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He climbed to his feet, and she had the strongest sense that he was going to vanish.
“Hawthorn—” she called out, grabbing his wrist.
He turned around, hope lingering in his features. “Yes?”
She hated the way she could make him look like that… hated it, and longed for it. “Tomorrow, when I resume my journey… would you come with me?”
A smile ghosted his cheeks. “I’ll be here at sunrise.”
He blinked away, vanishing into a dream.
Juliana sighed. That wasn’t quite what she wanted to tell him. But whatdidshe want to tell him? What was there to tell?
So much. So much, and nothing at all.
She sighed, lying back down and staring up at the ceiling. She wished she could blink out like he did, blink away to sleep, to nothingness. Of course, he couldn’t do that, either. He’d just gone back to the castle. What was he thinking there, alone in the dark?
She thought about trying to follow him, but her courage thinned by the second. Never mind how much they needed to talk; she was far from skilled with words. Why wasn’thesaying anything?
Tomorrow,she promised herself.Tomorrow night, we’ll talk.
At first light, her pack brimming with potions and food from the witch, Juliana set off into the forest.
“I’d thank you,” she told Mabel at the door, “but…”
“You have no debt with me, child. Be on your way. Take care. I’ll likely not get that favour from your prince if you fail.”
She’d certainly have to wait a long time for it otherwise, and if Ladrien took over, there would likely be little Hawthorn could offer her.
Juliana tried not to think too much about what Mabel wanted. It wasn’t worth worrying about today, not with an army between her and her prize.
He isn’t a prize,a voice reminded her.
I meant my knighthood!she shot back.
Mabel’s words taunted her above the own voice in her head, telling her she was sorry for Hawthorn to be saddled with such a liar.
It was easier to battle with her thoughts than to think about the challenges that awaited her, or to fall back into thinking about Dillon, although he was still there in the back of her mind. He would be for some time yet.
He deserves to be.
She walked onwards, taking him with her.
The sparse trees soon gave way to deep crimsons, and Juliana realised she’d strayed into the Redwood, the largest of the forests in Autumn. She knew it well, her old hut being nestled on the borders of it. The Autumn Court wasn’t far away, not that she had any inclination to visit it. The temptation to go spit on Lucinda’s sleeping form was mildly tempting, however, which she announced to the air, hoping Hawthorn was listening. The trees rustled in response, and she smiled.
“You know,” she said breezily, “I think you make a much better travelling companion this way. Much more agreeable when you’re silent.”
The trees rustled harder.
She shook her head, scrambling over a fallen tree and ducking under a low branch. A path opened up shortly afterwards. “I’m starting to understand why you feel the need to fill the silence all the time. No, that isnotme saying I miss the sound of your voice.”
Even if she did. He didn’t have to know that.
The trees seemed to cackle.
Onwards she walked, Juliana filling the silence every so often by remarking on the different flora and fauna, or the pleasant weather, or some old memory she had of this particular part of the wood. “Took down a direwolf, there.” “Fought my first bear in that glade.” “Nearly froze to death in that lake after I fell in while fishing.”
She avoided talking about any memory that took her too close to her father.
