by Anna Logan
Yhkon’s fist tightened around the reins, his other arm still around Talea, holding her securely. No one would be taking his ward again any time soon—that he would swear by.
16
Questions
T alea woke to warmth on her skin.
Warmth? She opened heavy eyelids, only to shut them again at the brightness. It was blinding. It was sunlight. Sunlight! Excitement made it impossible to hold still or keep her eyes closed. Opening them again to a squint, she looked down to see her lap and Eclipse’s mane. Her skin tingled with the caress of the sun’s glow. But there was warmth behind her, too.
Its source became known when she started to sit up, as a firm hand stopped her. A jolt of alarm buzzed through her, until Yhkon’s voice came behind her ear. “Good morning.” His tone…it wasn’t exactly gentle. It probably wasn’t possible for him to speak gently. But it was surprisingly close to it.
She started to crane her neck to see him. A sharp pain seized the muscles between her shoulders and jaw, causing her to freeze, breath hitching.
The hand that had been on her arm moved to her neck, fingers gingerly brushing the side of her throat, before settling on her shoulder. “Try not to move your head or do anything that increases the pain.” His hands were frigid, making it hard not to disobey by shivering. Despite being frigid, there was something comforting about it. It was…safety. A protective presence.
She carefully lay her head back down against his chest, surrendering to fatigue and pain that made movement so laborious. Experimentally, she gathered the saliva in her mouth and swallowed. It felt like she was trying to push a rock down a tiny, stretchable tube that was too small for the task. That was enough to tell her that her voice still wasn’t functioning. It hadn’t been so bad not being able to talk those first couple days in the prison, when there was no one to talk to. Now, when there were a hundred questions she could ask, a thousand things she could say…it was just another form of torment.
She wasn’t the only one not talking. By the sounds of the hoofbeats, she was with the entire group of Wardens and wards and her family, yet those hoofbeats were the only thing to be heard.
Was Alili somewhere among them? Was she okay? How long had it been since they’d rescued them from the Asyjgon? Had anyone been hurt? Was everyone there—her mother, Naylen and Brenly, Wylan, the twins, the Wardens? Had none of them been harmed when the Asyjgon had captured her? Not being able to ask a single one of the many questions was maddening.
But the sunlight made up for it. The crisp, fresh air, even colder than that of the cave. The trees, their leaves green and glowing in the sun’s radiance. The clear, blue sky.
Maybe not being able to talk was okay. As soon as she could talk…they would ask questions. They would want to know what had happened. How could she describe it as if she were describing a trip to the mercantile?
Alili. She had to know if Alili was okay. She sat up straighter, ignoring the dizziness that made her vision swim. Trying to lean away from Yhkon in order to see around him only made the invading black dots gain numbers, making it impossible to see anything. A wave of heat traveled from her core outward, inflaming her skin, bringing a tremble to her hands.
Yhkon steadied her, guiding her back to the stability of his shoulder to lean on. “Take it easy. What is it you’re looking for? Everyone is here. The little girl, too. Well, your mother isn’t here.” As she started to sit up again with fear, he rushed on, pushing her back down at the same time. “Sorry, I mean, I had her escorted to Calcaria. Your father has taken ill. He’s going to be alright, but I sent her to be with him, since there wasn’t anything she could do here. She’s fine. Your brother and Brenly are still here, though.”
Talea forced her body to relax. Was her father alright? How sick was he? More questions she couldn’t ask. But Yhkon said he was going to be alright. And that all of them, they were all fine, they were there, Alili too. They were safe. Away from the Asyjgon base, the prison, Lerrip.
“Talea…” by the way he said it, he wasn’t going to wait for her to be able to talk to ask questions. “I…it shouldn’t have taken us that long to get you out, we just, well, the trail was difficult to follow. They covered it up. But, I mean, in the first place, I shouldn’t have…they...well, if I had known they had a tunnel in that cave…”
She pursed her lips, back to wishing she could talk, so she could tell him it was okay. Or at least that it wasn’t his fault.
As it was, she could almost feel his rising agitation. “Blast those wretched Asyjgon, I swear I—”
Talea set her hand on his arm, closing her eyes, as if by calming herself she could transfer it to him through touch. Though pointless and a little intimidating, it was almost sweet of him. Not sweet. Just…caring. Protective. But whatever it was, she doubted listening to him rant would ease her uptight nerves. She could still picture Lerrip’s body in her mind, lying in that hallway, covered in blood and nearly cut in half. Yhkon had killed him, that much was easy to surmise. Even if Lerrip’s very name was enough to make her shudder, the image of his corpse still gave her a certain sense of timidity toward the man that had killed him so brutally.
Maybe that was why she didn’t think it was possible for Yhkon Tavker to have a gentle tone. Because there was too much of a gap between the man that had attacked those first Asyjgon weeks ago with a terrifying, savage eagerness and the word gentle. How could he possibly bridge that gap, possibly be able to show both extremes? Though, of course, there was no doubt he was an individual of extremes.
Weariness made her head lull. A saddle wasn’t the most comfortable bed, perhaps, but it seemed an infinite improvement to the stone cell and iron bars. Even if the sun was warm, the air was not, this high in the mountains. A shiver rocked her shoulders.
“Are you cold?” She could feel him moving, as if reaching for something. A moment later, he was laying a blanket over her, tucking it in around her collar. Sweet Lamara’s glory, how she’d missed the coziness of being wrapped in a blanket, curled up to rest. Unable to express her thanks any other way, she found his hand with her own and gave it a squeeze, before folding her arms under the blanket.
“Get some sleep,” he whispered, as she rearranged herself so that her legs were more comfortably on one side of the saddle instead of straddling it. Sleep. Beautiful sleep. It had been her escape from the stark reality of being a hostage of the Asyjgon. Now it could be one of the aspects of this reality, this blissful reality that didn’t involve Captain Lerrip or prison cells.
When she woke again, it was with confusion.
She was moving. Except she wasn’t…something was moving her. Lerrip! She grabbed the first thing that came into reach and tried to pull herself away. Her fingernails dug into leather.
“Hey, hey! Talea!” That wasn’t Lerrip’s voice. It was Yhkon’s.
Talea opened her eyes. The thing she’d grabbed was Eclipse’s saddle, which she was no longer in. The thing moving her was Yhkon, carrying her away from the celith. She released her grip and forced her tense body to relax.
“I didn’t mean to scare you.” He knelt down, putting her on the grass, moving to where she could see him. He looked about how he always looked: sleep-deprived and older than he claimed to be. “We’re stopping for the night. The Asyjgon base is quite a ways behind us, they showed no intentions of following, and the Elikwai that helped us free you left to throw them off our trail if they did.” He must have been worried by whatever expression she was wearing, because he put his hand on her shoulder and added, “You’re safe.”
Safe. She nodded.
His posture eased. “Alright. I want to look you and the little girl over to see if either of you are injured. Grrake,” he turned to where Grrake was dismounting his celith, Wylan and Alili still in the saddle. “Could you bring her over here?”
Unable to warn them what would likely happen, Talea watched as Grrake reached up to take Alili, only for the child to flinch and try to fling herself out of Wylan’s arms
. Fortunately, he held on, preventing her from falling off.
“Okay…” Yhkon glanced at her, then back. “Wylan can you climb down while holding her?”
Wylan didn’t reply, already dismounting with Alili held to his side by one arm. He brought her over, set her down beside Talea, and crouched on her other side. His navy eyes caught hers, as if searching. Since she couldn’t say anything, she just stared back, giving him a fraction of a smile. He blinked as if she’d finished an entire oratory on her feelings, which by his definition of communication, she practically had.
Yhkon drew her attention back as he faced Alili. He looked at her the way one might look at a complicated math problem they had no idea how to solve.
Grrake, having joined them, wasn’t so daunted. “What’s your name?” he asked, his tone holding all the gentleness that she thought impossible of Yhkon.
Talea inspected the ground around her, finding a spot of bare dirt and a twig. Using the twig as a pencil, she scribbled out: “Her name is Alili. She doesn’t talk. She’s 6.”
Grrake nodded to her and smiled at Alili. “Alili, huh? I think you have a very pretty name. My name is Grrake. We’re all friends of Talea’s, and we want to help you. Is that okay?”
Alili’s huge eyes turned to Talea. Questioning. Talea smiled and nodded to her, putting a hand on Grrake’s knee to show she trusted him. Satisfied, Alili turned back to the Warden and gave a tiny nod of her own, though her eyes still held wariness.
“Talea!” Brenly’s voice. She and Naylen were jogging toward them, inquiring gazes already on her. They heeded Yhkon’s “Careful,” and finished their approach almost cautiously, hugging her briefly and loosely. Didn’t say anything else. They looked nervous.
She tried not to squirm. If only she could talk.
Yhkon saved her, even if she doubted it was out of perception of her discomfort. “I need to look her and Alili over for injury. Will you two go help set up camp, and Brenly, ask Haeric if he could help you make some stew or something. You too, Wylan, and could you bring them some water?” he didn’t watch to make sure his instructions were followed. They were. Wylan brought the water, then all three of them left, with a few final worried looks.
That left Talea facing Yhkon, strangely nervous. He was looking her up and down. “Are you hurt anywhere? Other than your neck? Drink some water.”
Drinking water was no leisurely matter. Still, she did it, grimacing with each swallow. Alili, on the other hand, snatched the canteen offered to her and gulped down three quarters of it. Was she hurt anywhere else? Ribs…She delicately set her fingers against the hot pain in her rib cage.
He felt them, carefully, though not carefully enough to avoid making her wince. “Some of them are broken. There’s nothing I can do for that. They’ll heal on their own. Anything else?”
Well sure, her whole body hurt to one degree or another. She pointed to her shoulders, back, and head, and picked up the twig again and wrote in the dirt, “Probably bruises?”
Grrake said something that was completely inarticulate. A different language?
Yhkon replied in the same dialect. He switched to Zentyren to speak to her. “Okay, let me check your head though, just in case.” He went behind her, putting his palms on either side of her head, using his fingers to meticulously part her tangled hair to see the skin beneath. At some point his thumb brushed what must have been a scrape, and she cringed. He mumbled something, then dabbed at it with a wet cloth. She didn’t know what the liquid was on it, but it stung.
“And Alili?” he asked, finished with her.
Talea scooted closer to the little girl and pulled down the collar of her shirt, enough to let the Wardens see the swollen, marred skin beneath. They had another exchange in the other language—she assumed it was Sanonyan—in which Grrake spoke with pity and sympathy, Yhkon with anger. It was her fault. If she’d abandoned her ridiculous morals in the face of a little girl’s suffering, if she hadn’t been so stuck in her hypocritical piety…
“Did they hurt her, to try to make you do what they wanted?” Grrake asked, softly.
She hadn’t meant to cry. Yet her vision was blurring. An ache built in her throat as she choked on the words that wouldn’t come yet clawed to escape. “It was my fault. I let them do it. I could have stopped it.” That was what she wanted to say, had to say. But she could only make pathetic whimpers and croaks, not words.
“It’s not your fault,” Grrake said, as if he’d heard the words she couldn’t speak. “The Asyjgon use that tactic often. I know it must be hard, but you were doing the right thing. That they hurt her is on their heads, not yours.” He kept talking, saying the same thing in different ways, but she’d already stopped listening. Words were what she wanted to express her feelings with and couldn’t. Words were what he was expressing his feelings with, but they were empty. Meaningless.
When Yhkon hugged her, a little awkwardly, it was the last thing she expected. Awkward, unexpected, and strange as it might be, it held meaning that Grrake’s words lacked. It made it easier for her to steady her breathing.
Almost the moment she stopped crying, he got up and walked away without a word. She watched him go, motionless.
Grrake spoke again. This time, he murmured it, as if less confident of what he said. “I’m sorry.”
She looked into his hazel eyes. They were pained.
“I do that, sometimes.” He didn’t meet her gaze. “Say it’s going to be alright, or that it wasn’t your fault, or not to blame yourself.” He smiled. A sad, broken smile. “Yhkon hates it when I do that.”
Even if she could, she knew she wouldn’t ask what he meant. In a way, she didn’t need to. Instead, she put her hand on his knee again, this time sincerely, not as a demonstration. What she really wanted to ask was if he had an explanation for Yhkon, not for himself. The lead Warden hadn’t just walked away from her, he’d left the camp. He wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
Grrake straightened and mustered a new smile, a forced one, for Alili. “Will you let me try to make it feel better?”
Alili studied him for a long moment. After coming to some sort of conclusion, she climbed into Talea’s lap, with her back to Grrake. Talea stroked the girl’s hair off her neck to the side, holding her head to her shoulder. Grrake must have understood that it was a version of permission, because he dampened a clean cloth with a liquid in a small bottle and gently rubbed Alili’s back with it. As he worked, Grrake tried to soothe the girl in a soft voice, telling her how brave she was, warning Alili that her wounds would sting a bit as he worked but would then feel better, and that afterward she could have some hot stew, as much as she wanted. If Talea had ever doubted it, she didn’t anymore: Grrake was, or had been, a father.
After he finished, there was nothing left to stop them from joining the rest of the group. Grrake stood up. “Would you like to walk by yourself or should I—” She shook her head. He offered his hand and helped her to her feet, but otherwise left her to manage on her own. He reached out to Alili, only to have her dart away, hiding behind Talea’s legs. “That’s alright,” he smiled at the little girl, as she peered out from behind Talea’s thigh. “I bet you’re plenty capable on your own, aren’t you? Let’s go get that stew, huh?”
Holding tightly to Talea’s hand, Alili moved out from behind her and the three of them moved forward to join the rest of the group. Talea kept her eyes down, only glancing up occasionally to meet the inquiring gazes. She wondered if it would be better or worse to be able to talk, since if she could, she’d have to come up with something to say.
Kae, to her credit, made the first move. “We were so worried about you,” she hugged Talea gently, then knelt in front of Alili. “And who’s this?”
“Her name is Alili,” Grrake supplied.
Kae offered her open hand to Alili. “I’m Kae. I have a sister not much older than you, you know. She has big, beautiful eyes, just like you.”
Alili tentatively slipped her miniature fingers into Kae’
s palm, her other hand still squeezing Talea’s.
“Come on,” Kae stood back up, still holding the girl’s hand. “You can sit with me. Talea?”
They followed Kae and sat down on a log in front of the fire. Brenly and Naylen sat down on Talea’s other side, Brenly’s arm slipping around her shoulders. She let her eyes wander to the fire and stay there. The orange flames, crackling, dancing above the burning pile of wood, the billowing smoke, occasional embers. Its soothing heat. Usually, they didn’t have a campfire, lest the smoke attract unwanted attention. Yhkon must have thought it worth the risk.
Yhkon. She cautiously rotated her upper body to look the way he’d gone. Still no sign of him. It was dark now, the sky a dreary gray, the woods shadowy. A shiver snaked down her spine. She jumped when Tarol tapped the ladle he was using against the side of the pot of soup to get the excess liquid off. The first wooden bowl he’d filled was given to Alili. The next was offered to her.
She stared into the steamy brew. Its savory scent filled her nostrils. Instead of feeling overcome with hunger, she felt nearly paralyzed with dread. Her throat constricted as she imagined forcing each mouthful down it.
Everyone was watching her.
Talea shook her head, leaning away from the bowl. Tarol retracted it, perplexed. “Talea?” Brenly nudged her shoulder. “What is it?”
Blinking, she pinched the sleeve of her dirty dress, hoping her friend would understand. She did. “Want to get cleaned up first?” Brenly asked, before looking to Grrake. “Is that okay?”
“Sure,” he nodded, though he seemed concerned. “Maybe you can find something for Alili to wear, too.”
With Brenly holding one hand and Alili—who had already finished the small serving of stew given her and been promised more when she came back—holding the other, Talea limped her way to the shelter designated as the girls’. Kae came with them. Inside, she did her best to mutely assure them that she was okay. If only they’d stop asking. Then she could stop pretending.
