My blood chills.
Torching cities …
Slaying everything …
Swift and merciful death …
None of it stacks up for a king who apparently condones that from his beast. At least according to rumors.
Confusion wrestles through me, my gaze dropping to the purple splat on the ground.
“Come.” Kaan hefts a saddlebag over his shoulder, wrapping his arms around another and heading toward a path etched through the dense foliage ahead. “If you want food, that is,” he tosses back at me. “Can’t escape until you’ve eaten. You’ll pass out and wake up right back where you started.”
He’s got a point.
Sighing, I follow his lead, the ropes around my wrists now swollen with moisture. “I think you accidentally tied this too tight,” I say, looking left to right. Trying to trace the chirping sounds that keep scratching through the air—like somebody’s dragging sticks up and down many ribbed, hollow logs.
“I assure you,” he says, kicking a fallen branch off the track like it personally offends him, “that was no accident.”
“If my hands fall off, so will my iron cuffs, and then I’ll call upon Clode to suffocate you in your sleep.”
“Such pretty promises,” he muses, his tone so dry it could wick all the moisture from my body.
The path opens to another plateau, though this one supports a small stone dwelling that looks like it grew straight from the ground. It’s got two levels, bearing oddly shaped windows not round or square but somewhere in the middle. The dwelling is crooked one way at the bottom, the other way on the second floor, the roof peaked. The walls are knobbled in places and dipped in others, like little thumbs pressed them into place.
I pause, transfixed by it, a smile catching the corner of my mouth.
It’s like a youngling drew the building on a piece of parchment, then peeled it off and whispered life into its walls, giving it the strength and substance to stand.
This south wall boasts a makeshift trellis of crisscrossed branches clothed in a vine heavy with fat purple molliefruit, their scent zesting the warm air. Beneath it are rows of raised garden beds, each bearing a flush of frilly vegetables, some of which appear to have gone to seed …
My gaze lifts, sweeping over the structure, unable to shake the feeling that this place isn’t attended as much as it once was despite the warm sensation that fills my chest just looking at it.
I wonder what song it sings, picturing it a deep, rumbling, happy one. More content than a regular slab of stone. I wonder if Clode twirls past its rounded edges, sipping from bits of its serenity.
Most of all, I wonder why just looking at it makes the backs of my eyes sting—blisters of emotion I pop faster than Kaan popped that tick.
He moves between the garden beds, drops his laden bags on the ground, then grips a lush tuft of vegetation around the neck. He rips a canit root from the heaving dirt, its squiggly length dusted in rust-colored soil that falls back to the ground as he shakes it off, then thumps it against my chest.
Frowning, I curl my arms around the vegetable, cradling it while he repeats the process, over and over, adding to the growing pile until I can hardly see over the top of it.
“Are you cooking Rygun vegetable soup?” I mutter, wondering how I’m expected to see where I’m walking with my arms packed so full.
“I’m making enough so we don’t have to stop at any villages before we reach Dhomm,” he tells me, dumping something that’s particularly hard to balance upon the pile and almost undoing me. “I’d prefer not to be seen with you if I can avoid it.”
Fuck you too, Kaan Vaegor.
“I’m not particularly fond of being seen with you either. Not unless I’m toting a pike with your head on the end.”
He lumps another vegetable on the pile without shaking it off, dusting me in soil that peppers my hair and clings to my damp skin.
Maybe he’s getting sick of me …
Good.
I’ll keep agitating him until he drops his guard, then make a move. I quite like my chances of surviving in these mountains, given the abundance of water and fertile vegetation. In fact, I’ll probably thrive—gather my strength as I move south. I think these mountains finally kneel somewhere near Bhoggith. Perhaps if I charm a full-grown Moltenmaw, I can easily hunt Rekk Zharos. My options are endless now that I’m free.
Well …
My thoughts drift to my rope-bound wrists. To the nulling iron cuffs still locked around my arms and ankles.
Almost free.
First, I have to get away from this male and his dragon and these filthy Creators-damn vegetables. And this cozy little house with its pretty, idyllic view and a warmth that tells me it’s held so much more happiness than I’ll ever understand.