Page 54 of Red Demon (Oria #1)

I pressed my attack, forcing her on the defensive. Simmering in frustration, I was unable to land a solid blow. Faruhar danced around all my swings as I pressed hard. She evaded me around a copse of trees.

The forest fell silent. I’d lost track of her, but I knew to look up. My gaze darted through the brush, heart pounding in my chest. Then, a whisper of movement, and a glint of steel. Faruhar came from behind me, her twin swords crossed in a clang across my face, the sharp edge cold on my throat.

“You’re too loud,” she murmured in my ear, her smoky voice shivering down my spine. “I want you to practice being as quiet as you can.” The warmth of her body pressed against mine was too much, almost. My breath caught.

“I can be quiet if you want. I can be whatever you want,” I said, not thinking about tracking and silent maneuvers through trees just then. The pressure of her blades eased, and I felt her breath rustle my hair before she turned away, face flushed.

A cough from the edge of the forest shattered the spell. Asher stood there, eyebrows raised in a way that made me think of Taam before a lecture. “I’m going to go make breakfast. You two keep doing your thing.”

“Thanks Ash,” I said, my voice weak as I went to go pick up my weapon.

Faruhar pushed me to my limit on multiple levels before we walked back to the farmhouse. I went to forage on my own when I couldn’t take it anymore, stopping to pick some chicory root for what my dad liked to call “camper’s coffee.”

Far met me outside the farmhouse with raspberries. Inside, we presented our offerings to Asher, who looked down at pancakes he’d made with ground beechnuts and the last of our flour.

“What’s wrong, Ash?” Faruhar eased closer.

He looked up, arms braced on the table. “Just thinking things through.”

I dropped my bundle of chicory. “Like what?”

“I made a lot of promises to Telesilla. I need to keep them all.”

“Like what?”

“Disabling some of Mahakal’s military tech.” He shrugged. “I told them I could dissect a fabricator and a code sequencer, so I should be able to figure a magic blocker out.”

“Maybe you’re overthinking this. Can we bash any of that tech with a sword?” I asked, cutting up my washed chicory for roasting.

Asher huffed. “Subtle as that is, the plan depends on Mahakal not knowing the tech is broken until we move in. Maybe Mira will know how to do it remotely.”

Faruhar put her hand on Asher’s shoulder. “You’ll get it right. Bria believes in you too.”

I poured the chicory root onto a firestone, turning it over with my knife. “I can’t wait to see Mira again, and I know you two will—work well together again. There’s no way she’s staying after she hears us out.”

Asher looked up, a hopeful smile creeping along his face. “Eleven days to go, I think, if we push hard.”

We made it in ten. Looking back, those days were, hands down, some of the best in my life.

We trained each morning, and each day I found my body capable of doing something it could never do before.

I practiced leading with my right hand, right leg, doing everything backward, just as powerful and fast. We’d practice stealth on the roads and forest paths east, disappearing around corners and ambushing.

Faruhar usually got the best of us, followed by Asher, but I persisted, even if Faruhar seemed to always know where I was.

I relished each moment when her eyes found mine.

We ate sitting on a fallen log during the first heavy snowfall, our fire overlooking a slate gorge with a gurgling river.

We’d camp in ruins, or used the tarp in Ash’s bag for hasty shelters, saving our coin for the city.

Looting some ruren-sa corpses helped stock our coffers, although I couldn’t say the short work of their deaths was my favorite part of the journey.

Faruhar would seek out ruren-sa that wouldn’t take us too far out of the way, and I knew it was best we’d put their souls to rest.

Each night I’d go to bed with her hand tethered to mine, holding her close.

We both slept with fewer nightmares, although I can’t say I always slept well.

I had some other dreams I couldn’t shake when it came to Far.

But I remained the friend she trusted. Faruhar would wake unafraid, remembering more each day.

On the last night before we reached Uyr Elderven, Ash was asleep on the other side of the campfire, his chest rising in a slow rhythm. Faruhar lay on my chest as we watched the stars.

“After we kill Mahakal, what’s next for you?” I said.

“What do you mean?” Her husky voice reverberated through my chest.

“I mean, what do you want? Take that however you need.” I forced my eyes shut tight to keep from staring, to stop wanting to trace each line of those scars.

Her hand tightened in mine as she sighed. “Not everyone gets what they want, Jesse. I came to terms with that a long time ago.”

I swallowed. “I haven’t.”

“Why?” she asked, breathless.

“Tell me the life you want next, and when this is over, I promise I’ll help you get it.”

Her gaze flickered from my hand to my face, searching for something, perhaps an answer, perhaps a reflection of the turmoil within me. “What do you want, Jesse, when this is over?”

My chest fell with a long exhale. “Voids, good question.”

“You asked me first,” she said, a chuckle in her voice.

“Okay. I want to do boring things with the people I care about and not have to worry that they’ll die.

I want to stay in Mira’s life—wherever she lands.

I want to live near Ash and his family. He’s too Asri to wait long on starting one.

” I paused, afraid to say aloud anything I wanted involving her. She’d have to say it first.

“Do you want a family?” she asked.

My heart stuttered. That had always been an easy no . “I don’t know. Would you ever want that with someone?”

She squinted her eyes, eyebrows raised. “How would that even work?”

I turned to rest my head on my elbow, smiling. “If that’s one of the things you forgot about, I guess I could add some diagrams to your journal for future reference, when the right person comes along.”

“Voids, you’re shameless.” She covered her open mouth with her fist. “I’m aware of the … mechanics.”

“Mechanics,” I chuckled. “That’s a very Asri way of saying it.”

“So how would you say it then?” she challenged, and those pale yellow-green eyes cornered me, cut me down.

She smiled at my heated face, eyes glittering in the dark.

I closed my hungry eyes, unsure if the thoughts in my head were safe.

She traced the line of my jaw with her hand.

“I’ll rephrase. I shouldn’t live with a family of any sort.

No one should trust me with a flower garden, let alone a human life. ”

“Your memory improves more and more each day. You just need people around you can trust, and you’ll be fine.”

She frowned, haunted. “Jesse. People know what I am with one look. I heal too fast for the best disguises. It’s not even safe for me to enter a city.”

I sighed. “What about small towns? People will accept you if you give them a chance to see who you really are. We’ll work something out.”

“We?” The fire crackled.

“Faruhar,” I whispered as her hand traced down to my collarbone.

“You have a scar on your shoulder,” she said, tracing my skin under my shirt. “From me.”

With a shaky breath, I traced a line on her face left by Istaran. “Mine.”

Her lidded eyes fluttered. Her mouth parted. Then she froze under my gaze.

“Goodnight, Jesse,” she said, then turned her back on me to sleep.

When she reached back for my hand, I held it like a lifeline, a man lost at sea.