Page 27 of Her Cruel Redemption

‘Hm?’ I replied absently as I combed my fingers through my hair.

‘Your dreams. What were they about?’ she repeated.

My hands in my hair stilled and I was suddenly fully awake. ‘Why?’

‘You were very happy. I’ve never tasted happy like that on you before.’

Immediately, my neck was flushed with heat. ‘Don’t read me when I’m sleeping,’ I snapped, flicking back the blankets. ‘My dreams are none of your business.’

She simply smiled. ‘Then dream more quietly.’

I puffed out of the tent and into the cold morning air, fumbling to push the conversation and the night’s imagery from my mind. She couldn’t seeinto my mind, only read my emotions, I reminded myself. It didn’t matter if she’d felt my response to the dream. No one knew what I dreamed about.

The others were already stirring, drifting in and out of tents to stretch and greet the morning. Elias prodded at the coals of the fire, trying to resurrect it, and Tanathil knocked pots about, mixing pinches of herbs together in mugs for some kind of tea, while Goras was already rolling up his bedroll and preparing to pack down his tent.

Mae approached me, already bright-eyed and ready for the morning, hair pulled back beneath a red scarf and wearing a dress of bright yellow that warmed the brown of her skin. ‘Do you want to practice shields or knives this morning?’ she asked cheerily.

I wanted to say knives. It seemed a waste of a good night’s sleep to suggest anything other, but now that the fog of dreams had cleared I felt edgy and exposed again. ‘Shields,’ I replied with a sigh, and I trailed after her to go and sit in the morning dew a small distance away while the others prepared breakfast.

The session was as hopeless as every other prior had been. Though I had managed to avoid another attack of panic since my first attempt, I still couldn’t make my mind settle into the stillness that seemed to be required, and no matter what I visualised to protect that turbulent lake of thoughts, it always shattered after a few moments of her tapping against it.

‘It held for longer that time,’ she said as I rubbed at my temples after another failed attempt to keep her out. ‘You’re improving.’

I’d have hated to see what she considered stagnation. ‘Not by much, but thank you for saying so,’ I muttered. At least my knife throwing was progressing faster. I could hit a target almost every time now, though I rarely got close to a bullseye. What wasn’t progressing at all, of course, was my use of magic. Since I’d been all but banned from using it. A latent fear simmered away in the back of my mind that I’d lose the ability altogether, that any headway I’d made in those frustrating months in the Yawn would be lost, but I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Even knowing Gwinellyn had been right and it was a necessary precaution, it didn’t stop it grating on me.

When Mae and I re-joined the others, we barely had time to eat some porridge that tasted like glue now that we’d run out of sugar, before we were back on the road. Everyone else looked as hungry and dishevelled as I felt, and I was sick of riding by late morning, so it was almost a relief when Mae’s horse threw a shoe, because it meant we couldn’t put off stopping to resupply any longer.

Garlein was a small town, the name only known to us because it was scrawled on the map we were following. It was bustling with enough travellers and people fleeing the fighting zones that we wouldn’t be noticed. As good a place as any to stop.

‘So, we need food. And extra water cans,’ Gwinellyn said hesitantly, scanning the group as though she was waiting for someone to contradict her. When no one did, she continued. ‘And Mae’s horse needs to be reshod. Is there anything else?’

‘Information,’ I said. ‘On the war.’

‘So… a newspaper?’

‘Only if you’re interested in propaganda. I want to know about the fighting, and about what’s going on in the capital. I’m better off chasing rumours than nosing through a paper.’

‘Alright,’ Gwin agreed. ‘Information would be helpful. How about Goras and Tanathil focus on sourcing food, while Mae and I take her horse to be reshod.’ Those she’d named nodded in agreement. She turned to Elias. ‘Do you think you could manage the water?’

He offered her a crooked smile. ‘Just remind me which coins are which.’

‘Then I’ll go rumour hunting,’ I finished for her. ‘A tavern should do well enough as a place to look.’

‘So long as you take Kel or Daethie with you.’

‘I don’t need a babysitter.’

‘It’s not a suggestion.’ She lifted her chin a little as she said this, and when I raised my eyebrows she didn’t lower it. ‘You don’t need to do everything alone. And if you get into trouble, I want you to have someone who can help you, or who can at least let us know what’s happened.’

‘You didn’t assign Elias a partner.’

‘Elias isn’t a woman going into a crowded tavern. And Elias isn’t the runaway queen.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Someone might recognise you. Maybe there’s even a bounty on your head. We just don’t know and we need to be careful.’

‘Fine,’ I said, folding my arms. I sized up my two options for companions. ‘I’ll take Daethie.’ The flossy-haired woman blinked at me in a sort of daze, smiling like she was looking right through me.

‘To a human tavern,’ she murmured. ‘What luck.’

I shot a look to the sky. Madeia help me.

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