Page 10 of Taken By Shadows

His head tracked my movements, even if I couldn’t see his eyes, and I tugged on my hood for something to do with my hands.

“Your jailer, then? You didn’t seem too happy in his company. Need me to pry you from him?” There was a darkness that swam in the words. Was that a threat or an offer?

I thought he was joking, his tall frame standing sentry in front of the door, but maybe he wasn’t.

A rivulet of fear stilled my breath.

Had he seen the adamyte? What did he care if Bray and I were fighting over something?

“I don’t need protecting.” I pushed to get past him. “Stand aside,” I said, my jaw firm.

Without a word, he raised his hands a little and let me pass, a curved smile on those lips.

Part of me felt bad for being rude. But I had no patience left tonight.

I paid the tab and gathered my things without saying anything to Bray.

In the few moments it had taken to pack up, the dark stranger had sat back down at a booth I hadn’t noticed him at before. Two others were already seated, dressed similarly in dark cloaks pulled around their heads.

He didn’t look my way.

And I felt a pang of something through me as I left.

Maybe I’d have been better off taking my chances with him than trying to sort through this mess with Bray.

I woke in the musty bed of the inn just two doors down from The Fern. Slanted pillars of light pushed through the moth-eaten curtains into the dusty room.

We had slept in separate beds. In separate rooms. Bray had been far too open to the idea of sharing.

No part of me was in the mood for anything like that.

Bray had stayed long past my departure. Based on the racket and hour he arrived back at, he’d had too much ale. And I’d had enough of this town.

I woke up before Bray. I hadn’t slept well, at least not as well as Bray, judging by the snores that had reverberated right through the wall that separated our rooms.

I would tell him today.

If I could just find the words to explain I was leaving. I wasn’t sure he would understand. To him, his family was everything.

His father had raised him to farm sheep, just as his father had raised him before that. His mother doted on him, her only child. She could find no fault with him.

And I envied that sense of surety, that sense of comfort. Knowing where your place was. Even if it was Shadowfall.

I waited for Bray to rouse as I picked at my porridge, which the lady of the house had placed in front of me. It was cold and lumpy, and I didn’t bother eating much.

Bray finally wandered down the stairs, his eyes still bleary from the night before. His dark curls were stacked chaotically atop his head as he brushed the sleep from his eyes.

“Forgive me?” he said, taking a seat beside me at the small breakfast table.

I wasn’t sure he’d bring it up, so I was a little taken aback by his contrition. I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded.

His response was to grab my bowl of porridge and shovel in a few mouthfuls. His face contorted into a grimace at the cold grime now stuck to the roof of his mouth.

That had me in a better mood.

I’d given Bray the adamyte shard from last night and shown him how to fracture it so he was able to trade parts of it instead of the whole thing.

Bray would purchase and take back all the medicines and food he could carry. And I would leave with more than a healthy conscience.