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My eyes were drifting shut despite my best efforts to keep them open, exhaustion and hunger weighing down heavily on me. There was a strange, almost ticklish sensation against my mouth, and I attempted to bat it away, forcing my eyes open.
And finding myself staring into the eyes of a very unhappy lizard. I screamed before I could stop myself, and T shoved his hand forward with alarming speed, attempting to drop the still very much alive, wriggling lizard in my open mouth.
I slammed my jaw shut, pressing both hands over my lips for extra protection, and shook my head wildly at him.
“No!” I yelled, voice muffled by hands. “Are you trying tofeedme that?”
T nodded, frowning as he attempted to push the lizard at me again.
“No. No, I don’t eat lizards. Especially not live lizards.”
T scoffed like that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard before opening his enormous fang-filled mouth and dropping the squirming lizard directly down his throat. I gagged behind my hands before I could stop myself, and T gave me an impressively judgmental side-eye for it.
Iwasstarving, so I supposed I could see why he thought I was being ridiculous. Still. There had to be a line in the sand somewhere, andlivelizards were it.
With an impatient huff, T had me scooped up in his hands as he launched himself into the sky before diving down to the coast. I clung onto his enormous thumb, worried he was going to dump me in the ocean to fend for myself, and glad when he coasted to a gentle landing on the rocks. He set me down on a rock next to him, crouching on a boulder like an oversized bird as he stared down into the water. Was he looking for fish? Fish would be infinitely preferable to lizard.
“I’m not running away, I’m just going to wash a bit,” I told him, unlacing my boots and setting them aside before slipping off the rock into the water, fully clothed. I’d probably regret it later, but my clothes weresocovered in a thick layer of dust and grime that I needed to wash them, no matter how cold I’d be afterward.
I maintained my grip on the rocks as I dunked my head under the water, coming up with a gasp and using my free hand to scrub at the bits of exposed skin I could reach. T watched me impassively, before grabbing my boots with one hand and the back of my shirt with the other and launching into the sky with me dangling like a wet cat in his grip.
“Hey! What are you doing?!”
He deposited me down with surprising gentleness on a dry area of dirt, making quick work of gathering up rocks and sticks, easily snapping whole branches off dead trees. I wrapped my arms around my waist, shivering so hard that my teeth chattered, but within seconds T had built a rock circle with a small pyre of kindling, and was gently blowing a stream of fire into the middle.
Oh.
That was really thoughtful actually.
“Thank you,” I murmured, standing as close as I could without catching alight.
He grunted, looking at me and holding up his palm in the very universal gesture ofstay, that only made me feel a little bit like a pet, and then he was gone again, taking off into the sky.
Leaving me alone.
Perhaps I should have tried to run, but I wasn’t sure there was any point. I wasn’t strong enough or fast enough to get away right now, and I had no idea where I was.
And when T returned with two fish, eating one raw and throwing one on the fire for me, I was pretty confident I’d made the right call.
I’d find my way back to my loves, back to where I was meant to be, but I had a strong feeling that T wasn’t a diversion in my journey, but a necessary part of it.
We took off again a few hours after we’d eaten at T’s insistence, and I tried to decide whether itchy, salt-encrusted clothes were better than grimy, dirt-covered clothes until a startling sight below drew my attention.
“By the gods,” I whispered, tightly clutched in T’s hand as he flew inland from the coast. From what I thought was the north, marched Wild and the Spartoi. There were so few of them, and despite the gleam of the Spartoi’s armor in the moonlight and the rigid, uniform lines they marched in, they still looked slightlybedraggled.
The opposing group—the opposingarmy—marching from the south in loose, unstructured lines definitely had the numbers. Andfood. They were following a trail of fruit trees, which seemed to be disappearing behind them as the army passed.
Stupid, wretched Gaia.
Both sides were converging. This was the beginning of a battle. Wild was going to war.
“T,” I gasped, squirming in his grip. “You have to let me go. I have to get down there. They’re going to fight!”
I felt, rather than heard, the irritable huff he let out, a gust of hot breath ruffling my hair. It was dark, and he was taking care to be quiet, so I wasn’t sure that anyone below had seen us. It helped that T had conjured a fierce wind that was keeping the soldiers’ attention restricted to their immediate surroundings and the opposing force in front of them.
Surely, they wouldn’t fight now? No, it didn’t look like it. It seemed as though they were slowing down, each settling in a few miles apart. Camping for the night, perhaps? That would make more sense than attempting to fight on unfamiliar terrain in the darkness. If I had figured that out, then Wild and the Spartoi definitely would have, they were far more strategic than I was.
T seemed to be circling, giving me a chance to observe what was happening below. I couldn’t tell whether it was an act of kindness or if he was torturing me.
