Inkmistress (Of Fire and Stars 0.5)(30)
I saw no signs of Ina.
I sat down for a moment to catch my breath, relishing the solitude. Pangs of longing for home cut through me with every heartbeat. There was something familiar as mountain honey about the way the sun struck my face and filled my soul. This was how the world was meant to be. Me, alone, only the sound of rushing water in my ears, sunlight streaming through the trees onto my face, the shadow tethered to my feet given time to shift over the course of the day. But today I couldn’t afford to watch the shadows change or bask in the false sense of peace. Pining for a home that no longer existed wouldn’t help me find Ina. If I wanted to start over, I needed to find her first.
I shook off the damp of the cave and walked through the forest, following the sound of water, but stopped cold when the trees suddenly gave way to an escarpment. A mixture of half-dead winter grass and new spring growth rippled and hissed in the wind like a warning. The stream cut shallowly through the grass in a wide, rocky expanse not far from where I stood. Past the rushing water and trembling grass, the cliff fell away into nothingness, the pine trees jutting into the sky like distant swords beyond it.
It was very beautiful for a cursed place.
I edged along the tree line, fearful of Mukira’s warning that visibility of the cliff meant doom. Perhaps it was only Tamer superstition, or didn’t affect demigods the same as mortals, but only a fool would take the chance. As I followed the tree line in the direction of the stream, the wind increased, whipping my cloak around my ankles. The area around the stream became rockier, and about ten paces ahead, a group of massive boulders jutted out of the land. Timeworn carvings decorated the rocks, shallow in some places and deep in others. That had to be where the entrance to the Sanctum lay.
Never even in the worst mountain storm had I felt the kind of wind that gripped me the moment I stepped away from the trees. It blew through me, cutting down to the bone. Sorrow swiftly followed it. No longer could I trust that the wind god was looking out for me. I had never belonged to him. I fought against the gale with stinging eyes, staggering from side to side until I got close enough to press myself against the boulders for stability.
On the other side of the rocks, sunlight glittered off the stream as the wind shattered the surface into a thousand gilded mirrors. I edged around until I could see all the way to the falls. The gusts seemed to ease for a moment as I took in the view, at the center of which was the person I’d walked leagues for, the girl who still held what pieces remained of my heart.
CHAPTER 13
MY NERVES JANGLED LIKE A CHOIR OF MIDWINTER bells.
In a small hollow just a few paces below me, Ina sat on a rock beside the stream, plaiting her dark hair while the water eddied around her pale ankles. She finished the braid and began to coil it at the nape of her neck, weaving in a thin strip of leather to tie it in place. As another gust kicked up, she turned into the wind so that I saw her in profile—the perfect straight nose, the sharp angle of her jawline. Over the past few weeks, her scar had tightened to a red line arching across her cheek like a bloody crescent moon. It only made her beauty more fierce, the blue of her eyes more intense, the dark of her hair and lashes more striking.
A day might never come when the sight of her didn’t steal my breath.
“Ina,” I said. Her name came out suffused with longing.
Her head whipped around with serpentine speed.
“Asra!” She dried her legs hastily, slipping her feet into worn woolen socks and then her boots. One of the toes was beginning to come unstitched. She clambered over to where I stood, until the soft curves of her body arched within a hand’s breadth of me. The wind whirled around us, our cloaks tangling with one another before we even touched.
I opened my arms and she stepped into them without hesitation. Relief flooded through me. The scent of spring hovered around her—cool mountain water and the verdant green of the soaproot shoots she’d used to wash her hair and bathe. My fear and worries slipped away as she melted into me like the softness of day turning to night, of darkness shifting back to dawn. The warmth of her against me brought back every moment we’d shared together with nothing between us at all. After all my fear, she was still my Ina, still the girl I knew, familiar in my arms. She would listen to reason. She had to.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she murmured. The hum of her words against my neck sent goose bumps racing down both my arms.
“Do you mean that?” I asked. Hope fluttered in my chest, fragile as a newly hatched butterfly. One minute she wanted me. The next she didn’t. It had to be the trauma of everything that had passed since we left home—or perhaps the dragon, who might have felt differently about me than she did.
She released the embrace but kept hold of my hand as we scooted back around to the more sheltered side of the cluster of rocks, crouching low to hide from the worst of the wind.
“How did you find me?” She sounded nervous, not like the bold creature who had left an entire caravan of bandits nothing more than bloody smears on the road.
I cast an anxious glance toward the cliff. We were still within sight of it. “The people who live in the forest saw you.”
“I’m glad you’re safe.” She ran her fingers over the ribbon of my courting bracelet, a small smile playing over her mouth. I wanted to kiss her.
“Not quite yet,” I said. “I promised the Tamers I’d get you to leave their forest. They’re worried about you upsetting the natural order. If I fail, they’ll kill me.”