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“No, it wasn’t. Someone is trying to slow us down, and it worked.” He motions with his head at my ankle. “Stopping to clean and dress the wound is what they were hoping for.”
“But I thought Demechnef wanted you alive. Why would they risk hurting us?”
He narrows his eyes in the distance. “I’m not convinced that they’re the only ones after us. The hole isn’t really their style. They will send soldiers, disarm us, and capture us. This is the work of an individual. Someone’s tracking us. I’m just surprised DaiSzek hasn’t caught them yet. That must mean they know we have him on our side and they’re keeping a safe distance.”
“Another enemy to add to the list. Swell.”
He shrugs with a cocky expression. “I’m not concerned in the slightest.”
I laugh. “Of course you’re not. Because an entire government trying to capture us was child’s play. Now add an assassin with a personal vendetta and expert tracking skills and we’ve got ourselves a semisatisfying game!”
“It’s like you really get me!” He squeezes the spot under my knee, and it tickles. I squirm and squeal to get him to stop.
We walk for a time that stretches out peacefully. My muscles ache from newborn bruises, so I’m grateful to be resting in his arms.
“We’re almost there,” he says as we maneuver through a wall of pine trees that veers off our current path we’ve been on. We get poked and scratched by the green needles and the sun finally blasts its way through as we exit the shelter of the Evergreen Dark Wood.
Finally emerging from the swamp of trees grown too close together, a small house. No, not just a small house, an approximately four-hundred-square-foot cottage. It includes a river rock chimney/foundation with half logs that serve as steps to the cedar seating platform.
It’s an oasis.
“Wowwwwwww!” comes blurting out of my mouth. “It’s so cute.”
He walks us up closer, a soft reflection of sunlight beaming through the windows. There are hand-hewn milled sidings and a log post-and-beam porch. It’s breathtaking. Aurick’s giant mansion seemed less like a home and more like a museum to me.
But this—this is a home.
“Do you think someone still lives here?” We stop inches from the front porch. “Do you think they’ll help us?”
He’s silent. Staring at the cottage blankly.
“Or… maybe it’s not wise to enlist help? I mean, we could get them killed,” I add.
“There’s no one here to help us. They’re already dead.” Cold, frosted glass hardens Dessin’s usually warm eyes.
“How do you know that?” I gawk back at the cottage.
He breathes in and out three times. “Because this is where Kane’s mother and little brother were killed.”
I gasp. Loudly. Way too loudly. It’s almost a shriek. I stiffen against his chest.
“Oh my god.” I look at him and then back at the property. “Oh my GOD!”
He moves his foot up toward the first step of the front porch. It hovers over that first step. It’s stone, unwilling to bend. He drops it back down. Laughs roughly.
“What?”
A frustrated sigh. “He’s not going to let me go inside.” He shakes his head.
“We really shouldn’t go in there,” I agree.
Dessin looks around the house, clearly inconvenienced and unwilling to discuss the war waging inside of the two minds at this moment. I’m okay with that though. I’m heartbroken for Kane. I can’t imagine his pain right now. I’m scared for what would come of his mental health if we stepped foot through those doors.
“There’s a small shed in the back. We can go in there.”
“Are you sure?! I think we just need to leave. You don’t even have to carry me anymore, I can hop!”
He glances at me from the corner of his eye while he walks us around the side of the house. “He’s not going to object. He knows you’re hurt. The shed is a safe option.”
