Page 37

I stay like that, paralyzed, as my chest eases. His hand comes up to brush over the wild tangle of my hair, and his head presses to the top of mine. I draw in slow breaths, each of them carrying his scent. Masculine and woodsy, unbathed but not offensive. It’s too intimate—too intense, and my heart starts racing for an entirely different reason.

His head shifts and then it’s his mouth pressing into my hair as he says, “Are you crying because the soup is good?”

I let out a wet-sounding laugh. He laughs too, but the sound is off—strangled in his throat. “Wait—“ I push back at his chest, lifting a tear-spattered face. “Are you…”

I get a quick glance of his undeniably glassy eyes before he swipes a hand over my face, covering my eyes and lightly pushing my head back. “No,” he says sharply. “Don’t look.”

I let out another laugh, batting at his hand. He simply drags it further down to swipe away the mess of tears. “Why?”

He snorts. “You should see yourself. Your weeping? That would bring anyone down. Not to mention, I haven’t slept in three days. I’m practically hallucinating.”

“Oh.” I dip my head, the immensity again for what he’s done for me filling my chest.

“And, I also have a newfound appreciation for the… soup .”

Another laugh bubbles out of me against my will. Damn him. I shift back on my knees to put space between us, wiping at my face, and his arms wrap back around me.

“Let me put you back.”

“No… I want to get up.” I push back at his arms. The sun is already dipping behind the tree line. “I need to move around a little. Before it gets dark.”

He hooks a single brow. “Didn’t you already try that?”

I ignore him and climb to my feet—or struggle to climb to my feet. He holds out a hand with a sigh, and I take it gratefully. Once there, I sway slightly, forced to grasp his hand again to balance myself until I find a stance I’m more confident in.

“Don’t fall in the fire,” he says, tone accusatory.

“I won’t.” I let go and move around him steadily enough. Cold air brushes my bare legs and bare feet. Stepping carefully, I turn back to find him. “If you want to sleep, I’ll be fine.” He merely shakes his head. The ground is a mixture of soft, cool dirt, jagged rocks, and sharp twigs. I make my way to where Epona is tethered to the tree. I can practically feel Sitri’s eyes following me, waiting for me to fall so he can come rescue me.

Again.

I think he might like doing that.

“Fine!” I call out stubbornly over my shoulder. Once I make it to Epona I’m damn near out of breath. I stand there for a long time, stroking her head and mane, cooing a soft string of sentimental words about getting me here safely and how thankful I am, and really, she’s saved my life, and she should be proud of that.

I find Sitri collecting more wood for the fire. Turning my attention toward the insanely large trees, my hands stroke over the rough bark. I explore the bank next, plopping down against the flattened rocks to stare out at the crystal-clear water, dipping a toe in to discover it just as icy as I remember. I linger there for a while, trying to get a grip on my fluctuating emotions and soaking up the view. Who knows if I’ll ever even see a place like this again?

The sun descends past the trees, taking the light and the little bit of warmth with it. The chirping of crickets replaces the birds and I finally retreat back to the fire and settle back against the log next to Sitri.

Wrapping my cloak around my legs, I huddle in closer to the flames. My eyes flicker across his bare chest. “Aren’t you cold? You can have your cloak back,” I say, scooting over so he can take it out from underneath me. He glares, apparently offended I would even ask. It’s not long before everything past the warm glow of the fire is cloaked in darkness, and the sound of crickets grows deafening. I sneak surreptitious sips of his profile, illuminated from the flames. The other side of his face marred by the scar completely eclipsed in shadows.

“Why do you cover your scar?” I blurt out. He doesn’t respond, doesn’t even turn to look at me, and I shift nervously. Rude. I am so rude. “I mean…I kind of like it. Well, I don’t like that you received it-- it’s-- I think it looks nice …not nice, you know. People getting their face sliced… doesn’t look…nice.”

It’s like a nightmare, every word spilling out of my mouth somehow worse than the one that came before. “But it’s definitely not bad .”

He slowly turns to face me, expression indecipherable.

“I mean… I don’t think you look any worse like this. You still look really… good,” I finish weakly, a burn blooming across my cheeks.

“It’s not a vanity thing. I keep it covered so I don’t have to discuss it with people.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” I rush out.

“It’s alright.” He leans back into the log, puffing a breath, shifting close enough that our arms touch. If I weren’t so cold, I would move away, but with the chilled air, it takes everything not to lean further in, to take more of his heat. This time I can feel his perusal like a cold draft skimming across the side of my face. “Why did you switch places with your sister?”

Not that . “Oh, um…I don’t know,” I say sheepishly, fiddling with the cloak in my lap.

“Come on. You have a reason.”

“I guess I felt like she didn’t deserve it.”

He cocks his head. “But you did?”

“I guess you’d have to know her. Syra is…really good. Everyone loves her. You can’t help but love her.”

His brows draw together. “And you’re not? Good?”

I let out an anxious snort. “You’ve met me.”

He frowns. “You switched places with your sister. I would consider that to be pretty good .”

“It just made sense. I didn’t have anything to lose.” Already long afflicted by the dāemon. “She…she also had someone she cared for,” I say, deflecting the spotlight anywhere except on me.

Surprise splashes across his face. “You mean romantically?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you?” he asks flashing that spotlight right back over me.

“Did I what?”

“Have someone you cared for…in that way?”

I huff a laugh. “No.”

“What?” He turns to face me, a glimmer of humor in his eyes. “No one good enough for you, pet?”

I laugh again at how far from the truth he is. “What’s so funny about that?”

I fidget, tugging at one of the buttons on his shirt. “I’ve never really known anyone.”

“That you liked?”

“No, I mean I’ve never known any men. ”

“You’ve never known any men,” he repeats. I can tell by the way he says it he hasn’t processed it. His gaze darts to the fire and back to me. “At all?”

“The Shrouded are only permitted to interact with each other, the Reverend Mothers, the Grand Prioress, and the Priest. I wasn’t kept under such a careful thumb before I took the Shroud but that was a long time ago and even back then…I didn’t really know many men.”

“I’m the only man you’ve ever known?”

“Pretty much. Aside from the Priest.”

“And, your father?”

I snort again. “At this point, I think we’ve interacted more than me and my father have over the course of my entire life.”

“Gods.” He scrutinizes me as if he’s seeing me for the first time, and a flush creeps over my face. “This actually explains a lot.”

“Like what!”

“Your skittishness.”

“That’s because you’re a witch.”

His laugh is a soft, rough sound. “Comes in handy sometimes, doesn’t it?” He asks, bumping my shoulder with his.

“I suppose.”

He flashes me a grin I can’t help but return. It’s like something has shifted between us here in this place. Maybe because with him here, without his magic, we’re finally like equals. My walls start to crumble, falling victim to the numen of this forest or this moment in time. Or maybe it’s because he’s proved himself to me time and time again I can really trust him.

He shifts forward to feed a few more logs to the flames, taking his heat with him, and I draw my knees up to my chest. When he positions himself back against the log, he huddles in even closer. Our legs brush against each other as he pulls his own legs up to mirror mine.

“What exactly is the reason for the Shroud?” he asks, gesturing to his face.

“In Eden, marrying one of the Shrouded is considered one of the highest honors a man can be granted. Men with the highest status are granted multiple. After our eleventh birthday, we’re not seen, we are not spoken to, we are kept pure ,” I say, enunciating that word bitterly.

“I suspect they keep us isolated so when we are gifted to whatever man my father grants us to—we’ll be more pliant, we’ll find even them--” I clear my throat again. “Exciting, at least in comparison to the drudgery that is our everyday lives. They say it’s our purity that keeps our kingdom vigorous. So naturally, when everything fell apart, the blame fell on us…and…” I decide not to devolve into all the horrifying details of what happened to Margaret. “It’s all theatrics.”

He’s quiet for a moment as he processes that. “You seem…unusually self-aware about all of this.”

“I’ve had a long time to think about it but I always despised the Shroud. Syra bought into the whole thing for a long time, as many of the Shrouded do. We are revered like religious figures so many of them take a liking to feeling morally superior, anyway—“ I say, cutting myself off. “That was probably more than you asked for.”

“No, I want to know,” he says adamantly.

I stare off into the flames. “Syra did finally come around. But even still, even though I say all that I kept thinking these last few days maybe I was being punished for removing the Shroud and for…” I trail off with a shake of my head.

“You haven’t done anything wrong.”

I nod, slowly biting at my lip, and muffle a yawn behind my palm. No idea how I’m so tired when all I’ve done is lie in bed for days.

“We should probably try to get some sleep.”

There are so many things I didn’t get to ask. “You got so many more questions,” I argue with another yawn.

“Well, we have a six-hour journey back to look forward to tomorrow and you’ll have plenty of time to pester me with questions.”

I peer around the dark curtain of trees. “I’ve never slept outside before.”

“Didn’t figure you had.”

He tugs at the cloak I’m positioned on. Of course, he’ll want that back to sleep with. I scoot over so he can pull it out from underneath me and tuck my own cloak under my legs. “How is it so cold here? It wasn’t nearly this cold in Samore.”

“The weather here is erratic. It used to be controlled by the barrier but it no longer works all that well. You had regular seasons behind the theurgynate, I’m assuming?”

“Pretty much. Except the rains stopped.”

“Right…” he says looking contemplative. “Wonder why that happened.”

I watch him warily as he clears an area of rocks and sticks with his boot and drapes the cloak across the ground. I don’t think I’m going to have the courage to lay out in the open like that. I think I’ll stay right here against this log.

He settles on the edge of the cloak, stretching out his legs and propping himself up on his elbow before patting the ground beside him almost as if he’s inviting me to... My gaze darts to the area of the cloak he’s gesturing to and back to him.

That’s exactly what he’s suggesting.

My heart lurches in my chest. “No…” He shoots me a stony look. “No,” I say more firmly this time, pointing a single finger at him. “We’re not.”

He rolls his eyes. “How did I know you were going to make a big deal of this?”

I can’t sleep with him. Not like that. “I’m fine. I’m going to stay right here,” I say, banging a fist against the ground. “I’m not even tired,” I lie.

He sits up, face contorting into a scowl. “Why do you always have to be so difficult?”

I shake my head vigorously. “Nuhuh. Nope. No way. Not happening.”

“ Pandora. ”

That one word travels through me like a powerful jolt from the dāemon. It straightens my spine. The sound of my name in his mouth. He remembered, and he’s going to use it against me like that? Like he’s brandishing a weapon. An effective one, and based on the hint of a smirk on his mouth, he knows exactly what he’s done. “I shouldn’t have even told you that,” I grumble.

His gaze turns sharper, more severe. “You shouldn’t have told me your name ?” he asks incredulously. “You should’ve told me sooner. Why didn’t you?”

“Because it was the one thing I got to keep for myself,” I snap.

His face turns solemn, however he doesn’t bugger off, still giving me that expectant look. He raises himself into a crouch, and I scramble to my feet.

“No! Stay back!” I shuffle backward, bumping into the log and clumsily maneuvering myself around it. “You can’t make me. You don’t even have your magic!” I say gleefully.

He scoffs. “I don’t need magic for you, pet. You’re no match for me on a good day, and this is not a good day for you.”

I continue shuffling backwards and the gleam in his eyes turns predatory as he straightens. He watches every step I take, readying himself to pounce like a wolf after a rabbit.

Panic flares wildly in my chest and I quicken my pace only for my foot to catch on a large rock. I crumple to the ground, air puffing out of my chest.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” he scolds.

He starts forward, slow and steady, and I scramble to my feet, turn on my heel and run for my life.