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This frail human does not know that she has asked Death to travel with her as her companion, and I do not want her to know.
I have never been so ashamed of what I am. It is a foolish dream to change my name. A thing I was born, and a thing I will always be.
I see her tense with alarm at the thought of me leaving, but the mid-morning sun is bright and the river a clear guide. She will be fine.
“I will return in a short while,” I say.
She turns towards me, and I hear her start to say something, but the gnawing is too great. I cannot stand the light or her kind presence and prodding words.
I breathe out in relief as I slip into the darkness of shadow.
Chapter Twelve
KSENIA
“What the hell!” I cry, but it doesn’t matter. He’s gone. There one moment, then with a flicker of shadow, gone the next.
I run forward and swipe my arm through the space he was just standing, but nothing.
I blink and wonder if I’ve truly lost my mind.
Either that or everything he said about angels and different planes of existence was. . . true? Well, he could have given me more than a moment’s warning before he abandoned me!
I breathe out into the cold air and hug myself. What if he doesn’t come back? He has all the provisions, and the backpack disappeared with him.
But as I shiver and ultimately decide there’s nothing to do but continue forward, following the river in the same direction we were going. I guess I have to trust he’ll come back. Still, it was a real dick move.
You can’t tell someone you’ll travel with them and then not warn them that, oh yeah, the sunlight bothers me, and occasionally I’ll be popping to another realm! Then again, what do I know of his kind, or what people should or shouldn’t do? Did I upset him with my questions? He was far more willing to open up to me than I was to him. Still, I was a bit relentless.
I feel overwhelmed by emotions and want to scream and cry. Throwing a fit won’t get me anywhere, though, so I continue on stoically.
If it’s the light he doesn’t like, does that mean he won’t leave me alone at night? Because the thought of being alone out here in the middle of frozen nowhere at night. . . I shudder. I’ll just have to put my foot down about that.
Yeah, right. I was in the middle of trying to put my foot down about him leaving me just now and look how well that went. He’s apparently some sort of probably-immortal being who doesn’t understand things as mundane as human feelings or fear or insecurity—
I huff out another furious breath and stomp forward some more. It makes me feel a little better. But only marginally.
I look around, but there’s so much to take in. The unending white that, even with the sunglasses I’m wearing, still seems so bright. The trees and mountains in the distance. . . Oh my god, are we walking toward those? Does that mean we’ll have to go over them?
I shake my head and look back to the ground in front of me. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. My hands go to my thighs, but only one of my knives is there, sheathed in the pocket like I did in the other pair of pants, with a new hole made in the pocket. The other is in my light backpack.
“Pretty knife, pretty knife, pretty knife,” I mutter to myself, over and over, until the words have no meaning and the sounds themselves are soothing. I like the bouncy way my tongue makes the Ts. And the fricative feeling of the Fs and how my teeth feel on my bottom lip. “Pre-tty kniffffe.” I say it slower. “Pre-tty kniffffe.” Then faster again.
I walk in a march step to my words until I’ve calmed down again.
Besides, it’s not like I’m freaked out to be out here all alone in the middle of a frozen wilderness. Nope, not at all. I’m a badass assassin. I can keep calm no matter what situation I’m in. I’m never overwhelmed. I always know what to do.
So what if I have no idea where I am or where I’m going?
I swallow against my tight throat and struggle again for a few breaths. Dammit, I’m gonna have words with that man when he pops back into existence.
But there’s nothing else to do but walk. And I’m nothing if not pragmatic so that’s what I do. I keep trudging forward. For hours.
And still, he doesn’t come back. At least I have the small pack where I put a couple bags of trail mix and jerky that Hannah packed for us. The only two bags of food I have with me. I figured I should carry at least a little food. But it had been more for a worst-case scenario situation, in case he somehow lost his pack. I didn’t think I’d need it on the first day because he’d abandon me.
