Page 13 of The Garnet Daughter (The Viridian Priestess #3)

Chapter

Eleven

A gain, something disturbs my sleep, like when the moss sheds the excess water after a rain and it hangs in the air, thicker than any fog.

My body moves across a distance, but I cannot wake my mind fully.

Anytime I acknowledge my half-conscious state, I am pulled deeper into the depths of unconsciousness.

When I wake with a gasp, I am once again standing in my room, my blankets undisturbed. The soles of my feet are grainy with sand and stones like they were last time. I was unsure before, but now I am certain I folded in my sleep somehow.

Without thinking it through, I race toward the guest room, where August is likely deeply asleep given the hour.

I pause in front of the door. I should turn around and go back to my own bed.

The last time this happened, it stopped once I woke up and I was able to sleep after.

I could wait and tell him in the morning, and we could figure it out together then when we are both well rested and I’m not wearing a nightgown.

But like a fool, I knock.

And when he doesn’t answer, I knock harder because it wasn’t lesson enough to change my mind.

“Calliape?” August’s voice sounds sleepy.

“Hi, so, something happened. Can I come in?”

“Yes.”

I open the door before he even has a chance to stand from his bed and stop short in the threshold, realizing how ridiculous it is to wake him as if I am a child plagued by nightmares.

He sits up on the edge of the mattress, shirtless and squinting from the brighter firelight coming in from the gathering room hearth.

“Something wrong?” he asks, and it makes me realize how silent I am.

I glue my eyes to the rafters of his room to concentrate. “I think I folded in my sleep.”

“Say again.” He clears his throat, and First Mother help me, I watch his Adam’s apple bob a little too intently.

“I folded while I was sleeping.” I shift on my feet.

He finally processes my words, eyes widening and alert. “How?”

“I don’t know, but it happened before . . . last night.”

“You’re certain?” He scoots closer to the edge of the bed, so close if he reached out, he could touch my crossed arms.

“I’m very sure. When I woke up both times, there was sand and rubble on my feet.”

“Sand.” He furrows his brow and then his eyes widen. “All the way back?”

I nod.

He smiles to one side and rubs his chin in that charming way he does when he’s considering. “Well, that’s unexpected.”

“I know.”

“Do you think it will happen again?” He stands, his hands hovering on either side of my arms, like he does when he wants to touch me but doesn’t want to cross a line.

“Maybe, I’m not sure.”

I should not have come in here. Being in a room with August has never been an issue.

We slept in the ship alone, shared spaces together, but letting myself glance at his bare chest the way I want to feels different now.

If he has noticed how focused I am on avoiding doing just that, he has not alluded to it.

“You should try to sleep again and I will watch,” he offers.

The spell that this room cast on me is now broken. “What?”

“I mean, I can see if you are folding for sure,” he clarifies, then smiles awkwardly.

“Oh.” I step back.

“What if you fold to Cosima and wake up there? I’d be stuck.” He paces across the room and back, thinking to himself.

“It’s not a terrible idea, you staying awake so I can try again,” I concede. “If we were . . . touching, you would fold with me.”

“I can do that,” he says, low and determined, like I have given him battle instructions.

My stomach does an annoying flutter again. “If you stay awake and we fold, you could wake me up. Lock us in place.”

He clears his throat, suddenly very focused. “Where do you want to do this?”

It doesn’t matter. The location won’t make it any less awkward.

“Here is fine.” I point to his bed.

He stares at it like he isn’t sure how the piece of furniture works anymore.

I decide to make the first step toward it, determined to keep this as logistical as possible because this could be our way home and that’s much more important than acknowledging how flustering this situation has become.

“You’re ok doing this?” I ask over my shoulder.

He nods as if he's being sworn into a sacred duty.

I climb onto his bed, and the sheets still radiate the warmth from his body where he previously lay beneath the blanket. “We could wait till morning and go to Ruth’s like we planned.” I give him one last chance to get out of this.

“No, Calliape. This is . . . fine,” he says on an exhale, which has me second-guessing even more.

Once I get settled, lying on my back, he approaches carefully.

“I think I was sleepwalking too. I woke up both times on my feet.”

The bed creaks as he climbs in next to me, his movements a little awkward and unsure.

“Sorry.” His apology is breathy as his knee brushes against my leg.

The bed sinks down as he gets comfortable, and the narrow mattress tilts me toward him, his gravity sucking me closer and making me adjust so I am not completely pressed against his side.

When I glance over at him, he is staring up at the ceiling, body stiff and controlled, and I can’t help but snort a laugh.

“Why are you laughing?” he asks with a grin, breaking the awkward tension.

“You look scared.”

“Me? No.” He adjusts his big shoulders into the downy mattress like he is willing himself to relax and prove me wrong.

“I’m sorry to ask you to do this.”

He is silent for a moment. Whatever he is looking at on the ceiling must be very interesting because he refuses to look at me.

“Let’s just hope you sleep fold again,” he says on another breath.

His arm slides closer to me, and at first I think he is moving the blankets, but then his palm finds my hand and his fingers interlace themselves around mine.

I can’t contain the surge of affection that comes out of me. All I can do is squeeze his fist back, hoping he takes it as a thank you for the wordless reassurance.

But I assure myself it is only so we might fold together.

Brushing against each other’s shoulders is not enough intent to take him with me, especially in my sleep and such a far distance.

He is holding my hand because we have to focus on getting home.

The sensation of his palm, so big and warm in mine, is irrelevant, as is how his thumb runs across the top of my hand when I let out an exhale, a reflex, tendons twitching.

“Good night, August,” I whisper, deciding I need to turn off my wandering brain.

He turns toward me as if he did not hear me at first, but then he smiles just enough for his dimple to make another untimely appearance. “Good night, Callia.”

It doesn’t take long for sleep to grip me again, this time deeper than I have fallen in months. The tension I constantly hold in my shoulders melts away. I sleep so soundly, all dreams and nightmares can’t reach me, blocked by a ward of peace and cradled in the lumpy down mattress.

And when I finally stir from the bliss of slumber, I can hear birds chirping outside and see the strange conjunction light trickling in from the window shutters. I choose to ignore it, too warm and enveloped in blankets for any worry that awaits me when I fully wake.

Suddenly, I realize I am facing August’s chest, his arms are around me in a lazy hug, and we are pressed against each other closer than we ever have been.

I must have moved in my sleep and holding my hand was no longer an option. I try to justify but it doesn’t stop the flush of heat I feel in my face.

“I was hoping it would work,” I whisper. I’m disappointed, but like the first time I sleep folded, it stopped once I woke up and did not occur again the same night.

August doesn’t respond. He must be annoyed that staying up all night was for nothing.

But then I hear a subtle snore as he breathes, his chest slow and expanding in such calm.

The bastard is sleeping.

“August!” I push his heavy arm off me and sit up.

His eyes shoot open, only half aware, and in his stupor, he reaches back for the gun on his nightstand on reflex.

“You weren’t supposed to sleep!” I shake him to wake up fully so I can scream at him. “We agreed you would stay up and wait for us to fold.”

I hitch a leg over him, climbing out on the open side of the bed. He grunts as I do, his hands going to where my knee dug into him. But I don’t care. He deserves more than a knee in his groin.

“I did not mean to,” he strains in pain.

“That was for nothing. We just slept together for nothing!”

He tucks in his lips like he is trying not to smile. Of course he finds this funny. “You look very refreshed at least.”

I feel like I have slept a million years and every kink in my stiff muscles has healed itself, but that is not the point. I run my hands down my face, part embarrassed for even suggesting this, part wanting to climb back into bed and try again.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. “We can go to Ruth’s and try to get volunteers now.”

I exhale dramatically. “Alright, let’s get dressed and go. I’m not even sure how high the sun is already. We may have missed our opportunity.”

His eyes fall to my nightgown, and he ignores the rest of my words as if a thought suddenly reminds him that neither of us is in proper clothing.

“Why are you looking at me like that again?” I ask, confusion replacing my frustration.

“Like what?” And as if he can’t control his own eyeballs, they dip to my breasts.

“Like that!” I cross my arms “It’s not how friends look at each other, August.”

“I know.” He nods.

It’s like decoding a riddle. I wait for him to give me any other information, a clearer clue, but he stands there, staring at me like I should be aware of something.

He steps forward. “I don’t want to be friends, so I am not looking at you like a friend, Calliape.”

Oh, that makes sense, I guess.

Wait.

Oh.

When he takes another step forward, I throw my hand up, breaking his serious expression. “Why are you telling me this now? This is the worst time!”

“It’s always the worst time.” He grins. “The worlds started ending right before we met. I can’t change that.”

I can’t deal with this right now. I care for August, but we do not have time. Like he said, the worlds are ending. War is on the horizon, and an old god has its sights set on my friend and creating balance that will cost hundreds of lives.

“I can’t believe you.”

His smile fades, replaced by a furrowed brow. “Me? I’m not the one who came in here last night.”

“Don’t twist this.” I gesture wildly between us and what occurred in his bed. “I sleep folded!”

“I know, alright!” He grumbles to himself and hops out of bed to throw on a tunic. He’s too nice to argue with me or use petty tactics to prove a point. It’s hard even now being mad at him.

“Your Viathan ass better hope that we get some volunteers at Ruth’s house because there is no way I am hopping back into bed with you to try and sleep fold again!”

“We will see about that.” He brushes past me to holster his weapons at his belt.

“What’s that suppose to—” My breath is taken from me. What starts as a single string pulling at my chest becomes a great tide carrying me out in its current.

August waits for me to finish my sentence but I can’t. The words come out in a choking sound, and his face pales as he crosses the room closer to me.

The same sensation I experienced in the temple rolls through me, a spontaneous fold I’m not in control of and powerless to fight.

I step back, wanting to feel some sort of relief in my chest, but it’s unbearable. I’m going to fold back across the space between without August and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

Every step he takes, I uncontrollably match it with a betrayed one backward. I scream his name and reach out for him, hoping he knows what is about to come.

He lunges, crashing into my arms, and in the next minute, thick darkness surrounds us, darker than anything I have experienced, even in the farthest part of the forest when no moon shines and clouds shroud the stars above.

Then the floor beneath my feet is cold and rough, the shadows once around us now filled with small blinking lights. But they aren’t stars or the fire from the hearth. Buttons on a ship’s console flicker softly, ebbing on and off.

August holds me tightly, his chin rested on the top of my head. I hug him back, relieved he wasn’t left behind.

We stand in the cockpit of his ship as if we never left it, preserved and waiting for us to occupy the chilly dark space once more.

“You folded us home, Calliape,” he whispers.