Page 136 of Winter's Echo
“I wasn’t alone. I had Seryn.”
“You had a sleeping, Seryn.”
“He was awake when I went in.”
Nicco’s look was unimpressed. Then he looked at the basin below — one long, assessing look — and then back at me. From behind his back, he pulled my staff and held it out to me. “Are you ready?”
Was I? From Nicco, to Vorn, to Nicco again. Truthfully, I was ready to be free. Somehow, I didn’t think freedom was in my future. I didn’t say that, though, I took my staff and simply nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Then let's go.”
He released my wrist, turned, and started walking south without further comment.
I stood on the ridge for one breath. Then another. Willing whatever was happening inside my chest to settle down.
I leaned down and made sure Seryn was wrapped as warmly as he could be. I tucked his face wrappings up and over his mouth and pulled his hood low.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered as I straightened.
“Amarya, let’s move,” Nicco barked from in front of me.
I glanced once more down at the basin and the tunnel, and I dipped my head once.
I turned away, pulled my hood low, and followed him.
Like he knew I would.
Chapter 31
We walked south,and neither of us spoke.
That was fine. I had nothing to say that wouldn't come out wrong, and Nicco had apparently decided that silence was the appropriate register for whatever our relationship was.
A shape dislodged itself from the snow, and I grinned in welcome as Baxley straightened. I guessed he’d been keeping watch. He tugged his face coverings down as we approached.
“Amarya.” His voice was warm, and his smile was wide. He clasped my shoulder as I reached him. “Did they hurt you?”
I shook my head. “No, they were fine. Strange, but we knew that.”
He nodded. “I’m glad you are not hurt. Why did they take you?”
I pretended I didn’t hear the huff of derision ahead. “I think it’s obvious,” Nicco said without looking back.
I rolled my eyes, and Baxley smiled again. “They wanted me to find a trail,obviously.” The last part was directed at the idiot male ahead of us.
Baxley was frowning. “A trail? A trail to where?”
And this was a problem. I didn’t want them to know about the settlement beyond the pass. I wasn’t sure why, so I lied.
“Iskaeld. They’d heard of the ice rocks.”
Nicco grunted, and Baxley considered me as we walked. “Why would Vorn’s people need gemstones?”
Why indeed? I shrugged in response. “I didn’t ask.”
Baxley fell into step beside me — both of us following Nicco — and that was the entirety of our formation.
Three people heading south through the flat gray of a Crystallese afternoon. It was the kind of silence that comes after something significant has happened and nobody is ready to name it yet.
