To be free of me and start a new path, but my throat was too tight to say as much.
Ristriel glanced over his shoulder. “They will not catch me.” His gaze returned to me like an early spring wind, and it raised goose bumps on my flesh. “But Nediah is what you want, isn’t it?”
I rolled my lips together, thinking, my pulse quickening ever so slightly. “It is one of the things I want.”
Daring to meet his gaze, I noticed that he’d stopped walking, and so I halted as well. He lifted a hand, then dropped it, unable to touch anything in the light of day.
Unable to touch me.
Looking away, he began walking again, but we only went a few paces before he stopped once more and faced me.
“When you said . . .” He hesitated, stood straighter. “When you said I was the one who took care of you. Ceris . . .”
I wrapped a hand around my braid and squeezed it, unsure what he was trying to say.
He swallowed, a very human gesture. “You are the only one who has ever cared for me.”
Those words settled in my bones like a midwinter night. I closed the distance between us, made the semblance of touching his arm. I wanted to cradle his face and bring it close to mine, lean my forehead against his, but such a thing was impossible. It infuriated me and gave my voice an edge when I next spoke. “Those who haven’t are fools. You are kind and true, Ristriel, and noble and loyal and everything good. You are worthy of all the universe has to offer you. All I can offer you.”
I would have kissed him then, had he been tangible. I had only ever kissed Caen, and only then on the day I had left. I hadn’t even kissed Saiyon, though I had given Him everything else. But I would have kissed Ristriel there in the forest to seal my promise, to clear my confusion, to speak what words were too weak to relate. For indeed I did care about him. I didn’t want to admit it then, but I was falling in love with him.
He looked at me as though he might cry, which made me want to cry, and he bowed his head to me, whispering, “Thank you,” in the most sincere, featherlight manner I had ever heard.
“We should take the southern route,” I whispered, smiling to reassure him. “I have good word from a certain star that we’ll be the safest that way.”
We continued walking, stretching one day’s travel into three, if only to maximize our time together.
Near dusk, when I was preparing our small camp, Ristriel tensed. I knew immediately that our pursuers from the night before were close, so when he gestured for me to hurry in a different direction, I did so without word, sprinting as best I could without sound. The ground declined, and we reached a swift-moving but shallow stream and crossed it quickly. Ristriel darted back the way we’d come, breathtakingly fast, and dipped into the trees. A moment later, a flock of starlings rose from the trees a good distance from us. He was trying to throw our pursuers off our tracks.
He returned just as swiftly. Night swarmed us, and without the moon, I couldn’t see where I was going. Ristriel, physical once again, took my hand and guided me. I remembered him saying Saiyon could not find him in his ethereal state. Could Yar and Shu better hunt him when he was physical?
Tonight was the new moon . . .
I heard our pursuers in the distance, just as I had at the cathedral.
“Don’t breathe,” he whispered, and pushed me against the nearest tree, the bark clinging to my dress like nails. He pressed himself against me, toe to toe, hips to hips, shoulders to shoulders, and not breathing became increasingly hard. He was a godling, a shapeshifter, but he felt every bit a man. Even his clothing felt real, for I clung to it with my fingers. I focused on staying dark, on keeping my starlight buried.
Like on the battlefield, blackness began to seep out from Ristriel, soft as incense, swirling and clinging. It made it look like the tree itself was growing up around us, making us part of it, concealing us from the rest of the world. It reminded me of what he’d done to the riders from Endwever, but this darkness seemed more encompassing. More absolute.
On another night, it might not have been enough, but without the moon to illuminate us, it was a powerful ruse. My breath burned within my lungs as the sounds of pursuit grew louder, louder, and then softer as they passed by us, growing distant.
I gasped for air, breast heaving against Ristriel’s chest. We stayed like that for minutes after the forest quieted, pressed together like lovers. I touched his hip, and he settled his chin atop my head, breath in my hair.
His darkness receded like paint washed away in the rain. The starlit forest seemed bright in comparison. For a moment we looked at each other, noses nearly touching, our faces little more than shade and shadow.