Page 116 of Cycle Keeper’s Shadow

“What I wouldn’t give to change into anything else.”

“I hope Velhya’s got a pond.” He stood and stretched. “I need a bath in the worst way.”

She snorted. “You really do.”

He’d long since lost the ability to tell whether the sickly-sweet smell belonged to the corruption in the forest or to him. He felt a twinge of unease but resisted the urge to check. They walked back together, the silence lighter than before.

Branwynn sat at the clearing’s edge with Tommick in her lap. The boy waved his stick-sword, chattering about the lesson. She nodded to Orzen as he passed. Maybe she already knew.

Silas looked up, his gaze flicking between Wren and Orzen. They weren’t walking close, but they weren’t at odds anymore either. Silas’s smile held, but irritation pinched at its corners. Beneath it lingered the look of a man already deciding how to twist the next turn in the road to his advantage.

He nodded to Silas—not in greeting, but in warning.

Whatever game he was playing, whatever interest he had in Wren, Orzen wouldn’t let it go unchecked.

Chapter 30

The Quenchless Pools

In the morning, the humidity had lessened, though it clung to them long through the night, leaving everyone drenched in sweat and thirstier than before. The few waterskins that survived the screecher attack wouldn’t last them long. They trudged onward, the silence broken only by the creak of leather steady tramp of boots.

Jessa and Calen drifted at the front, heads bent together, fingers twined like they were strolling through a meadow instead of plodding through heat and thirst. Calen flushed every time she smiled at him, and Jessa carried herself with the effortless assurance of someone still young enough not to care who noticed.

Seeing their affection so closely sent a small ache through Wren that was too much like jealousy…not of Calen himself, but of their closeness shared so openly. It was something Wren often hoped for, but not something ever offered to her. The ease of it was foreign—like a language she understood but had never been allowed to speak herself.

She’d accepted it long ago; that type of close connection simply wasn’t meant for her. At least, she thought she had. The wound reopened when she wasn’t paying attention, leaving a quiet bitterness where hope used to live.

Of all the ridiculous things to want right now.

She shoved it aside and focused on her hoofbeats.

Branwynn hovered near the back, closer to Orzen, her gaze drilling into Silas’s spine. Wren hadn’t overlooked the way Silas needled people. She wasn’t sure what to do with one more fracture in a group already held together by grief and hunger.

Tommick swung his stick like it was a master’s blade, chattering about sword forms. Orzen corrected his grip when needed—hands steady and gentle.

Orzen’s fingers flexed on his sword hilt now and then. Silas’s shoulders stayed rigid, his eyes fixed forward, idly slipping beads along the cord at his waist. The tension between them simmered—not boiling but rumbling under the quiet—as tangible as the heat pressing on her skin.

The memory Wren had glimpsed in Orzen’s mind—her own face at the festival, shining with joy—slid back into her thoughts. She hadn’t meant to see it; she was sure he’d never intended for her to see it either. She’d never thought of herself as beautiful. Not that there was anything wrong with how she looked, but she’d always felt rather plain. The version of her that lived in his memory had glowed with life in a way that was undeniably lovely. She simply wished she could see herself the same way.

She caught herself watching him now: the set of his broad shoulders, the patient way he guided Tommick’s hands, the steadiness she’d doubted. And then he turned, meeting her eyes as if he’d felt her looking. She ducked her head and fumbled at a buckle on her satchel.

Her pulse betrayed her, a jolt she pretended not to feel. Heat crept up her neck. She drank from her waterskin, focusing on the trickle instead of the pounding in her chest. Not now. Not with everything fraying at the edges. Maybe, if they ever reached the Glade…she shook her head and focused on her steps.

We have to be close. Thirst put a sharp edge on every step. She passed her waterskin to Jessa, who gratefully took a small sip and handed it back. Even her face was drawn with concern—a sign that things were truly dire. Velhya’s note said the pools were near. They simply had to hold on a little while longer.

In the afternoon, when the sun beat down on them through the gaps in the canopy, there was finally a reason to hope. Light shimmered through the trees. It wavered in the heat like a promise.

She tapped Silas’s shoulder. “Are you seeing that too?”

He squinted, hand raised to shade his eyes.

“Looks like we finally made it.”

Wren passed the word down the line, and relief rippled through the group—sighs slipping out, shoulders unlocking, steps quickening. After days of thirst and heat, the glimmer looked like salvation. Still…mirages always vanished when you reached them.

But the pools were real.

The trees opened into a wide, sunlit basin. Cascading pools spilled from ledges of mossy stone into a clear blue sheet below—thin ribbons of water tumbling like silver thread. At the near edge, the basin spread shallow and glassy, but further in, the ground dropped away so abruptly the water turned to shadow, its depths impossible to gauge.