Page 35 of A Fractured Song

“Zev.” Marieke’s voice was a gasp, but he shook his head.

“We’re not secure enough here. Look, the ledge opens up that way. Come on.”

Still maintaining his grip on her arm, he started to shuffle along the rock face, not drawing a proper breath until they emerged onto a larger section. With her back to the wall, Marieke slid to a sitting position, her eyes closed and her chest rising and falling rapidly.

“That was terrifying.” She opened her eyes suddenly, her gaze piercing him. “Thank you for grabbing me.”

“What were you thinking?” Zev growled, his fear making him irritable. “You shouldn’t have thrown yourself around me like that.”

“What should I have done?” Marieke asked weakly. “Let you plummet to your death?”

Better me than you.

Zev stopped himself from saying the words aloud. They would be far too intense. Even he was rattled by them, by how quickly they’d risen to his lips. Rattled because he felt their truth with simple certainty. Not for the first time, he wondered where this girl had come from, upending his life and oversetting all his priorities. Sometimes it felt like she’d changed his very self.

“We have to keep moving,” he said instead, his voice gruff.

“I’m scared to.” Marieke’s vulnerability made it hard for Zev to keep his own voice even.

“I know,” he said. “So am I. That’s why we need to. The longer we wait, the more we’re risking being paralyzed by fear, and we can’t afford to be stuck here. If you fall off a horse when you’re still learning to ride, you need to get back on right away.”

Marieke drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “That’s true,” she said, reminding him that she’d grown up around horses. “And I certainly don’t want to get stuck here.” Her voice became stronger. “All right. Let’s do it.”

Zev took the lead, scouting the area with his very non-magical sight, encouraged to see that there was a larger ledge not far down. They took the next couple of descents slowly and carefully, always moving in a westward direction where possible, and even sooner than they’d hoped, they found themselves on a section of cliff that sloped outward as it went down, allowing them to comfortably descend without a rope.

In spite of the need for caution, they began to move faster. Zev could tell that Marieke was as eager as he was to get his feet on solid ground again. They climbed for half an hour without saying much, only needing to stop and use the rope once. Zev heard Marieke’s breath catch in excitement when the rocky canyon floor came into view. They exchanged a look, then increased their pace. Zev had been going slowly to matchMarieke, but now he outstripped her, reaching the ground with a sigh of relief and turning his eyes quickly upward to watch her progress. One foot on the ground and one on the rocky slope, he reached out a hand, steering her down the last, shaley part of the descent.

Instead of a sigh, Marieke let out a much less dignified squeak when her feet touched the ground. Zev’s face froze mid-grin when she turned and flung her arms around his neck. Instinctively, he put his own arms around her, thrilling at her nearness. She burrowed her face into his chest, causing something to roar to life inside him. In that moment, all he wanted was to hold her there forever, safe from the deadly accidents and murderous monarchists alike.

“I won’t deny it,” Marieke’s voice came out muffled, “that was a lot harder and scarier than I thought it would be. There’s no way I would have made it down without you, not once I lost my song.”

She pulled back, her eyes sincere as they met his. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for writing to me.” Zev couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Drawing a deep breath at last, Marieke stepped back, regaining her composure. Zev let her go reluctantly, his arms dropping limply to his sides.

“We should head eastward, I suppose,” Marieke said. “Toward the area where I encountered Gorgon and his people last time.”

“And why do we want to find them?” Zev asked, as they started to pick their way across the rocky ground. “They’re Gorgon’s people. And if you recall, he tried to kill you.”

“I do recall.” Marieke shuddered. “Vividly. But I also recall what he said to me. I told you about it before you left. He knew something about heartsong.”

Zev felt himself stiffen, and tried not to let it show. “And you’re still determined to find out what that is?”

“I am.” Marieke gave a curt nod. “I’m convinced it’s connected to whatever’s destroying my country.” She looked troubled. “It hasn’t stopped with Gorgon’s death, Zev, like I hoped at first. We’ve had floods, storms, raging fires—I came across one myself, and I could feel that it was fueled by magic. Something isn’t right in Oleand.”

“I agree with you there,” Zev said. “But I really don’t think that you’ll find the answers in heartsong.”

He wasn’t exactly being forthright, of course—he couldn’t be—but he wasn’t lying about this issue. Heartsong couldn’t be what was causing Oleand’s problems. Not when these problems were so recent.

“Why not?” Marieke challenged. “Who’s to say it won’t provide the answers?”

Zev squirmed inside. He hated that she was so fixated on unraveling heartsong, even while he admired her ability to ask the right questions. But it wouldn’t help her solve her current problem, and it was too dangerous for her to explore the concept just from curiosity.

“You said back in Ondford that you think heartsong is connected to the loss of Oleand’s royals, right?”

She nodded. “It’s my best guess.”

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