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She’d clambered off him then, finally separating their bodies for more than a few seconds. Which stretched into infinity the longer they remained apart.
They dressed efficiently and silently in the icy chamber.
Well, Eir only had braies to put on and retie. As she watched Kai pull on one piece of clothing after another, each article seemed like a block of stone that was resurrected in an invisible fortress around the male.
But it was his eyes that hid the most.
After he turned away from her, in the many hours of their journey since, he hadn’t once met her eyes again.
And that was the wrongest of all.
“I don’t suppose there’s anyone in these villages that you’re interested in, Valkyrie?” Ere was asking.
Eir snapped herself out of her reverie to respond.
“Sometimes there are a few. Death comes to all mortals. But if you mean those we mark for Valhalla specifically, then no. Rarely would these lands produce warriors fit for those hallowed halls.”
“Then, you’re traveling with us because…” Ere prompted.
Eir slid a quick look at Kai, who kept his gaze straight ahead.
She looked back at Ere and replied, “You know why.”
The male blinked at her.
“Yes, I figured. Get in line. We have places to go, people to see, mysterious things to find. You must realize that we’re not from your world.”
“Aye,” Eir acknowledged.
“We’ve got bigger fish to fry,” Ere continued.
She squinted at the strange expression but grasped the gist of it.
“And what specifically is this…fish?”
“The Wish of Wonders,” Ere said. “Have you heard of it?”
“No, I have not.”
Ere huffed a hank of long hair out of his face.
“Honestly, I think Shifu is just yanking our chain. Inventing things with trite monikers and sending us on wild goose chases,” he muttered to himself.
Eir did not understand him. Ere often spoke in a vernacular that confounded Eir, even though she absorbed the individual words.
“What about the Red Witch of the North? Do you know of her?” Ere asked further.
“Perhaps,” Eir hedged.
She did not know precisely who this was, but she had a few guesses.
Many witches existed in this world, a good number of them red-haired. The most prominent “witch” of all had powers beyond human ken. Who loved to meddle in human affairs.
If the Red Witch was who Eir thought, she was curious how or why the being might be involved in these other-worldly travelers’ quest.
How Eir herself was involved.
For, she was committed now. She was bound to these travelers somehow. But to what end?
