“Where’s Siron?” I switch subjects.
“I sent him on. His prints can be tracked in the frost too easily.” He nods to Snowfire. “Perhaps you should’ve done the same.” Then his fingers brush over the leaf. His voice drops. “Are you trying to distract me, Dove?”
I put three steps between us and cross my arms. “How else am I to learn if I don’t practice? There’s no one left to teach me.”
“It’s too dangerous to practice, even out here. I went to the castle before coming here. Omar informed me of the attack. Said he put guards in the woods.”
His comment bleeds through me with warmth and a slight chill at the end. Truth mixed with a little untruth. My guffaw is short. “Their patrol isn’t nearby. And nobody else would come here besides us. No one would risk hunting on royal lands.”
“Still . . . I don’t—I don’t want to think what would happen if you were caught.”
I cross my arms. It’s a terrifying thought. Even so, it’s my choice to make. “No one’s going to catch me. You forget we were trained by the same man. I’m just as capable of hiding my tracks as you.”
Cohen shoves off his cap and pushes a hand into his matted sable waves. “I’m not saying you’re unable. Only it’s dangerous. Your life is at stake.”
“I won’t get caught.”
“I wish you’d consider letting this go. At least for now.”
Let it go? I stare at him, frustrated with the turn in our reunion. “Would you let go of the one thing that connects you to your family? Papa’s gone. Enat’s gone.” Speaking their names dampens my chest like the dark wet of Castle Neart’s dungeon. “This is all I have left. Being a Channeler is who I am, even if I didn’t know it till two months ago.”
He rubs his neck. Pauses. “I don’t want you to give it up.”
Another lukewarm half-truth. I huff out a breath of annoyance.
“All right. I do want you to take a break. For now. Until there’s less danger. I’m worried about you. People take notice of you, Britt. I hate to think what would happen if you were accused.”
It’s not a pleasant thought. Still, it frustrates me that Cohen doesn’t understand how much it means to me to learn about my Channeling ability.
He reaches for my wrist, gently wrapping his hand around mine, and bringing my fingers to his lips. He drops a soft kiss on them. “I’m sorry, Britt. I don’t want to argue.”
Allowing our fingers to weave together, I stand beside him. We fall into silence and stare out over the glassy lake, half the water flattened and dulled by a layer of ice. Geese waddle around the hardened end, honking and quacking to one another.
“Come on, let’s bag a few geese. Then head back before it’s too late.” Cohen grabs his gloves off the ground.
We walk along the hardened rutted shoreline and onto the narrow path through the pines. The wind lifts and twirls the snow around our boots, dusting the ground with winter. My thoughts swirl with the flurries. When I think of my peaceful cottage, Cohen is there with me. But I never imagined I’d have to live my life pretending I’m something I’m not. I want Cohen to love me and accept me as I am. Despite the danger. I don’t want to forget everything Enat taught me. I value my Channeler heritage as much as I value the time I spent with my grandmother.
When we near the far edge of the lake, Cohen points at the reeds—take a vantage point here is what he’s saying.
I do, spreading the reeds to make squatting room, just like we’ve done a hundred times before.
Stalking silently away, he finds a place to hunker down in the scrub oaks. I pull three arrows from my quiver, lifting one to the bowstring and holding the remaining arrows ready to nock with my free fingers of my right hand. Cheeks puffed, I blow air past my curled tongue to intimidate a soft goose’s honk. Cohen hears my sign, telling him I’m ready for him to call the birds. Once he does, the leader will fly in his direction, and hopefully his fellows will follow.
Cohen turns to the geese, sucks in a chest full of air, and lets out his signature goose call. A honk-cackle combination that always makes me snicker. If Cohen weren’t so good at calling them, we wouldn’t eat goose so often.
Here, in these woods, we work seamlessly together.
Here, we’re good.
When we’re apart—Cohen traveling across Malam and Shaerdan, and me trying to avoid most of Brentyn—everything gets too complicated. I wish there were some way to simplify, to align our goals, just like we do here.
The leader of the gaggle takes to the sky, and the others fall into formation. The geese pass over me. Once I have a clear shot, I aim for an animal’s neck and let loose. My arrow plucks the bird right out of the air. My second and third arrows manage to impale birds near the back of the formation as the remaining geese escape over the treetops, unaware of the fallen few.
I glance across the clearing to Cohen, who’s scratching his scar. He points up at the limbs over his head where his arrow protrudes from a dead branch. He shrugs and turns away. But before he does, I catch the frown that carves a canyon between his brows.
I don’t want him to feel bad for having missed his goose, so I don’t mention anything as I move to my first kill. I say a silent prayer of thanks and well-meaning as the fowl’s energy fades. Once the words are spoken, the goose seems to accept death, its frenzied energy slowing to a calm, weak beat until its body stills.
My arrows have no bends or breaks, so I snatch them from the three geese, clean the tips, and tuck them back into my quiver. When the birds are strung together, Cohen slings them over the saddle as I put my bow in the holder.
“Well done, Britt,” he says.
“Same to you.”
His small shrug tells me he doesn’t believe me, so I add, “It took both our efforts. Don’t forget that.”
He squeezes my hand. “I won’t.”
Together, we head down the mountain, walking with Snowfire in tow.
“Will you tell me what happened with Phelia?” Cohen asks. “When I got the news, I rode back to Malam as fast as I could.”
I touch his beard. “Is that why you look like you haven’t slept in days?”
“Didn’t want to sleep anywhere but in your cottage.”
Even though the thought of him being nearby at night thrills me, I remind him, “Gillian practically had an episode of fits when you last slept there.”
“We were in separate rooms.” He pulls me close. “Not nearly close enough.”
“Tell that to Gillian.”
He ducks and pecks my cheek with a quick kiss.
I start with my discovery of the king and his men in the clearing. I don’t say how I knew the king was in danger. It’s not that I want to lie; it’s that the words don’t come. They’re locked away with worry. I’ll explain my connection to Aodren later. Instead, I tell how I loaded the king onto Snowfire before the Spiriter showed up.
“Wasted a month searching for her.” He huffs out a wintry breath.