Zach looked away. “It…uh…I couldn’t quite understand you. You were muttering.”
I frowned at his discomfort. Once, Brom told me I had called for Mother. Another time I had called for Clover. It seemed as if I was always calling for someone.
It was then I remembered my dream. The goblin with the gash across its eye. Green lightning shaking Kellian’s body like a puppet. My lips on cold ones…
“Was I calling for Kellian?” I asked, tossing my cloak aside that I had somehow wrapped myself in.
Zach ran a hand over his hair. “I believe so, yes. And…someone else named Telek.”
Telek, too? Must’ve been because my mother had mentioned him. His death would never relinquish its hold on me. “They were both my partners.”
“Yes, I’d heard, when your mother…” He trailed off, his gaze drifting to the fire. His voice was low, solemn. But he didn’t need to pity me—they were only dreams, nightmares I didn’t often remember.
He studied my mark on his hand, at the holly and ivy intertwined together and wrapping around him. “It must’ve been hard…to lose those partners. You must’ve cared for them a great deal.”
I frowned. Based on our previous conversation with him suggesting Amias harbored feelings for me, I wondered if he was implying the same thing about the others.
“No more than I would a friend or comrade,” I said.
He shook his head. “You talk to me as if I don’t know the laws against Love.”
“There are no laws.”
“Aren’t there?” He stood, the firelight at his back making his face shadowed and unreadable.
Perhaps to a Romantica it seemed that way. Especially when the Legion sometimes persecuted them for such primitive practices like courtship and marriage.
“There cannot be laws against something that doesn’t exist,” I replied evenly.
“Never mind, Ivy, go back to sleep.”
I stood, too. “No, you’re not going to brush it off this time. What are you trying to say—or not say?”
“Fine, I’ll go to sleep.”
“Zach—” I reached for his arm but tripped over something and pitched forward. Zach caught me, wrapping an arm around my waist, and held me up as I leaned forward over his arm. I glanced down at what had tripped me—his cloak. Not mine. I hadn’t noticed it before, but he must have strewn it across me as an extra blanket when I slept.
“All right there?” His voice came from above, and I detangled myself from the cloak at my feet and turned in his arms. We froze for a few seconds before we hurriedly detached ourselves from each other. It was such an awkward moment that neither one of us said anything.
As the silence stretched on, a nervous giggle escaped my lips. Catching his eye, the snicker escalated into laughter. Soon both of us were smothering laughter so as not to wake Brom.
“By the wind wisps,” I breathed, straightening and running a hand through my now wayward curls, “I’ve never felt so clumsy. Is this how you feel all the time?”
Zach grinned. “I knew you’d throw that whole suit of armor mess in my face eventually. Would you believe me if I said I was pushed?”
Just as Weldan had said. I was beginning to pick out certain truths from all the mysteries of Zach, and he was definitely not the clumsy sort. “Absolutely not,” I teased. “Especially knowing you have an extra-long cloak to trip over.” I picked it up and held it out to him. “Thank you for…letting me borrow it. And for catching me.”
Zach took his cloak and met my eyes. “You don’t need to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Thank me. That’s what partners do, right?”
Something strange moved inside me. Almost like my magic was stirring, not rising up as it did, but moving downward, building an uncomfortable pressure.
“I’ll take the watch now,” I said. I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.
Chapter
Twelve
The Slight Problem
I awoke to Bromley shaking me, because there was no morning light to alert my mind that night had passed. The clouds above were dark and heavy, completely blocking the sun.
The fire had already been extinguished, and Zach was by the horses, adjusting their bridles and attaching our packs to their saddles. Our conversation last night hadn’t necessarily brought us any closer. If anything, it had confused me even more. The way he was talking, it was as if he really was a Romantica, and not just the son of one. But he was a Royal of the Legion. He had joined the Saevallans willingly. He had come to Myria to help us fight.
Perhaps I was just paranoid.
He handed me a piece of bread and cheese folded into a napkin. “Can you eat your breakfast on the road? We should get going.”
I stuck the parcel between my teeth and hauled myself up onto my horse. “How far do you think we can make it today? The next village?”
“If the weather permits, I hope so.” Zach frowned. “We’re moving too slowly for my taste,” he muttered under his breath.
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
He avoided my gaze. “Nothing.”
“Are you implying we’re slowing you down?” I snapped.
“What’s wrong with you? Why do you take everything as a personal attack?”
“I wouldn’t have to if it didn’t so obviously sound like one.”
“For the love of—I wasn’t attacking you. I just meant I’d be going a lot faster on my own.”
“Uh, excuse me…” Brom tried to cut in.
“And there it is again,” I said, ignoring Brom. “I’m so tired of your arrogance.”
Zach swung up onto his horse. “I’m arrogant? Look in a magic mirror lately?”
I squeezed my breakfast so hard the bread crumbled. “There’s also something called respect that we try to practice. Maybe you should learn some of that.”
“And who will teach me? Certainly not you.” Zach scoffed. “I thought that’s what Royals were supposed to be good at—leading by example.”
“Give it a rest!” Brom finally yelled, chucking a pinecone at Zach’s back. “Both of you.”
That shut us up. There’s nothing worse than being called out by someone younger than you.
Zach and I exchanged uncomfortable glances, but we kept our conversations and attitudes civil well into the afternoon.
The landscape we traveled had changed in the past two days. Though the land was still mostly fields and plains, I could tell we were approaching another forest due to the small copses of trees. True to the morning, the sky remained overcast, and it put me on edge. That, and being two days away from the Crown City’s walls. Deep in my chest I could feel the Forces’ power stronger the farther we got from the castle.
Midday we came to a plowed field nearby a village. In the distance we heard the screeching of a crow. Lorena trotted forward nervously.
I felt it, too. Shadows stretched across my chest like a tight, uncomfortable corset. Resting my hand over my heart, I said, “Something’s close.”
Seeing my pale face, Zach cursed. “This really is like being blind.”
I chose not to comment. Now was not the time to argue about me “stealing” his Sense.
Zach turned his horse around, its hooves agitating the dirt. He searched everywhere—the fields to the southwest, and the trees to the northeast.
It was Bromley who spotted it first. “The skies—”
His words were cut off by a shriek. What I’d first thought was a crow must have been the distant screech of a griffin. It appeared small in the sky, but it was diving toward us at an impossible speed, growing larger by the second. Possessing the powerful, lean body of a mountain cat and the head and wings of an eagle, the griffin was a deadly creature both on the ground and in the sky.
“Spread out!” Zach cried, brandishing his sword.