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“Okay,” he said. “You’re right, you can do what you want. I’ll let you go.”

Chapter Thirty

Roan

There was no way in hell I was letting her go.

Fen had lied to my face every day since the day I’d been forced to share a roof with her, and it was time I returned the favor. I’d told her I’d let her go, and I’d stepped aside as she’d left. Then I’d grabbed my bag, crammed some things inside, and took off after her.

She was up to no good. Each time she threw glances behind her, it proved it to me more. It also made it hard as hell to trail her, but I managed, if only just. I had to hang back, catching only glimpses of her dark shadow, hoping she caught no glimpses of me. I wore my dark green hood pulled over my head and kept my face down as much as possible. When she snagged a canoe from nowhere and started across the choppy waters, I almost lost her for good. I had to run down shore and swipe one of off an unsuspecting fisher (he’d be scratching his head later when he came for it), paddling harder than I’d ever paddled in my life to find a slice of her on the horizon once more. Where was she headed? I’d made my home in the Hinterlands for the past ten years, and even I didn’t know what was out this way. There was too much of everything to know it all. The forests were endless, and the channels wound forever on, begettingrivers and streams as they went. There was no end to the islands that cropped up, even miles and miles from the shore.

She’d get lost.

Yet she didn’t look lost. She paddled without rest, navigating around outcroppings of rocks when they appeared. Small bits of land were becoming more frequent, then decent sized islands. And just like that, miles out, a large island grew up out of the water, directly in the path she had been cutting.

Like she’d known it would be there all along.

Fenli and her secrets, I thought.

I lagged behind, unwilling for her to see me when I was so close to figuring her out.

I watched closely, noting the trees she pushed between, then rushed to bank my own canoe and pick up her trail again. I could hardly believe what she was doing. It was unheard of, unthinkable.

And yet, there she was. Alone. Traversing miles of water and running up on wild islands to slip between trees in the dead of night.

But why?

There were no answers to my questions, and so I pressed on, following the depressions her boots made in the mud, same as I’d done with deer a thousand times before. It was a challenge in the moonlight, but my senses had piqued, and I wasn’t about to lose her now.

“What are you up to?” I whispered.

I could never have guessed the truth.

She finally drew to a stop in front of—I wasn’t sure what it was. It looked like some kind of structure, but it was so old there was moss and trees growing on top of it and one corner looked to be collapsed. But there was a door, of sorts. She ducked under the eave, and Iknew I had her. I wasted no time, and there was little need for caution now. Whatever her secret was, I’d caught her in it. It was time to learn the truth.

I moved quicker between the trees, drew up to the shelter, and knelt in the doorway just as a bit of light flickered in the space. She was trying to light something, but the spark her flint had made died without catching.

That must have been when she saw me, because she screamed. I heard a swift motion of her reaching for something. Likely the axe.

“Easy,” I said, raising my hands in defense.

“Roan?”

“Fenli.”

“What the hell…”

I stepped into the space with her but found it too dark to see. The moon couldn’t offer much here, surrounded by trees, and I didn’t think this hut of sorts boasted a single window.

Still, I decided to be polite. “Nice place.”

“Shit.” She dropped the axe and knelt back down to her lamp. “Shit, shit, shit.”

And hearing her alive and cursing was a song to my ears.

It took a few tries, and I could see her hands shaking, her face grim, every time the flint sparked. Finally, the tinder caught, and she lifted it to the lamp’s wick, creating a soft glow of light throughout the room. Stone walls, a dirt floor, her bedroll in the middle, right in front of an ancient fireplace. Everything generations old.

She’d done this. Truly, this was where she’d been all these days away. But, for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine why.