Thia tried to step toward him, and her legs gave out. Properly this time. She managed to twist away from her torch before it burned her, but her wrists stung from the impact. She spat a mouthful of dust.
“Look at her,” Oskaren said. Thia searched for the sneer, but her face was impassive. “Unless we want to abandon our Storm Crow, we rest.”
Thran nodded in agreement and let his pack slide to the ground. Dess seemed uncomfortable, but he let out a shaking breath and did the same.
“We should make a ring of fire,” Oskaren said. “Find what you can.”
While Thia sat clutching her torch for dear life, the others gathered what sticks and brush they could find.
It was not enough. They completed the ring, setting up their rolls within, but Oskaren estimated their materials would burn through before midnight. They settled on four hours of rest, with each of them taking a one-hour watch. Thia volunteered to go first, too jumpy to sleep anyway, and none of them protested. With the ring to protect them, she set her torch down against a boulder, and rubbed the stiffness out of her fingers.
The others settled into their bedrolls, orange light flickering over their familiar features. Mavrel occupied Thia’s pillow, while she sat at the foot of her roll. Dess showed her how to feed the fire, but the advantage of first watch was that she likely wouldn’t have to. The only battle she had now was against her eyelids.
The others were asleep almost instantly. Dess fell first, she could tell by his snoring, then Thran, then Oskaren, their breaths shifting from shallow to deep. Thia felt strangely alone, even though their bodies were present. She pulled her knees up to her chest, shivering from cold and apprehension both.
Against her best effort, her eyes began to close. She forced them open, but moments later, her head sagged. She was nearly asleep, but she couldn’t….
“Thia.”
Her eyes shot open. She glanced over her shoulder at the others, but they were still sound asleep.
“Thia!” It was a woman’s voice.
Thia scanned the circle of flames, struggling to see beyond.
“You must stay awake,” the woman said. “You must keep yourself safe.”
“Who’s there?” Thia questioned, squinting into the dark.
A sigh sounded. “Thank god,” the woman said. “You mustn’t fall asleep again.” It was stern, but not unkind.
A man’s voice answered. “Is she here? Did you find her?”
“She’s here,” the woman replied.
Thia’s heart thrummed a painful rhythm. “Who are you?Whereare you?”
“Over here,” the woman said. “Through the fire.”
Thia stood, knees cracking painfully, and crossed to the edge of the ring, trying to make out their shape.
There. A flash of white mist. A face.
A ghost.
She shrank back. “Don’t come any closer.”
“Don’t be scared,” the woman said. “Look at me. You know my face. I won’t hurt you. We wouldneverhurt you.”
There was something in the way she said it that made Thia creep closer, trying to make out slopes and plains that were incorporeal, yet strangely familiar….
“Mom?” Thia whispered. There was no mistaking the freckles, the three that spilled onto her top lip, the larger one across the bridge of her nose, even if they were muted as mist.
“Oh, my sweet baby,” came the reply.
A man’s face appeared beside her mother’s.
“Dad?” His blond hair curled just like it did in all her photos, comfortingly haphazard across his forehead.
