BY THE TIME WE WERE ready to start our search the next morning, the Little Rose and I had reached an unspoken accord. I would pretend that it did not trouble me to speak to her as I spoke to Saoud, and she would pretend she didn’t notice every time I was troubled by it. It became easier as I practiced, though I could not bring myself to call her “Zahrah,” nor could I think of her as anything but a princess. But I could talk to her, and since conversation was one of the few things she could make without fear of consequence, I knew it was a service as important as any I might otherwise provide.
I concealed all evidence of our camp in the valley. There was only the smallest chance that anyone would find us in the mountains, but I didn’t want to take it. We had, after all, essentially kidnapped a princess. The grass was thick and lush enough that we had not left tracks, and everything we had could be fit into the cave. The Little Rose gathered sticks and rocks so that I might leave a message for Saoud on the cave floor, where I was sure it would not be disturbed, telling him that we had gone for food and would return. I doubted very much that he and the others would make it back before we did, because we were not planning to be gone overnight; but on the off chance that they did, I had no wish for them to worry overmuch.
So, on the fifth day after we had found our small haven, we left it. I carried a small pack, because while we did not intend to be abroad for very long, I wanted to prepare for as many contingencies as I could. The Little Rose had her shoes in her hands, because the grass was soft; the less she wore them, the better for her feet. Keeping that in mind, I directed us up the slope, rather than down it. Arwa had reported a glade nearby, and I thought that would be as good a place as any to start looking for food, as well as the more difficult object of our explorations.
“Do you have any idea where the creatures might be?” I asked the Little Rose when I finished explaining my intentions.
“Only stories,” she said ruefully. “But I suppose they have gotten us this far.”
As we climbed, I told her about the bear we had fought. I didn’t want to frighten her, but she needed to know that the woods around us concealed danger in more forms than she might imagine.
“Can you climb trees?” I asked.
“I never have,” she said. “But I have never climbed down a rope to escape from a tower either, and I managed that well enough.”
“Climbing up is easier most of the time, in any case,” I assured her. “If there is a need, you must find a tree and climb it.”
“And leave you to defend me?” she asked.
“No, I will be right behind you,” I said. She smiled. “At least until I have assessed the situation.”
“How did you know it was a demon in the bear?” she asked, her smile fading.
We had reached a rocky outcropping. I watched as she looked at the terrain, then at the shoes in her hand. She decided to take her chances, and we continued on.
“Its eyes,” I said. “There was something very strange about its eyes. I had never seen a bear before, but I have seen plenty of animals, and there was something not quite animal when the bear looked at us. Also, it seemed too intelligent. It didn’t react to pain as it should have.”
“Wonderful,” she said, stumbling slightly on a ledge.
I caught her without thinking about it, my hands on her waist and shoulder, and set her on her feet again. I would have done the same for Arwa, or Tariq when he was younger, but with the Little Rose it was different. My fingers knew that the cloth of her dress, plain and unadorned, was of a finer weave than anything Arwa had worn in years, but there was something else when I touched her…something I could not name. I felt my cheeks flush and I did not like it.
“Yashaa?” she said when she realized I had stopped walking. “Do you see something?”
“No, princess,” I said. I shook my head, and the world righted itself around me. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I drift into my own thoughts. I will be more careful.”
“I can see the world as well as you can, Yashaa,” she said. “You don’t have to be on constant alert. I may not know what I see when I see it, but I will know its intent, and that will suffice if you are woolgathering.”
She was teasing, I reminded myself. She was teasing because she was my companion on the road, and that was what companions did. I had done it with Saoud since we were old enough to know our own minds. Yet the difference between her teasing and Saoud’s nagged at me, and I could only nod at her and keep walking.
At last we crested a small rise and saw Arwa’s glade stretching out before us. There were flowers everywhere, blossoms swaying gently in the breeze, and a ring of trees bounding the margins like sentinels protecting a garden.
“It’s beautiful.” There was a wistful note in her voice when she said it, but her face was lit by the sun, and I saw joy and wonder in her expression.
“Come,” I said to her. “I will tell you which of them are poisonous.”