Something like a chest.
I wrenched myself away, twisting to see what I’d bumped into, and managed to make out the edge of a shoulder and elbow as two arms wrapped around my waist.
Shock opened my mouth.
But no sound came out.
52
Selena
Eleven days on horseback. The knife strapped to my calf began to rub my leg raw, but I refused to take it off.
The Riveans had stopped trying to make conversation with me on day three. I knew simple words in their tongue. Day, night, food, drink, sleep, fire. If I’d wanted to, I could have trained my ear for more in the time I spent with them. But my mind was saturated with other things, too absorbed for my usual thirst for learning.
I’d thought that riding out of Calder would lift a weight from my shoulders. And in some ways, it had, though I couldn’t shake the grit in my teeth when a voice whispered in my mind that I’d abandoned Cebrinne—even if it’s what she’d spent over a year asking for. I’d thought that sneaking from Thaan’s grasp might help me finally breathe, might loosen the sensation of walking everywhere with a chain fastened around an ankle, a shadow looming over my shoulder.
But each hour I grew closer to the mines, worry spread through my stomach, swirling like silt, muddying my belly in swamps of nausea.
Drones can’t cordae.
Maybe not. But they could fall in love.
I was certain of it.
As certain as I’d been before Pheolix had even kissed me. I just hadn’t realized it until Thaan killed him.
A daily pendulum swung in my head. I missed Cebrinne. I hoped for Pheolix. I missed Pheolix. I hoped for Cebrinne. Miss, hope. Cebrinne, Pheolix. Swing, swing, swing.
When the leader of our troupe rode beside me to point at the fork in the road where our paths separated, the nerves in my belly both dissipated and doubled. I’d reached Winterlight.
I was here.
I washere.
I watched them ride on, rooted next to the weathered sign boasting Winterlight’s name, until their last horse turned through the trees. Then clicked my tongue, slowly making my way toward town. In the center of my lap, my fingers laced nervously through the leather reins.
I knew drones could fall in love.
I just hoped they could forgive as well.
“Pheolix?” the miner asked. His frown deepened as he considered the name, rock-dust stuck to the sweat of his brow in lines of sludge. I wondered if Pheolix would look the same when I found him.
As though the man felt my eyes, he lifted a shoulder, wiping half of his face with his shirt. The grime merely smeared into his ear and neck. “Don’t know that I’ve met a Pheolix.”
I nodded, smiling though my heart deflated. “I’llkeep asking.”
I did.
I combed the entrance to the mines first, asking every man who went in and came out. “He’s a few years older than me,” I said whenever someone paused to turn the name over in their head. “Rusty brown hair. Gray eyes. Tattoos down his sides.” But they finally shook their head, offering me luck and apologies as they wandered away.
My search led me away from the mines and into town. Pheolix had spent a decade here. Surely, someone should have recognized his name. I asked the local barmaid, the innkeeper, the countless Calderian rangers who trekked the perimeter of the mountains all the way to the northern gate.
No one knew who Pheolix was.
Sunset found me back in Winterlight, alone in the tavern, a pint of ale untouched on the table before me. Beads of moisture rolled down the misty glass as I watched in silence, my mind every bit as detached as the condensation was to the amber liquid inside.
People passed. Some of them remembered me from hours earlier. They clucked in pity to each other, continuing to their booths.
