Inkmistress (Of Fire and Stars 0.5)(59)

I looked away first.

“I’ll take first watch.” He stood up and left the fireside instead of settling into his usual place beside me.

I sighed and lay down, pulling my cloak more tightly around me. The nights had grown shorter, and I needed what sleep I could get before Hal woke me to take the second watch. I tried not to think about what he’d said earlier about wanting to fall in love. He didn’t know how terrible it could be. Still, unwanted thoughts kept rising—the crisp, fresh smell of him after we’d found a good place to bathe; how contagious his laugh was; what it might feel like if he touched me as tenderly as Ina used to.

Spindly trees reached for the sky, providing little shelter around us. I’d already sung my vespers at sundown, and now a creek murmured nearby, its susurration a delicate counterpoint to the sounds of nighttime insects and calls of other animals. Even though I was grateful to be outdoors again instead of trapped in Nismae’s miserable tower, trying to fall asleep never seemed to go well for me.

At least I no longer dreamed of Ina or woke with her dream kisses tingling on my skin.

We were safe. We had escaped. We were headed for Corovja with the hope of locating the Fatestone. The chances of Nismae or Ina finding us with someone as canny as Hal keeping watch were very, very small. I could sense him nearby and was comforted by his presence.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, trying to dredge up memories of safety and warmth. Standing with Miriel over a potion, watching the practiced way her fingers drew the symbols of the gods to enchant it. Lying alone in a meadow on my mountain as the afternoon shadows grew long, listening to birdsongs and the sounds of animals readying for sleep. Singing vespers that no one else was there to hear, my heart taking flight on the notes.

Just as I found the quiet place between wakefulness and dreams, an owl hooted.

I huffed and turned over, annoyed that it had broken my brief moment of peace. I didn’t know anything was wrong until echoes of the owl’s hoot sounded in the distance, followed by a chorus of two-note poorwill calls, then the fluttering of what sounded like a hundred sets of wings as they fled the area. Familiar footsteps hurried through the underbrush toward me.

Hal.

I scrambled to my feet, suddenly wide awake.

“It’s the dragon,” he said, his knife drawn.

Fear crackled through me like lightning. Once she saw us, she wouldn’t have trouble catching us. “We have to leave. Now.”

It appeared that when it came to Ina and me, one of us would always be chasing the other.

Now it was her turn.

Hal and I hastily scattered the coals of the fire, then hurried deeper into the forest.

The heavy beat of wings sounded over the trees.

“Run,” I choked out, trying to pitch my voice low. The words had barely left my mouth when fire lit in the treetops, illuminating Ina in dragon form.

“Go!” I shouted, and took off.

Hal dashed alongside me, leaping over obstacles in his path as nimbly as a deer. Overhead, Ina’s wings blotted out the moon, and then cinders showered from the treetops and the smoke thickened. Green spring growth was not meant to burn.

“We have to find shelter,” I said, coughing. “Somewhere she can’t follow.”

It seemed completely futile. The forest was thin and scrubby, the ground rocky between the trees. Even the smoke of the burning saplings provided little cover to obscure her view of us. I followed the creek, stumbling over fallen branches and rocks in the dark, hoping that the water might have carved out some small place we could disappear. Hope rose in my chest like a soaring bird, and then fell away as I burst through a final line of trees and onto the rocky shore of a lake.

I cast a glance back. Behind us, owls gathered on the bottom branches. They dropped to the ground, shaking off their manifests and drawing blades from their belts as soon as they were in human form.

We were trapped. There was nowhere left to run.

Ina swooped in front of us, hovering over the water. Her beating wings sent ripples of moonlight dancing across the glassy surface. Another plume of fire bloomed from her jaws, close enough that it warmed my cheeks and left scorch marks on the rocks just a few paces away.

“Fine! Kill me!” I screamed. “Take your revenge!” I didn’t want to die, but I was tired of this game—and death would be preferable to being returned to Nismae.

She roared in response, a vicious sound that split the night.

“She’s not going to kill you. You’re only of use to them alive,” Hal said from behind me.

He was right. She didn’t advance, but the group of Nightswifts slowly tightened the circle around us.

“Don’t come any closer,” Hal warned them, drawing his hunting knives.

“You shouldn’t have betrayed us,” the leader of the group said.

I didn’t recognize him—Nismae had been wise enough to send people who would have no sympathy for us. These weren’t the Nightswifts with whom I’d broken bread and shared stories; they were people who had been on missions during the brief time when I’d visited their headquarters.

Hal kept his chin up. “It’s not betrayal to protect the life of someone who did the same for you.”

“Then we’ll take you both down,” another one snarled.

Ina landed on the shore of the lake, her neck arched and ready to strike.