Spindle Fire (Spindle Fire #1)(14)

But then Heath’s hand and face reemerge, and he grins. “You coming?”

She holds her breath, reminding herself that she has no other choice. Not unless she wants to remain alone in the Borderlands.

She closes her eyes . . . then steps into the mist and stone.

Penetrating the illusion is like walking through ice. She feels the wall’s resistance, a deep sorrow tinged with bitterness. The word “stop” clenches all around her. She starts to hyperventilate.

This is wrong. This is all wrong. She needs to get out. She needs to turn back. She needs to—

Heath’s hand wraps around hers, and tugs.





8


Isabelle


Normally, noisy crowds frustrate Isbe; she ends up disconnected in all the commotion. But the cacophony at Roul’s dinner table tonight is strangely comforting—it may not replace the loneliness she feels when she thinks of her sister, but at least it serves to lessen the raging questions in her mind: What is Aurora doing at this very moment? What would she think of this table, of this meal they must eat almost entirely with their hands? The many interweaving voices talking over one another, the laughter and the sounds of dishes rattling on the warped wooden table make the entire room seem warmer, cozier, and more alive than she has felt in a while.

A neighboring family has joined them for their evening meal—a kind couple and their five children, making it seven kids in total, in addition to the five adults. The neighbors contributed their own pheasant eggs and helped to prepare a rabbit stew. Isbe senses for them this is quite a feast, and after a week of hard work, she too is savoring the strong scent of the stew and the satisfying toughness of the meat in her teeth.

Isbe has been learning everything she can about the farm: how to follow the fence to the goat pen, where to draw water, what grain sack to feed the pigs from. Before they came, Roul clearly hadn’t lifted a finger to straighten up his small home since the death of Celeste, and it reeked of mourning and of dirty children, of sweat and sour goats’ milk. Isbe spent the first day scrubbing the floors, rubbing dry lavender and sage into the cracks to freshen the place up.

She can’t imagine what it must be like to have lost an unborn baby and a wife in one strike. Roul’s son, Piers, is too young to help out, so he runs loose all day, reminding Isbe of herself at that age. When there’s nothing else to be done, Isbe plays with Aalis, whom Roul had otherwise been strapping to his back every day while he worked.

There has been almost no break. In just a few days, Isbe’s back, arms, and legs have gathered a deep, unfamiliar ache. The nights are short and cold; the days begin before dawn.

Sometimes Aalis wakes screaming from bad dreams, and Isbe holds her warm little body against her own, singing her the rose lullaby until the girl relaxes and drifts back to sleep. Though she might not admit it aloud, the familiar lullaby comforts Isbe too. “One night reviled, before break of morn, amid the roses wild, all tangled in thorns, the shadow and the child together were born . . .” Somehow the words make her feel connected to the life she led up until now—the life she left behind.

When Isbe and Gilbert first got here, Isbe brought her fingers to touch Roul’s leathery cheeks, to explore the sharp ridges of his face. Gil—despite the roughness of his hands and garments—is so familiar, so constant, she thinks of him as smooth, like an oft-handled river stone. Roul, on the other hand, is all broken bits and hard edges. It’s strange how haggard he has become in just a few years; he isn’t much older than Gil, after all. But life beyond the royal village has not been kind to him, and Gil now exceeds him in both height and the broadness of his shoulders.

Gilbert is sitting to Isbe’s right at the table, and she can feel his shoulder grazing hers. “You look somber,” he mutters into her ear.

She hates how aware she is of his breath whispering against her skin. That if she turned too soon, her mouth would collide with his.

“I’m afraid this life is harder on you than either of us knew it would be,” he goes on quietly, beneath the din of the rest of the group.

“No,” she replies immediately. The last thing she wants to admit is how shocked she’s been by how different things are for the peasants. Even though she was treated more like a servant at the palace than royalty, she had freedom to choose her activities. No one’s livelihood has ever truly depended on her before.

But there’s a deep satisfaction in being of real use for once. “I’m not afraid of hard work,” she tells him.

“All right. No need to get defensive,” he says, poking her in the ribs.

She gives him a half grin. “Better than when I’m on the offensive, though.”

He laughs quietly. “I like it when you get aggressive.”

“Oh, do you?” she challenges.

Even though the room is noisy, she can hear him breathing again. They are sitting very close, his voice directed only at her. “Yes,” he says, sounding serious. “I do.”

And then he flicks a bit of his stew at her face.

“Hey!” she says, turning to him.

“It wasn’t me!” he protests.

“Oh, don’t try and blame the children.” She grins wider this time, picking up a soggy carrot from her bowl, not caring as broth soaks into her sleeve.

“Isbe!” he says. “You’re making a mess of your—”