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Running hands over my face, I steeled myself to stare up at him.
The mark on my thigh twinged as Solin sighed heavily, raking a hand through his black hair. “Did you sleep?” he asked kindly, giving me a reprieve from his earlier question, his hands busy as they secured furs around his hips and draped a string of sharp teeth from some hunted animal around his neck.
I swallowed and winced against the lingering pain in my throat from Aktor’s fingers. Running my touch over the cuts he’d marked me with, I pulled my sleeping furs up to cover my bare chest. “I didn’t think I would, but I did.”
Last night had made me afraid, but tonight would be even worse.
I wasn’t ready to share a trance.
I wasn’t ready to be the reason why the Nhil’s second most respected mortal might die.
Hugging myself, I drew my knees up and rested my chin on them. I wanted to ask if he’d just give me a name—any name—and decide against doing such a dangerous trance, but I knew Solin would deny that request.
The flames wanted me too badly, and his ultimate loyalty rested with them.
Keeping my gaze on the floor, I sighed and did my best to gather my courage. I didn’t want to study Solin with a pinched corner of my heart full of wariness. I didn’t want Aktor and Kivva to stain the safety I’d found with the other kind-hearted Nhil people. “Thank you, Solin...for coming to find me last night.”
He stilled, his hands falling to his sides. “I apologise for not coming sooner. And I’m sorry that it happened in the first place.”
I nodded, swallowing again, hiding my wince from the bruises on my throat. I glanced at the smouldering embers of last night’s fire. No flames crackled, merely the charred ashes trying to stay alive.
Solin stepped toward me slowly, his bare feet making no sound on the woven mats. “I will say this only once, Girl, so you must listen closely.” His gaze shot to the entrance of his lupic, checking we were still alone. “The fire is greedy to have you. In all my years of scribing its messages, I’ve never felt an emotion from the fire before. Its messages are always remote. Helpful, yes. Guiding and wise, always. But never impassioned. The fire grants us its magic to live an abundant life in a land that can be harsh with elements that can be harsher, but it doesn’t care if we live or die. But you...” He narrowed his eyes. “With you...it speaks with need. It hums when it mentions you. It crackles with premonition that it is desperate to share, and if you believe you’re not as important as a chief’s son, you are wrong. You are important. More than I know. More than Tral and Tiptu know. More than you can understand.”
He bent forward, his face etched with urgency as his tooth necklace swung. “You may stay quiet on the matter if that is what you wish. You don’t need to tell me what Aktor and Kivva did. I don’t need the flames to tell me certain things when I can see with my own eyes, but you should know, I’m loyal to the fire before I’m loyal to my chief. And if the fire whispers about you with such need, then my loyalty also lies with you.”
His hand lashed out, grabbing mine and holding tight. “You can trust me.” His teeth flashed as he squeezed my fingers. “You have to trust me because today is the day you’ll find the answers you need.”
My heart raced.
Letting me go, he straightened and glanced at the entrance, almost as if he could sense our time alone was about to end. “Our trance will show you things that you may or may not be ready to see. It might show you things that you can’t believe are true—”
The flaps of his lupic parted.
Both of us looked toward the visitor. Solin tensed but smiled, hiding his faint annoyance beneath his usual airs of Spirit Master.
My spine locked in quick fear, flashes of Aktor and Kivva springing to mind, but then a gust of relief escaped me.
Hyath and Niya.
Two friends who’d treated me so wonderfully. Two friends who wouldn’t judge me for what’d happened.
They gave me shy, worried smiles.
I didn’t like that. I didn’t like them anxious because of me—because of whatever rumour was circulating in the camp.
“Hi.” I went to push off my sleeping furs but remembered how bare I was beneath.
I-I have nothing to wear.
I didn’t know where the bison fur Aktor had ripped off me was or the one I’d used to bandage the stranger’s arm. A flush worked over me. Hyath had made those for me. To lose them was the height of rudeness—
“It’s okay,” Hyath said, moving forward with a bundle in her arms. “Solin advised me that you required new clothing for the trance. I’ve been working on them to give them to you.” She smiled, broader this time. “I know you never really enjoyed wearing the bison fur, so hopefully you prefer these.”
