“Like what?” I ask.
“Like I really don’t know as much as I thought I did. Especially when it comes to women.” He cups the side of my face and says, “You make me feel things I’ve never felt before, and you make me want things I never thought I would want.”
“Like what?” I ask again, mesmerized by his imperfections—the scruffy black beard that frames his lips, his tangled hair, the dirt smudged down the bridge of his nose.
“Like the kiss of a Faodarian princess. I think I want that more than I’ve ever wanted anything before.” He smiles a crooked smile, and I catch my bottom lip in my teeth. “I’m looking forward to the moment you finally give in to that carnal nature of yours and get up the nerve to kiss me. Because in Anthar, the woman always kisses the man first.” He winks, drops his hand, and turns away from me.
I press a trembling hand to my heart and force myself to take a deep, slow breath.
“We need to find water and shelter, and we need to get off this mountain. With the season starting to change, the nights will be cold at this elevation, as we discovered last night.” He shrugs his quiver and unstrung bow onto his back. “How are your feet? Can you handle an afternoon of hard travel?”
“They are tougher than they used to be.”
“Good.” Without another word, he intertwines his fingers in mine, and we start down the mountain.
My progress down the mountain is painfully slow. No matter how carefully I pick my way through strewn pine needles and lush undergrowth, something sharp or jagged always manages to find the soft arch of my foot.
Golmarr doesn’t say anything about our pace. He stops every time we come to a stream and lets me rest as long as I want while we drink water and eat the watercress that grows along the streambed. Twice, he finds a snake sunning itself close to the water. He kills them both and guts them, then loops them over his belt.
The farther down the mountain we go, the steeper the path becomes, and the pine trees grow farther apart. And then, without warning, the trees end, and I am balancing on the edge of a cliff with Golmarr standing silent at my side.
The sky opens up—a spectacular blue dotted with patches of clouds—and seems to go on forever, stretching over the deep, uneven green of a forest far below: the Glass Forest. My heart seems to double in size as I stare at a sight more captivating than the costliest paintings hanging in my mother’s castle, more breathtaking than the finest jewelry I have ever seen. I want to reach out and grab the scene in front of me, and hold it to my heart so that I never forget it. I yearn for wings so that I can fall forward from this cliff and glide on the air above the forest. I shake my head. That is what Zhun wanted, not me. Even so, tears of yearning fill my eyes and coat my lashes, blurring the scene below. I wipe them away and study the endless green. Something dark is circling above the forest, something that makes my nerves shiver a warning. From where I stand, I cannot tell what I am looking at, but my mind keeps whispering one word: dragon. My instincts tell me to hide or run. I grip Golmarr’s shoulder and pull him into the shelter of the pines.
“Did you see that?” I whisper, too on edge to raise my voice.
Golmarr frowns. “See what?”
“There is something down there.” I point to the Glass Forest. Golmarr lowers himself to his belly and crawls to the edge of the cliff. He stays there a long time while I hide in the shadows and watch. Finally, he creeps back.
“I didn’t see anything,” he says. “But we need to hurry and find shelter. There are tales of creatures living in the mountains above the Glass Forest. No one enters these mountains unless they have to.”
“I have an idea,” I say, and start searching the underbrush. After a few minutes, I find a pine bough as thick as my wrist and a little taller than my head lying on the ground. Taking the knife from my waist, I whittle away a patch of the spiky, sappy bark, just big enough for a handhold, and then use it as a walking staff.
“Brilliant,” Golmarr says. “Now, let’s hurry on and see if we can find some shelter for the night.”
Shortly before sunset, the trail loops beneath the base of a steep gray cliff. Two giant rock slabs rest balanced against the cliff, their tops tipped against each other, making a triangular shelter that is closed on three sides. Already there is a shallow hole dug out of the shelter floor, with a few blackened sticks inside of it. I remember seeing a fire there before…except that is impossible, since I have lived my entire life behind castle walls.
“Let’s spend the night here,” Golmarr says. “You sit and rest your feet. I will gather wood and make a fire, and then we can cook these.” He touches the snakes dangling from his belt. I do not know what my face looks like upon hearing we are eating snake for dinner, but Golmarr starts laughing. “Don’t you eat snake for dinner in Faodara?”