Reign of Shadows (Reign of Shadows, #1)(55)

“Luna.” His hand closed over mine. “I’ve survived this long. This isn’t going to be the end of me. It would take more than a lake to kill me.”

He lifted my hands off him, his warm touch no less firm for all its gentleness. My hands dropped to my sides, empty.

“I’ll be back,” he assured me.

“I don’t want you to go.” There was no wavering in my voice. It rang solidly. I needed for him to be safe and well. I needed him not to go off into whatever danger waited in that lake.

Suddenly I understood his insistence that I not go back to Relhok City. I understood because I felt the very same way. I wanted him safe, and he wanted the same thing for me, but I wouldn’t tolerate it of him.

But his life didn’t equal the death of an entire group. Mine did.

I wanted him to forget about going out on that lake. I wanted him to wait until midlight and then continue on his journey to Allu as he’d always planned—as he had always intended from the moment we first met. It was his plan before we met. It was his plan after we met. It would be his plan no matter what happened to me.

I swallowed against the bitter taste in my mouth. Whether I was with him or not, he would eventually see that. As long as he survived. As long as nothing happened to him out on that lake.

“We need the supplies. There’s no choice. I have to do this.”

There was a rustling as he lifted his pack, and the familiar whisper of his bow and sheath of arrows as he picked them up from where they rested near the hearth. “I’ll be back.”

Then he was gone.

I felt his absence even though his tread fell silently. It was an ache as keen and sharp as the point of a knife’s blade at my skin.

“Come, girl, you can help me with laundry.”

“Of course.” I fell into step behind her and tried not to think about Fowler and where he was headed.

“You well? You’re hardly moving.”

“I’m fine.” I shook off my sluggish movements. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because your man might not return, that’s why.”

The words struck me like a slap. I swallowed back the lump rising up in my throat. “He’s not mine. But he’ll be back.”

I shoved down the rest of my fear and convinced myself that this was the truth. Fowler had been on his own for a long time. This wouldn’t be the end of him.





TWENTY-FOUR


Fowler


THE LAKE STRETCHED like an endless sea. Our creaking wagons stopped at its bank with a groan of grinding wheels. I stared out at the water in the muted midlight. The light spilled brighter through breaks in the clouds as if the sun itself wanted to touch the lake’s surface.

My heart lifted for a moment. It was the most sunlight I had seen in years. A fractured memory rippled across my mind. Giggling with my mother outside, my small hand tracing her pretty face while she loomed over me, her chestnut hair gilded in the sunshine as she smiled down at me. Such a rare thing that smile, and nearly as blinding as all that light washing over us.

“Come.” Glagos snapped out the command. “Can’t gawk all day. Time is waning and we need to be on the water.”

I shook off the cobwebs of memory and hopped down from the wagon. The sooner this was done, the sooner I’d get back. Back to Luna.

I didn’t like leaving her. Even if Luna was disguised, there was a bounty on her head and that fact gnawed at me. The sooner we put Ortley behind us, the better I’d feel.

I had kissed her. I knew I should regret it, but I didn’t. I could only think about getting back to her and doing it again. Maybe if I kissed her enough she would forget about going to Relhok City and turning herself in to the king.

I followed the others, gathering nets and tools from the wagons and walking down the stretch of dock to the moored boats, three in total, rocking gently on calm waters.

“You’re with me.” Glagos waved me after him.

A near dozen of us clambered aboard boats—three or four to each one. We pushed off. I wasn’t stupid enough to take Glagos’s insistence that I join him as a compliment. I was the newest arrival to Ortley. He was the leader. He had to keep a close eye on me.

I settled in the middle of the boat and took up an oar. The boy beside me did the same. He was no more than fourteen with reed-thin arms and I wondered how well he functioned when he looked fit to expire from hunger. Apparently the boy didn’t eat his fair share of the kelp he fished out of the lake.

We rowed, falling into an easy rhythm, our oars slicing water. Glagos studied me as I worked, rubbing the scar on his face pensively, looking for weakness. I held his stare. With a sound that was part snort and part laugh, he looked away to assess the lake. The other boats fanned out, a lantern in each, bobbing on the current and spilling light into a wide circle on the dark waters.

Midlight gradually slipped away and night returned. I inhaled the familiar darkness, the musky earthiness that signaled the return of the dwellers. I scanned the shoreline. No sign of them yet, but they were out there.

“What? Worried they’ll swim for us?” Grinning, Glagos followed my gaze. “They won’t.”

“I wasn’t worried.”

“Good then,” Glagos murmured. “Let’s have it.”

I returned my gaze to the lake. The water gleamed like black, shimmering glass. It was not the typical dark. The usual darkness was like staring into a black pit. There was no gloss or shimmer to it. No wink of anything buried in its depths.