Page 80 of Claim the Twilight
Harald’s eyes narrow, but he presses his lips together and turns away. “It’s over now. It no longer matters.”
Moringa sounds like a manipulative bitch, but she was me, and I was her, at least I had been once, and I’m not sure how to reconcile that with who I am today.
I glance up to find Harald watching me with an undecipherable expression that is both intriguing and unsettling. I shift in my seat. “What?”
“You’re nothing like her,” he says softly before fixing his gaze on the colors swirling outside the window.
I’m not sure whether that’s a compliment or an insult.
The atmospherein the carriage is getting stale, so it’s a relief when we drop off the thread and into the waystation.
We roll through a gray stone tunnel alight with glowing glyphs, then out into sunlight. Cool air filters into the carriage, and I take a lungful, shifting in my seat to alleviate the numbness in my ass cheeks. I’m ready to disembark and stretch my legs.
From what I can make out through the window, we’re in a courtyard with high red brick walls crawling with flowering vines. The sweet scent of pollen is strong in the air, reminding me of summer. But it isn’t summer, and these vines shouldn’t be flowering.
“Seasons work differently on the Isle,” Aster says as if reading my thoughts. “Nature makes its own rules. Something every Lantana is familiar with. It’s where we draw our power.”
Harald snorts derisively.
“We do,” Aster insists. “Before we borrowed some of yours and after Moringa freed you. Nature is our anchor.”
The carriage comes to a standstill, rocking as the driver disembarks. His face appears by Aster’s window a couple of minutes later. “Bridge opens in thirty minutes then is closed for two hours. Would you like to continue or rest here until the next opening?”
“I’d like to be back within the Belt before dark, so we continue,” Aster says.
“Very well.”
He dips out of sight, and the carriage moves as he climbs back into his seat. I sit forward and stick my head out of the window. The courtyard is empty except for a dusty-looking well and a man sitting on a stool at a table outside a rickety-looking shack. He picks at his teeth, one eye squinted, the other fixed on us, then slowly hauls himself to his feet, hitching up pants that seem too large for him as he ambles out of view.
“Is there no one else here?”
“Not many people come this far from the city,” Aster says. “But the village half a mile from here is occupied by wild folk.”
“Wild folk? What does that mean?”
“Anyone who doesn’t want to live in the Belt,” Harald says. “And anyone deemed unworthy.”
“It’s more than that,” Aster says. “Many of the wild folk are touched with the blood of the Others, the beings that live in the Forests of the Wilds.”
Forests and Others…it sounds like she’s talking about the fae. “Do you mean the fae?”
She shakes her head. “No. The fae come from another world; the Others have always been here. Ancient beings that have no name and no form. They live in the animals and the plants that inhabit The Wilds. When we came to this Isle, we made a truce with them, an agreement to leave their lands untouched. In return, they allow us to flourish.”
There are layers of politics to this place, but I don’t have the mental energy to grasp it all. The carriage shoots forward over broken flagstones, and I sway side to side as we pass the squinty man. He raises a hand, his expression solemn, and the next moment, we’re rolling out of a set of gates and onto a road.
We’re on a rise, and the world is spread out below. A village with winding streets and small buildings is visible in the distance, and to the right of the settlement is a thick dark line—a crevice in the earth.
“Is that what we’re going to cross?” I point out of the window.
Aster doesn’t even look. She nods and purses her lips. “The gorge is rumored to be haunted by spirits of the restless dead. Not safe to cross at night without a grimm walker by your side.”
“I’m not even going to ask. Just get me to where we need to be and help me get my power back. The rest doesn’t matter.”
She arches a brow. “Of course.”
The carriage dips as we pick up speed toward the gorge.
It’s not long before the sound of voices fill the air. The bleating of goats and the clucking of chickens along with voices rising and falling in a hum of conversation.
