Page 31 of A Fractured Song

“But would Marieke fight for the family you hold dear?” Her voice held a definite challenge, but Zev didn’t let it abash him. Instead he turned it back on her.

“Would my family fight for her?”

His mother, bless her, was no easier to rattle than he was.

“There’s no telling what I might do for you if you asked me,” she told him calmly.

Zev couldn’t help smiling. “Well, what I’m asking you to do now is to trust me when I say I need to go with her.”

“I trust you, Zev,” she said. “I always have, and I always will. Just make sure, when the newness of what you’re feeling is intoxicating, that you don’t lose yourself. Any part of yourself.”

“I know I’m part of something bigger than just me,” Zev assured her.

She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. This legacy you carry is for others than yourself, but it’s also part of you. You wouldn’t be the same if you lost it. You wouldn’t be complete.”

Zev didn’t respond, and after a moment, his mother gave a satisfied nod.

“Enough deep talk. Walk it off if you must, but don’t take too long. Supper is still waiting, you know.”

The same good sense followed Zev when he set out, in the form of a hearty supply of food in his rucksack. He rode his favorite mare out of the gate just after dawn two mornings after receiving Marieke’s letter. He should comfortably reach the canyon before noon.

He made good progress, a tangle of nerves and excitement building in him as he neared the place where he’d first met Marieke. He knew the spot—he’d been past there more than once since, his eyes always drawn to the grassy area where he and Azai had pulled over their cart. He was eager to see her again, even though he had no idea what he would say to her, or her to him. When they’d parted, he’d wanted desperately to believe it wasn’t for the last time. Yet, drawn to her though he was, he’d made no effort to ensure it. She’d been the one to reach out to him.

He still had a few hours before noon when he guided his horse to a stop on the same patch of grass. He felt a spike of anxiety as he scanned the area, hopping down from his horse to check the cliff’s edge for some distance in either direction. There was no sign of Marieke. Surely he hadn’t missed her. She’d said she would wait until noon. She wouldn’t have gone to the effort of writing to him to tell him that if she wasn’t going to honor it. Perhaps she was still on her way.

After an hour, however, Zev was feeling very uneasy. Had she been held up in her travels to the spot? Had she even been able to find the spot? The more he thought about it, the more he realized how unlikely it was that she would actually locate the exact place where he’d pulled her from the cliff. She didn’t know the area like he did. There was every chance that she was waiting somewhere else, thinking he wasn’t coming.

But which direction to try? It was no more than an hour until noon—probably less—by the time he decided to leave the patch of grass and search along the canyon. Hoping for the best, he chose west, moving toward the capital rather than away from it.

He traveled slowly, keeping to the road, but examining the nearby cliff edge with great care. After half an hour of travel, he had the sinking feeling that he’d chosen the wrong way. But itwas too late to turn back now—he wouldn’t make it past his starting point by noon.

The sun had only just passed its zenith when he caught sight of something up ahead that made his heart leap. A rope, one end tied to a stake in the ground, and the other end disappearing over the edge of the canyon.

Chapter

Nine

Zev spurred his horse onward, driven as much by fear as by enthusiasm. What was Marieke’s plan? Surely she must know there was no rope long enough to reach the bottom of Sundering Canyon.

He pulled to a stop alongside the stake and dismounted smoothly. In the next moment, he was on his knees by the trailing rope, looking over the edge. All he could see was a dark head of hair, not too far down the cliff face, with a figure mostly hidden. But one he’d know anywhere.

“Marieke!”

Her head whipped up, her eyes widening as she caught sight of him. He watched several emotions cross her face before she settled on a smile.

“Zev.” She sounded almost shy, not like her usual self. “You came. I’d given up on you.”

“What are you doing, Mari?” His nerves at the prospect of their reunion had disappeared in exasperation. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“Of course not,” she said with dignity. “I’m tryingto—”

The words were cut off as her foot slipped, a cry bursting from Zev as the rock under Marieke’s other foot cracked and fell away. Not stopping to consider the situation further, Zev seized the rope and began to pull it hand over hand. Marieke protested, not walking up the wall like she had the previous time they’d been in a similar situation. The task was considerably harder as a result, and a moment later became impossible as the section of turf on which Zev knelt began to slide. He tried to shift his weight back, but the land under his knees had other ideas. It gave way, and to his horror, he found himself slipping over the edge, only his grip on the rope keeping him from plummeting downward.

Marieke gave a cry of irritation below him, her face bumping against his leg.

“Don’t worry!” he called, not daring to look down and risk throwing off his precarious balance. “I can pull myself up and then pull you up as well.”

“No, don’t. I can’t hold on that long.” Marieke’s tone was somehow still exasperated rather than terrified. “I’m going to have to let go.”

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