He shifts his weight, one arm resting on his knee. “Sarnyx and Nimor went to clear out a nearby village, a trading post. I caught your scent and followed it here.”
“Well, that’s not creepy at all.” I pause. “But kind of sweet, I guess. So what do we do now?”
He grunts, then stands and pulls me up with him. His grip is firm but not rough, and I file that away as evidence that even the psycho version of Kaelren doesn’t actually want to hurt me.
“We have a camp set up about three miles that way,” he says, pointing south. “From there we were going to try to talk some sense into the rest of the crew.”
I laugh. “If I had to guess, I would say that is code for Sarnyx saying you needed to apologize for doing or saying something stupid that pushed everyone away.”
He grunts again. Apparently grunting is this iteration Kaelren’s primary form of communication.
Then he turns. “Come. You can share my tent.”
“No way!”
He whips around and growls like an animal. “Don’t push me, Red. I may enjoy your body, but I have gone all over this godsforsaken kingdom after you. Sometimes we have to do things that are bigger than ourselves.”
Feeling a little chastised and whiplashed by his mood, I follow. The walk is silent except for the crunch of sand under our boots. I keep my distance, staying a few steps behind him, trying to reconcile this version of Kaelren with mine. Same face. Same build. Same barely-restrained intensity. But where my Kaelren channels that intensity into strategy and dry wit, this one channels it into something more primal. More possessive. Less… evolved.
We make it back to the camp, and the others are already there. The setup is sparse: a few tents, a fire pit, supplies stacked against a rock outcropping. Eltrien apparently stayed behind with Kaelren. He’s making dinner over the fire and smiles at me as I approach.
I’m still a little wary of him after everything he hid from us across all the iterations. But I gladly take the bowl he offers and sit down. The stew is decent—nothing like Grandma Jo’s, but at this point I’d eat sand if someone put a little salt on it.
Kaelren is talking in hushed tones to Nimor and Sarnyx, who keep glancing worriedly at me from across the fire.
“You guys don’t have to whisper about me, you know. I’m right here.”
Nimor smiles a little and then comes to sit down beside me. “Is she okay?”
“Hmm?” I say between bites. “Who?”
“Vashael. Is she okay?”
I look at him, at the worry etched into every line of his face, and feel a pang of something tender. Some things are consistent across iterations, I guess. Nimor loving Vashael. Kaelren being impossible. Me being in over my head.
“Um, about that. Yeah, Eltrien, buddy, how about you help me out here and explain how I’m not the current Elle?”
Eltrien drops the pot of food. His eyes fly up to me. “How do you know this?”
“This is getting really exhausting. Look, I’m from Iteration Seventeen.
His eyes grow massive. “SEVENTEEN? We are only in Iteration Five!”
Hmm. That tracks. I guess I am progressing through the timelines then. Iterations two and four must have collapsed before I ever got to visit them. That’s fine. They had some weird stuff happening in those, anyway.
Kaelren comes over to stand near me and barks at Eltrien. “What is she speaking of? There is more of my mate?”
“Okay, whoa, caveman. We need to tone it down a little. This version of you is a little barbaric.”
Eltrien ignores the glances between us and eagerly shakes his head. “Yes, I suppose I cannot hide the truth when it is sitting right in front of us.”
He goes on to explain the predicament we find ourselves in—the iterations, the cycle, the way different versions of us exist across different timelines. Kaelren backs off a little as the information sinks in. Thank goddess. Maybe he’ll be a little more understanding about the tent situation.
I explain that I need to find a portal to the next iteration so that I can find my Kaelren before we run out of time. I ask Eltrien if there is anywhere sacred nearby where we might find something like that.
He sets down his spoon and thinks for a moment. “In the center of the dunes there is an ancient temple. It houses a basin of mystical water said to grant whatever wish you hold in your mind.”
“GREAT!” I clap my hands together. “This is perfect. Well, let’s get to it.”
