Page 35 of The Rising Wave

“Will you keep that against your skin?” she asked. “Think of me, and keep it against your skin?”

“You should put your own name on it, too,” he said.

She looked at him, and then shook her head. “Just in case someone finds it, I'd better not.”

She held it out, and he took it. It was made of fine cotton, smooth to the touch.

“Against your skin,” she reminded him. Then she leaned closer and kissed him, her arm coming around to hold him close. “Goodbye. Be safe.”

She let her horse dance back, then turned it north, and rode, and he watched her until he could no longer see her through the trees.

He looked down at the handkerchief and smiled at the sentimentality of her request. He tucked the fabric into the waistband of his pants, so it was against his skin as requested, and then turned his horse east.

With every step he took away from her, he fought the instinct to turn and follow. To help her reach Grimwalt before he joined his own people.

But he didn't have that luxury.

With every passing day, they would worry about whether to send someone after him, or attempt a rescue.

And with the weather changing, they needed to start moving toward Fernwell, to the warmer climes.

And still, his hands itched to pull the reins north.

Chapter 10

Her grandmother's house lay below as she crested the hill.

The dogs, exuberant and sensing the journey's end, ran down to the gate and milled about in front of it as they waited for her.

A man came from around the side of the house, and Ava recognized him as Tomas, her grandmother's estate manager.

He started at the sight of the dogs, then looked up the hill and saw her riding down, and relaxed a little.

“Tomas.” She called his name as she got closer, and he started again.

“Is that . . . Ava?” He took a step back.

She swung down from her horse and signaled the dogs, so they stopped jumping and behaving badly, and sat calmly as she opened the gate.

“Your grandmother would have loved to be here for this moment.”

The way he said it, in the past tense, she knew.

She bowed her head. “When did she find the way to death's embrace?”

“Six months ago.” He cleared his throat and she looked up to see the sudden hardness in his expression. “When she died, it was her deathbed wish that the borders be closed and all supplies to Kassia cut off in protest of your abduction.”

“I heard the borders were closed.” Although she hadn't thought through what that might mean for her trying to get home.

She had seen the guards, men and women in full Grimwalt colors, watching the way in, and preferred to keep her movements out of the official eye.

In the end, she had been forced to work her way up through the mountains and take one of the passes her grandmother had shown her on the maps that covered her study.

It had taken an extra four days.

“The court decided to honor your grandmother’s last wish, but some are making noises about opening the border up again. It is good you’re back, you can tell them your story.” Tomas looked down at the dogs, and then crouched, rubbing a few heads. “Where did you come across these, then?”

Ava bent and rubbed under a few chins, and the dogs crowded around closer, all wanting some of her attention. “These were the hounds sent to chase me down, Tomas.”

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