So he did what he had always done. He straightened his spine and tightened his resolve. He found his strength.
But then he looked at Wren, and suddenly, he didn’t want to be strong.
He wanted to surrender. To let go. To unravel.
Even just for a moment.
Which was exactly why he couldn’t.
TWENTY-SIX
When Wren awoke again, the fire was sputtering and tendrils of misty moisture filled the small space. A chill slipped in with it, making her shiver.
Julian loomed before her, fully dressed once more. “I’m going to look for more firewood.”
“Where?” she rasped as she sat up. She felt like death, though her headache had receded to a distant, dull pain, and she no longer felt woozy.
He hesitated. “I saw some old driftwood on our way here. I could easily break it down and—”
“You’re not going that far without me.”
“Wren, you’re wounded.”
“Excuse me, but you took an arrow to the chest and were up and moving again hours later. We can’t afford to waste any time.”
“Actually… we can. It’s raining pretty heavily out there.”
She sat up, adjusting her blanket before picking her way to the edge of the water. She crouched, peering out the door, where a relentless downpour turned the world beyond into a curtain of silver.
“It’s been going all night,” Julian said, watching her. “A lucky break.”
“How so?” Wren asked. As far as she could tell, it meant a miserable day of travel.
“They won’t ride in this,” he said, and she knew he meant the kidnappers who had Leo. “They can’t risk any harm coming to their prize, and the roads are… less than ideal in good weather, never mind torrential rain. Plus there’ll be flooding.”
“So we’re stuck here?”
Julian shrugged. “Could be worse. That water is warm, and it protects us from the revenants. We also have shelter from the rain. Besides, you need to rest.”
“I’m fine.”
“Humor me,” he said dryly. Wren’s eyes narrowed.
Smiling, he turned to go.
“Okay,” she said, halting him before he could walk past her. “We rest here another day—but I’m coming with you now. We’ll need more wood than you can carry on your own, plus I left my sword and my satchel out there.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but seeing her stubborn expression, he faltered. Sighed.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
* * *
Another good thing about the rain was that the undead apparently did not care for it. Either that or it obscured their senses, because Wren and Julian walked through the shallow waters in near darkness, their passing unmarked by the sight of glowing revenants.
However, the cover was so good, the downpour so relentless, that it became clear fairly quickly that their own senses were equally obscured. They tried but couldn’t seem to find their way back to the mining shaft passage or the place Wren fell from the bridge. She reached with her magic but couldn’t feel her sword at all, and they were soon forced to give up.
They did find the driftwood though, a definite necessity given how soaked they had gotten in the pursuit, and luckily it had stayed mostly dry thanks to the rock outcrop above it. Keeping it dry would be the real challenge, but they found some partially sunken canoes tethered along the shore near a cluster of buildings, one of them undamaged.
The boat looked too new to be from the same era as the ghostsmiths, and Wren wondered if other people had come and gone in recent years. The craftsmanship was crude, which either meant it was constructed in haste or by people lacking skill.
Julian ran a hand along the side of the boat, his expression dark. “I wonder…”
“Who made them?” Wren asked, and he nodded. “Do you think—” she began, but cut herself off.
“What?”
“I just…” She swallowed. “They’re capable of following orders—at least, according to what they said to me. The undead. And your anvils seem to think revenants built this city. Making boats isn’t too far a stretch.”
“Yes, but they built this city centuries ago on ghostsmith orders. These boats can’t be more than a few years old.”
“Which means they’ve gotten new orders recently…”
Julian tossed his head in a half shake, like he wanted to argue, but didn’t. Maybe he just didn’t want it to be true, despite the evidence.
There was more going on in the Haunted Territory than either of them knew, but with a kidnapped prince and an assassination plot, they had enough to be worrying about already.
They bailed out what water they could, then loaded the boat with the driftwood before covering it with one of the blankets they’d brought with them and pulling it back to their temporary camp.
The pair of them were drenched by the time they returned, and while they had managed to keep the wood dryer than themselves, it would take a while to get the damp kindling to burn.
“Maybe we should have stayed dry and cold instead of wet and cold,” Wren mused as they attempted to rebuild their fire.
Julian gave her a flat look, as if to suggest her comments were not helpful—which she supposed they weren’t—and returned his attention to the flickering flames. He had already removed his armor and jacket, but even his undershirt was soaked through and clinging to his back.
They were both filthy, their hands covered in mud and muck, and while most of Wren’s eye black had been washed away in the spring, she still had old blood in her hair.
The fire caught, and though the damp wood smoked, the old embers smoldered hotly, and Wren knew the rest would burn.
Julian sat back on his heels, pleased, and looked at her.
“Why did you come back?” she asked abruptly. “That fall… those revenants… I was a goner.”
“But you weren’t, were you?” She looked at him, brows raised, and he turned away. “I had to know.”
She thought of his father, of the hundreds of other people he might have known and loved and lost to the Breach, never completely dead, never fully at peace. If he had found her dead body, what would he have done?
“It was an accident,” he said, and Wren frowned in confusion. “The whip.”
His expression was strained, and she realized he’d been dying to say this—probably since the moment he’d found her.
“I know,” she said, somewhat incredulously, though she supposed if something similar had happened at the start of their journey, she might have wondered. The fact was, the idea had never crossed her mind. Whatever she might think about the House of Iron and their plans east of the Wall, she didn’t believe Julian capable of looking her straight in the eye and dropping her deliberately to her death.
But his words caused something heavy to settle in Wren’s chest. “Is that why you’re here? To prove you didn’t try to kill me? To clear the air?”
“No,” he said carefully, not meeting her eye. “Not entirely.”
“Then why?”
Wren wasn’t certain what she was hoping for, but as the seconds passed without a response, she decided she didn’t want whatever evasion he was contriving.