Page 80 of Moonless

“Neither can she!”

I step closer before he can walk around me.

“You wake me up, carry me all this way, and now I find out I’m helping you destroy it?”

“You’re staying with me.”

“Then tell me what you’re doing when I ask. I asked you at the bed. I asked you outside. How close were you planning to get before I found out?”

He shifts the sack against his hip, pulling at a tie that’s already tight. “Move.”

“You don’t get to decide what happens to our medicine.”

He snaps. “I’m in charge here. Remember that.”

I shut up.

His hand leaves the tie, and when he looks at me, one ear lifts away from his hair.

I put my right hand over the little knife beneath my belt. Yesterday he was sorting through sticks to find me a straight one.

“I remember.”

I step around him and start toward the ridge.

“Kestria.”

My foot wrap’s twisted under my heel, so I stop and pull it straight with one hand on the fallen tree. Stupid wrap.

He comes alongside, reaching toward my arm, and I straighten before he touches it.

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

No, you shouldn’t have. I walk on, and there’s a gap between two roots ahead, wide enough for my foot.

“I was—” His hand comes up beside me, then drops. “I’m sorry.”

I step through the gap and don’t slow down. He can keep it.

Mel has to know. Home’s half a day from that field and he’d have me before the first tree, but Mel never picks alone, and wolves hear a long way. If anybody’s near it, I just need one good shout.

Rauk comes up beside me, but I keep my eyes on the ground. He has to slow down for my feet, which suits me, because I’m looking for anything I know.

The worn path appears below us after the next turn, and I’ve used it before, with Mel’s basket banging against my leg while she told me to stop swinging it. It goes around the ridge, the easy way.

Rauk angles uphill.

I follow until a broken trunk blocks the way. He steps over it, turns, and holds out his hand.

I duck beneath the low branch to my right and run downhill.

There’s a crash behind me, and I keep my left arm tight against my ribs. Here he comes.

I hit the old path below the next tree and take the bend too fast, so my foot wraps skid in the loose dirt, but I stay up. Still got it.

He should’ve had me by now. He’s slow today, and I’ll take it.

I know this turn, and the field’s past it.