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It was yet another thing that she did not miss. She tsk’d, smiling as I proved her point.
“I can fight, Lyani. I’ll prove it to you, and be on my way.” I straightened my shoulders, knocking my head around in preparation to spar. I would go easy on her,
“You are going to fight me, a frail female, to prove you are strong enough to leave? You will lose, Caspyn.”
“You just said you were a frail female. I won’t lose.”
“Don’t make me knock you on your ass just to prove a point, Caspyn. You wouldn’t be the first male I put in his place.” She stepped right up to me, her own dangerous smile matching my own as she looked up to me.
“You wouldn’t–” Before I could finish, she pressed her hand against my chest again, shoving me right back down.
I landed hard against the thin mat I slept on, more pain lashing through my gut and I hissed.
“Oh, I would. Now get your shoes on.” She turned toward the door again, I didn’t move.
“Why would I do that? It’s the middle of the night?”
“It’s dawn,” she opened the flap to my tent, revealing the golden light that was filtering through the trees of the forest we had been traveling beside. It had taken me a day or two to realize the Lightens were taking the seldom used Dead Road to the Temple, and not the Spine Road as most did. I kept waiting for those trees to turn red and spindly, which was the sole reason most avoided this road, and this part of Okivo.
“Get up, Caspyn. You are going to protect me while I do some shopping.”
“Protect you?” Something bright flared through my chest and I sat up straighter. “Does that mean I get my weapons back?”
I shouldn’t have been as eager, for she turned, still holding the flap to the tent open so that I was sure the entire camp heard her as she laughed, the loud mocking tone carrying through the dew dipped grasses of the meadow we camped in and sending more than one animal into a fit.
“No. You were so keen to fight me a moment ago, Caspyn. I am sure you can hold your own without them. Just don’t go fighting any more frail ladies.” She grinned, looking me up and down in such a way that made me sure she didn’t believe it.
“You say I can’t move too much or risk tearing things, and now you want me to fight and protect you?” I retorted, throwing her own words at her and swallowing the grunt of pain as I pushed myself back to standing, sliding my feet into my boots, the only things to have survived my injury, even though they were as bloodstained as I am sure everything else had been before they burned it.
“Don’t worry too much about that, I am sure you can scare anyone away with that ugly scowl you always have on your face.” She was smug, and for the first time I was caught between a sudden need to punch her and push her against a wagon and show her exactly what that ‘ugly scowl’ can do.
She didn’t seem to care, however. She laughed and turned, already heading toward a small cluster of people with hand wagons and baskets who were making their way out of camp. I didn’t miss that Ryndle was not with them, I suppose today wasn’t his turn to protect his people.
It was mine.
Fine.
Chapter 36
Caspyn
We arrived at the small town before the sun had crested the tree line. The tiny main street was nestled beside a river port already bustling as the barges were unloaded, loaded and sent on their way. Long straight logs, bags of grain, caged animals, and other lines of goods were ready to be sent up and down the river to Turin and beyond. I had been in many towns, villages, Qits, and cities, but somehow this tiny port town was more bustling than most. The scent of the river was everywhere, the wet smell of wood and moss mixing with the tang of fish so acutely that reminded me of home. My gut clenched.
I didn’t have a home.
Not anymore.
“Alright, everyone has their lists. Stay in pairs and come back in thirty minutes, we don’t want to be here when the villagers start waking up,” Lyani’s voice barely carried above the din of the river dock as she looked around the small group, each of them nodding before quickly departing.
It was only then that I noticed what I had apparently missed before. Their sleeves were rolled down, their necklines high and hems low. I couldn’t see a single tattoo among them.
Lyani tugged at her sleeve as she turned, her eyes nervously following the others before she finally looked to me.
“You’re with me,” she hissed before she turned, already making her way toward the one building that was open this early in the morning.
The tavern.
She walked straight and stiff as she beelined for the ragged door, the low noise of the morning river workers grabbing food and drink before they went their way excreting through the haggard wood. With each step toward the dilapidated building she seemed to grow stiffer.
