“Only me.” Kalan’s low grumble calls off the alarm racing through my veins. He stalks towards us, the horses to our side, and picks a spot to dump the firewood and start the flames.
He doesn’t speak to me, doesn’t ask questions, just gets on with his task, and I am thankful for a moment of relative peace.
Our body heat warms us both into a comfortable state, with the fire keeping the chill at bay, enough for me to snatch a few hours of sleep here and there. I can’t remember the last time I had a good sleep.
My body tenses every time Ever moves, her head stirring one way then another. I don’t wake her, and hope that if her dreams are bad, she knows I’d protect her in those as well if I could.
With my muscles aching from the hard ground and dawn’s light streaming through the canopy of leaves, I finally come to.
Ever’s already awake. Her eyes stare up at me from her position nestled into the crook of my shoulder, still in contact with me. Skin to skin. And there’s no spark or heat to our magic. I check my shields are down, and that I’m not mentally blocking anything between us, but I’m wide open to anything and everything from her.
Her emotions are dulled, like they’re under a veil of darkness that’s suppressing her, weighing her down. It’s not the same potency I’ve picked up before, and while I have her back, safe in my arms—which is way more than I thought might be possible afew days ago—I would feel a whole lot better if I knew what she was feeling.
“Did you sleep?” I check.
“Some. I think.” She shuffles and pulls away, letting the morning air reach us under the blanket. I pull the blanket from around me, keeping her wrapped and covered, but her eyes go wide and sad as she watches me. Not the reaction I was expecting but…
“Oh, Ten.” Her eyes fill with tears, making them sparkle and glisten, but it’s now that I’m hit with the first strong feeling from her, just like that first time.
I track the direction and realise she’s looking at the scars and wounds still healing over my chest and stomach.
She moves, keeping the blanket tucked beneath her arms, reaches out with her hand and ghosts her touch over the top of them. My stomach quivers in anticipation of the contact, but she’s very careful.
“They’ll heal,” I tell her.
“I did this to you.” Everything our connection repaired last night shrivels as she sees the damage she caused—the damage Fenix forced her to inflict in self-defence.
She looks up at me, but there’s not just pain and anguish in her eyes. They darken, ever so slightly, and I see vengeance and anger. But also, something else, a power, dormant. Waiting. She might have lost it since the mysterious beam of light the night we escaped, but an echo of it still lingers.
“No. You didn’t,” I reassure her. “No more than I hurt you. We were his amusement. A game for him to control you. Because he wanted your power, Ever, remember that.”
“Idoremember, Ten. I remember all of it. Like a bolt of lightning, it struck me as Aslendrix carved a crescent in the sky, bringing everything back to me.” She wraps the blanket a little tighter, as if that can shield her from whatever she’s recalling.“Every moment, everything I did, everything that happened, the power?—”
“Ahem,” Kalan clears his throat, and we both turn to him. “Time to get going. We want to make it to Lyle’s by dusk. It’s going to be a long day.”
Ever stands and looks for the discarded clothes in an instant. Thankfully, Kalan saw to those as we slept, hanging them near the fire.
We dress, pack, and take the small offering of water and bread, with a small skewer of what might be rabbit or squirrel, that somehow, he’s managed to kill and cook over the fire last night.
He’s becoming harder and harder not to like and even admire. Crimson would hate that. She never trusted him, but then, she was so stubborn. So harsh on everything in the world. Except for me and her brother.
Stars, I miss her.
And I have no fucking clue how to tell Calix.
For the rest of the morning, we remain quiet as we follow Kalan, as fast as Ever can ride, which allows for spurts of galloping as the woodlands and terrain allow. It suits Ever, who doesn’t look comfortable on the horse.
I wonder if Nettle’s still safe with Lyle. Ever will be pleased to see him again, I muse, my mind not wanting to delve too deep into what lurks below the surface of my mind and the memories I’ve started to build my own fortress of shields around, so they can’t do me further harm.
After the quiet between us all seems to stretch an impossibly long time, I break, needing to hear from Ever.
“Do you want to tell me what you remember?”
She keeps her eyes forward and doesn’t give me an answer, which only frustrates me. We’ve spent the last few weeks inflicting horrible things on one another, and now, we can startto put it behind us. Now I’ve got her back. Yet, after nearly losing everything, she’s detached, putting distance between us by keeping me in the dark.
“It won’t change how I feel about you, Ever. We’ve been through too much for that.” My words come out clipped, my annoyance getting the better of me.
“I don’t see how you can say that. You don’t know what I did, but youdoknow it was my brother who killed your best friend.”
