Chapter 22
Kyrian
f Logan is scouting, shouldn’t he circle back to tell us what he’s
found?” Rowan asks for the third time as we trudge through the rain,
which runs rivers along our oiled cloaks. She isn’t believing a word I
say to explain Logan’s absence, and I have all of zero ideas of what to do
about it. Especially since I’ve no notion of when he’ll be back. If he’ll be
back.
In his defense, Rowan had made her feeling toward wolves crystal clear
last night. She isn’t just terrified of the creatures, she despises them. So,
yes, I understand why he’s upset. But things are a great deal more
complicated than that, and him running off is doing absolutely nothing to
help the situation.
Rutting Logan and his rutting defenses.
“I’m worried about him,” Rowan says.
“I’m not.” I am pissed however. We’d asked Rowan to trust us last
night, and—against all odds and common sense—she had taken that leap of
faith. She’d been so brave, letting Logan and me work her over despite the
mess Chambers had made of her emotions. And the morning after, she
wakes up to find the male who she had bared herself to has disappeared.
How long until her worry turns to hurt? I fear it already has.
And that’s the last thing I want her to feel.
Truth is, I’m not even surprised that he ran. Last night was intense. I
know Logan felt it as much as I did. And Logan… he bolts when he gets too
close. When emotions get too real. Knowing when to run was how he
survived to adulthood after his pack was decimated and the victors kept him
around as a punching bag and warning to others.
But none of that is Rowan’s fault.
Is he even close? I ask Arianda.
Nyx took to the skies when it was still dark, she answers. There is a note
of rebuke in her voice. Logan is with Nyx and I’m not with her. I make my
apologies and send her a mental caress, which isn’t enough but it’s all I can
do for now.
I look over at Rowan, who is still waiting for my answer. “Don’t worry.
He’s scouting. He’ll come back if he finds something worth reporting on.”
“How will he know where to find us?” Rowan asks.
“We can always repeat last night and then everyone in a ten mile radius
will know where to find us.”
Rowan trips.
I grab her before she can land face first in the mud.
“Can you stop doing that?” she mutters, the blowing wind carrying the
scent of her embarrassment toward me. Stars, she gets flustered easily. I like
it. The honesty of it. The openness.
I blink innocently at her. “Stop catching you?”
“Stop making me trip.”
“All I did was—”
“No.” She points a finger into my chest and glares, which is adorable
since the top of her head barely reaches my shoulder. “Do not say it.”
I hold up my hands in surrender and bite my tongue, but my eyes say
everything my mouth doesn’t and she blushes again.
We press on in companionable silence for a while after that, the weather
turning inconveniently worse as the day continues. By mid afternoon, the
wind is howling through the trees, driving the icy rain into our faces like
tiny daggers. The water seeps through the seams of our cloaks, chilling us
to the bone. If the checkpoint wasn’t less than half a mile away, I’d change
course entirely but we are too close to give it up now.
Still, I watch Rowan like a hawk. I don’t like how her teeth are
chattering, or the sheer effort it’s taking her to hunch her shoulders against
the biting cold and trudging on. But she isn’t complaining. I respect that,
but I worry about it too. I need to know what’s happening inside that head
of hers.
The last approach to the checkpoint is the worst. Mud sucks at our boots
as we make our way down the hill, sliding as often as walking. By the time
we reach the marker—which is a metal box nailed to a tree trunk—the
forest has turned into a dismal gray blur. The vibrant autumn colors are so
leached away by the unrelenting rain that we might as well be walking
through the Gloom.
“Someone was here already,” Rowan says over the wind, her hand
shaking as she signs the ledger inside the box and moves to let me have my
turn, protecting the parchment the best we can from the elements. “Is
that…”
I look at the scribble that barely resembles writing and consider lying,
but I don’t. I don’t want to lie to Rowan. At least no more than I absolutely
must. But she isn’t going to like the answer. “That’s Logan’s signature. He’s
been here already.”
“Oh.” There is no emotion in her voice. Just oh.
I want to punch Logan’s face.
But what I want suddenly matters very little as lightning flashes over
head, followed without pause by deafening cracks of thunder and a gust of
wind that snaps a tree branch as thick as my thigh off a nearby oak. I curse,
drawing Rowan in as the growing wind buffets us from all sides, turning
our cloaks into sails.
“We need shelter,” I shout at her, struggling to be heard over the
howling wind. I don’t add that we need it fast, before this storm rips the
forest to shreds with us in it. “Something on higher ground.” Given how
low we are and how fast the rain is pouring, anything on this level is
increasingly likely to go for a flash-flood swim.
There are some old ruins northwest of you, about a quarter mile,
Arianda informs me, her mental voice threaded with urgency as she adds a
rough mental image to the message. The pressure of information is so
painful that I bite back a groan of pain, but it’s worth it. I’m more sensitive
than most to the draken emotions and images, which is usually an
advantage—especially when it comes to coaxing injured ones back to flight
before the Eryndor soldiers find and take them. But sometimes too much of
a good thing hurts a bit.
Understood, I say, once I can breathe again. Take cover, Arianda. Not
even you can fly in this.
I can feel the draken bristle at that even as I hunch over Rowan to half
guide, half drag her back up the slippery slope.
Do not presume to tell me what I can and cannot do, rider.
I grind my jaw. Fine. Please for the love of stars, I beg ye. Do not –
My connection with Arianda goes silent in a way that I know means
she’s put up her shields in indignation. There is only so much I can do about
that right now though, not with the wind shrieking through the trees and
ripping away leaves and branches to hurl them through the air like deadly
missiles.
“There used to be a temple nearby,” I tell Rowan by way of explanation
as I urge her back up the slope we’d so painstakingly descended just an
hour ago. “We’ll shelter in the ruins.”
“Alright,” she answers with more bravery than I’d have in her shoes. I
move to take the lead, holding my hand out to her. She grips me so tightly
that her nails dig into my palm. I welcome the bite. It’s proof that she’s still
with me. Still fighting.
“Where are we going?” she shouts.
The storm clouds block the sun, but the lightning flashes illuminating
the forest reveal glimpses of crumbling stone walls. “There.” I point as
another strike of lightning hits, and we can see the vine and lichen covered
stones rising up from the forest floor, like bones of an ancient beast. “Not
too much farther now.”
We stagger forward, leaning into the gale that’s doing its bloody best to
pluck us off our feet. Another hundred yards and our refuge is in sight.
Thick granite blocks, weathered and pitted but still standing strong, form
the shell of what must have once been an impressive structure. Now, only a
few partial walls remain, but they look solid enough to provide some
protection from the weather’s latest attempted murder.
“Pretty,” Rowan says, pointing to the massive oak tree that has fallen
against one side of the ruin. Its gnarled branches now form a tangled
canopy over a section of collapsed roof.
I can’t stop my grin. “Aye. It is.” It’s far from perfect, but right now it’s
the most beautiful sight in the world.
We stumble the last few yards and climb into the small sheltered alcove
the fallen oak has created within the crumbling walls. Thick, twisting roots
form a dense lattice overhead, shielding the space from the worst of the
rain. And beyond it, there seems to be a section where the original roof is
partially intact. Finally, a bit of good fortune.
The effect of the shelter hits us the moment Rowan and I clear the low
hanging branches. The sudden absence of wind is a shock, and for a
moment we just stand there, gasping for breath and dripping rain water onto
the leaf-strewn ground. The air is heavy with the scent of damp earth and
decaying wood.
“We made it,” Rowan squeezes my arm in celebration. It’s such a
casual, friendly gesture, but it means everything. I feel the phantom touch
of her fingers long after she lets go to move deeper in toward the back wall,
where the overhang is thickest. “And look, we’re expected.”
“What?”
She points to a massive slab of granite that lies against the mossy
stones, creating a small, triangular space just big enough for two people to
sit comfortably. Stone walls, covered in a thick carpet of emerald green
moss, rise up on either side, ferns sprouting from the cracks. Best of all, the
section is surprisingly dry and has layers of ancient leaves cushioning the
floor. It’s convenient and desperately needed, but that’s as far as it goes.
“You alright, chaos?” I ask. “You know the temple wasn’t really
expecting us, right? It’s just here. It’s always been here.”
“Hmm?” She wavers slightly. “What did you say?”
I catch Rowan’s elbow and sit her on the stone slab, then peel off her
pack and sodden cloak. This woman. How hard had she been pushing
herself? How much did the trek to get here cost her?
“Talk to me,” I beg, taking her face between my palms. “Tell me you
are alright.”
“I’m alright,” she says quickly, but I see her hand curling around the
edge of the stone. Is she reasuring herself that it’s real or trying to keep from
falling? Is she dizzy? Are the now diminished shivers a sign that her body is
warming up or getting too exhausted to fight for heat?
“Rowan—”
“- I’m alright. I just need to rest a bit.” Rowan’s words slur a moment
before she slumps unconscious into my arms.
