Page 11 of Taken By Shadows

I had milled about the stalls with tired awnings all morning, picking at small ointments and tinctures for the journey ahead of me.

But all the while, I felt like I wasn’t alone. A cold wind at my spine, a figure I couldn’t see, no matter how I looked. Like a dream you try to hold on to as the sun rises.

Or maybe I was just on edge that Bray still didn’t know I wasn’t going back with him.

Bray was beaming when he returned from his time with the merchants, his hands laden with things I was certain he didn’t need. But I didn’t comment. Better that he be in a good mood when we parted ways.

We’d tucked everything into the packs we had and took equal loads despite my knowing I would have to rearrange the packs or give him mine when the time came.

When the time came.

Soon.

I had to tell him soon.

It was well past noon by the time we left the town limits, aiming for the forest trail home. Eventually, we stopped in the clearing of a meadow, dry boggy soil dotted with snowdrops and bright calendula flowers and very little snow. The packs were heavy, and we needed to rest. It should have been only a couple of hours or so back for us, but the extra weight slowed our movements.

And I had to find a way to leave.

“I’m going to wash up,” Bray announced once we dumped the packs. “I don’t fancy a frigid bath when I get home. And I’m still aching from that soap water ale.”

“Where are you going?” I called after him as he made for a tree line behind me.

He flung a hand to the trees. “The river. It will be warm enough still.” He looked to the gallant sun hung above us; she was losing her fight to the evening greys that would soon pull in atop her.

I chewed on my lip as Bray left.

Now. I should leave now.

But I hesitated. I dug the adamyte from my pouch and held the four remaining crystals in my palm.

Guilt or some misplaced sense of duty had my face scrunched, and I grabbed one more crystal and put it into Bray’s pack. He could find use for it later. Shadowfall, Leesha, the baby. They’d need it more than me.

I wrapped the remaining few in a piece of leather and tucked them into the top of my repacked bag.

Three would have to be enough.

Bray had been gone for over an hour, and I still hadn’t left. I had decided somewhere in the minutes that dragged on in his absence that I would find the words to tell him. I owed him that.

The silver birch were long and spindly here. I paused on my walk through the dusty grove to pluck a stone from the undergrowth to give my hands something to do as I chewed on what to say. I palmed the smooth, flat stone back and forth between my hands.

Heavy breaths in and out filled the stillness around me.

None of it did anything to calm my nerves.

I had to tell him.

Now.

I clenched and unclenched my fingers as the stone left them. Back and forth. The sun cast delicate beams of warm, golden light that slipped between the fine trunks. The undergrowth was a quiet carpet of clover and pansies under my boots.

Maybe I didn’t have to tell Bray.

If I turned around now and just left, wouldn’t that be easier? He’d find me gone when he returned.

But something pulled my gut like wet leather being rung out.

I thought of how I was left without anything to go on. I knew what it felt like to be abandoned. To lie awake at night and think of all the things you could have done differently, to change the outcome of your present. I knew how it felt to be deserted. Unwanted. No care or thought for the ache of not knowing that would gnaw at you.