Page 16 of Daughter of No Worlds

“Sh.” Serel looked at me over his shoulder. “You don’t have time to waste.”

“Of course you’re coming.”

I wasn’t about to leave him here. That was simply not an option.

I hobbled after him, struggling to catch up until we were standing at the back door of the stables. I glanced outside, at the palms and ferns giving way to an unbroken blue sky tinged with the beginning of sunset. Glimpses of rippling golden grass peeked through the leaves. The famous Threllian plains.

Miles and miles that way, beyond the grasslands, there was the sea. And then across that sea was Ara.

The Orders.

I turned back to Serel, who was tightening the strap over the horse’s ears. “Of course you’re coming,” I said again, definitively.

“Everyone knows that you wanted to buy your freedom, but I have drills in an hour. If I’m not there, they’ll go looking for me. It’s not enough time. Besides, we’ve now established that I escorted you here, leaving Esmaris temporarily unguarded. I’ll go back and discover him. He had so many enemies. I could claim I saw anything.”

“That will never work.”

“It will work better than us both making a run for it. Someone would realize what happened within hours. This way, they might not even look for you. If they do, I can buy you at least a day.”

Buy me a day. At what price? Just like Serel, always believing the best, even in the face of a much harsher reality.

“Stop being a martyr and get on the damned horse.”

“You don’t have time for this.”

“You’re right, we don't.”

“You deserve every possible chance to make it. I’m not going to ruin that. I’ll be fine here. I promise.”

Deserve.Ihatedthat word.

Serel was not the type to raise his voice. Every word he spoke was always light and calm, and these ones were no exception. But I felt his resolve, a solid wall between us.

“Please,” I begged, pulling his fingers into my palm, clutching them. I could never let them go.

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

“I’m going to put you on the horse. Ready?”

I wasn’t, but he did it anyway, gently lifting me by my waist. My hand felt cold where his skin used to be, and my body writhed in pain from the movement. By the time I was on the horse, the world was spinning.

“Here.” He handed me his sheathed dagger, strapping its belt around my waist. Then his hand squeezed mine. “If I find out that you died in those plains, I’ll kill you.”

I looked down at him, at those clear eyes, more striking than ever now as they glittered with tears that wouldn’t quite overflow. I thought of the day I met him for the first time. I knew now what that little slave girl must have felt like. How precious that gift of bittersweet, gentle comfort was.

There were so many things I wanted to say to him. So many that the unspoken words strangled me.

“You’ve got to go,” he said, and pulled my face toward him, pressing his lips against my cheek. “Say hello to Ara for me.”

I can’t.

He sent my horse cantering, yanking me away before I was ready. The tangle in my throat released just enough for me to choke out, “I love you,” but the words were lost in hooves and wind and almost-sobs that I smothered in my lungs. I would wonder countless times if he had heard me. If he, my friend, mybrother, knew all that he meant to me.

His kiss burned on my cheek, joining the one my mother had left on my forehead all those years ago — twin scars branding me as someone who left behind the people most important to her.

I pushed through the ferns and the grasslands opened up in front of my vision, blurring and rippling from blood loss. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. Otherwise I would turn around. Even as it was, a powerful part of me was dragging her fingernails into the ground, trying to crawl back to Serel, screeching in my ears,You can’t leave him, you have to go back, you can’t leave him.

But the hoofbeats quickened.

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