He didn’t let himself imagine that, chasing her, catching her. “With a horse, I’d be on you within minutes. In a city, you’d make it free. Always consider your surroundings.” He opened his hand and stepped away. “That’s enough for today. We’ll work on it again tomorrow.”
Rowan knelt to sheathe her blade. Her skin was flushed and her lips were parted as she caught her breath. There was a defiant lift to her chin that hit him like a challenge. Her gray eyes glittered as if she wanted to keep fighting him. He almost welcomed that.
He tipped his head to the side. “Do you want to keep training?”
She straightened slowly, wiping her dirty hands on her dirty pants. Strands of dark hair had come loose from her braid and were tangled about her face. She shouldn’t look so appealing after sleeping rough, dressed in clothes that were little more than rags and glaring at him like she hated his guts.
But there was that pull making him want to move toward her, to take her into his arms, to do…things he had no business considering. They were connected, the two of them. Even her mother had seen it. He didn’t know whether it was the hand of God or some darker force that kept bringing them together.
Sometimes he thought she might actually be a witch.
Still, his body warmed as she ran her gaze over him, his interest piqued by the quirk of her brow and the smirk that curved her lips.
“I think you’ve had enough,” she said, trying to get a rise out of him.
Was shetryingto torment him?
No.
Not Rowan, who was almost alarmingly direct. She wasn’t the kind to play those sorts of games.
Rowan wasn’t secretly trying to tempt him or torment him. She was simply being her insolent, infuriating, naturally appealing self.
And he needed to keep his hands off her.
Focus on his missing men and the cursed woods and the damned witch. Plenty of other things he should be thinking about instead of her fucking freckles.
He’d already fucked up her life enough.
It was only two weeks. Surely, he could make it that long.
“Get the horses,” he told her. “It’s going to be a long day.”
20
They reached the swamp by midday. Fog covered the sodden ground. A storm simmered to the south. She had no idea which way his men had gone. There was no way to follow a trail through this mess. The swamp ate all of the tracks almost as soon as they were made. There was nothing for it but to go through and see if they could find them again on the other side.
They should be clear of it by now. It hadn’t taken this long to reach the other side when she’d come this way with Toby. But here they were hours in with no end in sight, just surrounded by boggy ground and stagnant water and the smell of rotting vegetation. The only trees nearby were the ones the swamp had claimed and killed. They wouldn’t be telling her anything.
The storm sweeping past to the south worried her. She could hear the slow rumble of thunder in the far distance. It was beginning to grow dark even though they were hours yet from sunset.
The only thing that could make this day better was a lightning storm—which, given that she was knee-deep in swamp water, seemed like an excellent possibility.
Thunder rumbled again and Casrian looked up at the sky. At least, he looked in the direction the sky should be. The fog was a sickly yellow that made it feel like they were cut off from the rest of the world. It thickened with every step.
“We have to get out of the water before that storm reaches us,” he said, as if she didn’t know that already.
“Not much farther.” She’d said the same thing an hour ago.
Itshouldn’tbe much farther. Unless the path had changed. Or the swamp had expanded in the years since she’d been here last. Or she’d gotten turned around in the fog.
Casrian swore under his breath. “For God’s sake, Rowan. Just tell me if you’re lost.”
“I’m not lost.”
She never got lost in the woods. It was insulting that he kept asking.
“If we backtrack to solid ground, we can wait for this storm to pass and go around.”
