AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s a barb meant to goad a reaction, meant to poke and prod so he will do anything besides stare directly into my soul with his imploring gaze. I can tell by the shift in his stance and the sweep of his eyes over the waving grass that he won’t give me what I want. And I’m suddenly on edge, worried about what he might say next.
“You’ve lived all over Acaria, haven’t you?”
“I…yes.”
He could have asked me any question, and likely none of them would have surprised me as much as this one.
“Why?”
“Where was your favorite?”
Those blue eyes abandon the horizon and fix on me. He’s sincere in his question. And I’m thrown off just enough to answer him honestly.
“There’s a small town in the far north called Tura.”
He nods. “In Yorrai’s territory.”
“Yes,” I say of the God of Sea and Storms. “A little coastal town where almost everyone makes their living on the water. I’d never seen the sea before. But the first time I sat on the beach and dipped my toes in the lapping waves, I realized it was its own kind of magick.”
Thieran holds a hand out to me, but I only stare at it.
“After all this time, don’t you trust me?”
There’s a note to his voice I can’t quite place, but his gaze on mine doesn’t falter. Even though I shouldn’t, even though he is the one keeping me here, a part of me trusts him.
“I suppose if you were going to kill me, you’d have done it already,” I say, laying my fingers in his.
He draws me close enough that I can’t see his face and wraps his arms around my torso. I know I don’t need to stand so close, but as the air warms and spins around us, I press my cheek to his chest and listen to the steady beat of his heart as we shift.
When we arrive, he runs his hand up my back to my neck, and the first dull edges of a headache and nausea instantly recede. I expect the air to chill again, but it doesn’t, the breeze washing warm over my skin. Stepping away from Thieran, I suck in a sharp breath.
Gone is the usual landscape of the Shadow Realm. Instead we’re standing on a stretch of beach with the sand bleached nearly white by the sun—the beautiful, bright, beating sun—and shaped like a crescent. Tall trees sway in the breeze, and waves crash against the shore.
A gull calls, winging out over the water, and I turn my head toward the sound. It’s been so long since I’ve heard the call of a bird. It dazzles me. I watch the gull nose dive toward the sea, disappearing beneath the surface and reemerging a moment later with a fish clutched between its beak.
“Is it real?” I breathe, closing my eyes and turning my face up to the sky. “Or is this an illusion in the Shadow Realm?”
“It’s real,” Thieran assures me. “An island off the coast of Yorrai’s territory.”
I look back at him over my shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “Not worried I’ll try to escape?”
He does grin now. “It would take you two or three days to swim to shore. But you’re welcome to try.”
It’s just another cage. Something I should be angry about. But with the sun shining down on my face and the smell of sea air in my nose, I don’t have it in me.
Dropping to the ground, I tug off my boots and plunge my feet into the sand with a sigh. Wiggling my toes, I glance up at Thieran when he comes to stand beside me.
He looks so out of place in his black robes, his hair whipping about his face as he studies the water. Before I can stop myself, I reach up to caress his calf, and he sinks into the sand beside me.
“Why?” I ask, voice barely audible over the wind coming in off the water and the steady beat of the waves against the shore.
He’s silent for a long moment, eyes tracking another gull as it dives from the sky for its prey. But I think he understood my question.
“Because I can.”
It’s not really an answer, but I’m not ready to push him too far and risk him ending this little trip too quickly. Whatever possessed him, I’ll gladly benefit from it as long as I can.
Unhooking the clasp on my cloak, I spread it out behind me and recline against it, letting the warm wind glide over my skin and tease the tendrils of hair around my face and neck. I feel Thieran watching me, but I keep my eyes closed and soak up every bit of the island flooding my senses.
