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Moira was alive, I told myself. She had managed to traverse the dried riverbed as I had and made it out.
I didn’t know how to feel. I didn’t know if I wanted to admit my feelings towards the princelings. Males that, by all means, I should hate but felt a twisted kinship toward.
I walked through the canyon and let my aimless legs carry me wherever they wanted. Sooner or later, I would stumble on something, I hoped.
I had no desire to sleep on the sand when the fraught glow at the sky's edge faded to night, but I would if I had to.
The Sirens had given me a home, and I acquiesced to their strange training rituals, knowing they served a purpose I may not have understood then, but would one day.
I watched as the spindly fingers of a shadow crept forward, meeting my feet in the sand. I squinted up, seeing a willow. Its branches were bare but hung like bleached ropes from its thick body.
Creeping forward, my fingers itched. The back of my neck prickled as if I was being watched, and I approached the willow like a woman walking to the gallows.
There was a knot at face height. A dark hole in the white bleached trunk of the tree. The feeling of unease pumped through my veins sluggishly, and I got the horrible thought that something would grab my arm if I reached inside.
Intuition pounded behind my eyes. Ineededto reach into the tree.
I reached into the knot, my fingers meeting the smooth edge of my blanket.
I pulled it out as quickly as possible, feeling the warmth of the slick fur and the pounding heartbeat of whatever enchantment Rainn had put on the fabric.
I clasped the blanket to my chest and heaved a sigh of relief. I hadn’t known how much I would miss the thing until it had been gone, even for a short while.
With a smile at my small victory, I turned on my heel to begin my journey back to the stronghold.
A man stood behind me. His hands were in his pockets, and he wore a serene expression.
I would know his face anywhere.
My gaze met a stunning pair of clear sky-blue eyes.
“I’m glad you’re taking care of my blanket, Maeve,” Rainn said with a grin.
Chapter 6
Though I was miles from the dark sea, I felt the roar of the ocean waves in my eardrums, drowning all sound from the canyon as I stared at the face of the Selkie. A male I had believed I would never see again.
For a long moment, I believed Rainn was an apparition brought on by thirst and whatever magic had pulled me to the broken tree.
Rainn stepped forward, and I mirrored the action, moving backward until my back pressed against the rough bark of the dead willow. I wrapped my arms around my middle, holding the blanket to my chest like a shield.
I licked my chapped lips and searched the broken canyon for somewhere to run.
“I’m not going back,” I told the Selkie. “If Cormac wants to kill me, he can do it himself, but I’ll die before I return to Tarsainn.”
Rainn opened his mouth to speak.
“I’ll die before I marry him,” I snarled, baring my teeth.
The longer I waited, the higher the chance that Tor, Shay, or Cormac might pop up from behind one of the rock formations in the cradle. Throwing a net over my head or trapping me in a snare. How long had Rainn watched me bumble about in the canyon before he decided to show himself? I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t dare.
Selkies were notoriously fast swimmers, and I was a fool. I knew running on the sand for a few weeks would not make me an endurance runner. If anything, it might give me a head start, but not much else.
Still, I had given up once before. I had allowed the princelings to bind me with nothing but words and drag me through the Twilight Lake as a war trophy.
I was no trophy.
Using Rainn’s confusion and apparent awe at my declaration, I burst into a run, ducking behind the broken tree and skidding down the sandy hill in a spray of debris. My legs burned from a hard day of searching, but I didn’t dare stop. Not if I wanted to live my life—free and unchained.
