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“I need to ask you a question,” I said quickly before I could change my mind. I hated the idea of relying on him more than I already had, but I didn’t have much of a choice.

“All right. But there’s something I need to ask you too. You go first.”

Kah’s ears perked up.

I took a deep breath. “Can I come to Askeland with you?”

His mouth dropped open.

A few seconds passed with no response. He looked … stunned. Like I told him I wanted to go back to Malengard with him.

“I can pay you,” I lied.

Still no answer.

“I’ll make it worth your while. I can keep up the pace. I can hunt. I can build fires.” I wasn’t sure I could do any of those things, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Why do you want to go to Askeland?” he finally said. The initial confusion had vanished from his face, and his expression became blank, unreadable.

My fingers grazed the healed cut on my arm. “I need my magic back. When you were talking about your grandmother, I wondered if she might be able to heal me and restore my magic.” When he didn’t respond, I continued, “If you think she could, then I’d like to go with you to see her.” I knew it wasn’t the best plan, but I didn’t have any other options. If there was even a small chance I could get my magic back, I needed to take it. Until I could decipher the map on my palm, I had no way of locating my brother or completing whatever mission Sora had told me about. Even if I could, I wouldn’t get very far in Eastlandra with the Rathalans hunting me down. Having an armed Kovak at my side until my magic was restored could prove useful.

Kah cleared his throat, which seemed to snap Jeddak back to the question at hand.

“It’s a long way to Askeland,” he said.

“I know.”

“Kah and I move fast.”

If he was trying to dissuade me, it wasn’t going to work. “I’ve spent months doing hard labor in Malengard. I can keep up. That is, if you think your grandmother can help me.”

“Though I don’t know for certain, I think she could,” he said, his words seeming genuine.

A tiny sprig of hope pushed through the surface in my heart, silencing the warning bells that were still ringing.

“When do we leave?” I asked quickly before he could change his mind.

Jeddak glanced at Kah, giving him a look of—surprise? Agitation? He turned away to stoke the fire again before I could tell.

“At daybreak,” he said.

I sighed. My body was begging for sleep, and it was only a few hours until dawn.

“We’ll only have a couple of weeks to reach Askeland. We can’t linger. If we wait too long this time of year, the snowstorms will render the road through the mountain impassable. Tomorrow, I’ll try to arrange passage with someone traveling our way. If we could get a ride north to Ibenswick or any town farther to the west, that would speed up our journey. Then we’ll continue on foot to the Ruins of Javan and trek north along the foothills.”

The room lit up as lightning flashed outside, followed by a deafening clap of thunder. The storm was right over our heads now.

“There’s one big problem, though,” he said.

“What is it?”

“The Rathalans,” he said, meeting my eye. “I’ve just stolen Commander Bloodbain’s personal property. There’s no guarantee he hasn’t sent the entire army of Malengard after us.”

“I’m not his property,” I snapped.

“You know what I mean,” Jeddak said, ignoring my tone. “What lengths will he go to find you? If something of mine were taken, I wouldn’t stop until I got it back.” There was a fierceness behind his words that made me believe him.

We stared at each other for a moment like we were both trying to size up our opponents in battle. I wouldn’t want to be the person who crossed Jeddak. I’d seen what he’d done to Meat. He was tall and intimidating, and practically made of muscle, like a solid mountain that the wind broke on. I had a feeling that nothing had ever stopped him from getting what he wanted.Especially with his arrogant leap-before-you-look nature that I’d witnessed back in Malengard. Any reasonable person would be afraid of him, but for some reason, I wasn’t. If he’d wanted to hurt me—instead of heal me—he would have done it already.