while you catch up on your sleep.”
Gods, I really didn’t like that man.