Page 145 of Between Soul and Vessel
“Where it doesn’t stink like fish.” I turned to walk away.
Her bare feet padded against the ground as she rushed to catch up with me. “I’ll come with you. I’m done eating anyway.”
“I have to take a piss,” I lied, hoping my words would deter her. “You want to come hold it for me?”
“Oh, sorry.” She chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck. “You go ahead.”
I glanced down at her bare feet, toes wiggling in the dirt. Annoyance needled its way into my flesh, stitching itself in my words. “Why aren’t you wearing your shoes?”
“Because I’m my mother’s daughter,” she answered. Cryptic as ever.
“Meaning?” I grated, voice rough.
“My mother taught me it’s important to feel the earth beneath my feet every once in a while.” She wiggled her toes some more. “It’s good for the soul.”
“You have delicate mortal skin, which has about the same strength as paper, and you are susceptible to infection. I don’t know anything about treating mortal wounds or how to take care of you if you fall ill, so please, do us both a favor and put your damn shoes on.”
She was silent for a moment, eyes flicking back andforth as if she were reading a book, accessing its information. When they lifted to mine, her gaze was so intense, it could have leveled a mountain. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t,” I lied.
Then, without another word, I stalked off into the woods.
Returning from the memory, I glanced down at Sage, finding her looking up at me, her beautiful blue eyes awake. A few of her silken strands swirled around her face, dancing on the melody of the gently whistling wind.
“That day, I knew you were lying,” she said, her hand reaching up to cradle my cheek, her touch soft. “I saw the truth behind your words, that you were starting to fall for me.”
“I was an idiot for not admitting it to you back then, on that very day,” I answered her. Air swept into my lungs, filling them on a long inhale as I took a breath. “In truth, I can hardly connect with the immortal I was back then. He seems so different from who I am now. Quite the pompous asshole.”
Sage laughed at that. It was a sound I wanted to hear over and over again. “Your soul was young back then, and so was mine. That girl saw life in color. Even when she was stuck in a hole with a broody dragon, the world was vibrant.”
“So then, what is it now?” I asked, the words rumbling from my chest.
She glanced around, looking at the sky. “They are different now, always changing, sometimes disappearing altogether. When I woke up in Clearwell Castle . . . when I thought you had died, all the colors faded into one—gray. It was everywhere. From the floors to the walls to the bed I cried myself to sleep on.” Her gaze met mine. “But then I found out you were alive, and the blues and greens and yellows and reds, all of the colors returned. However, they were different, forever changed. As was I.” She paused for a moment. “I suppose I’m a bit like your eyes, my love—without you, there are no colors.”
“Then I will ensure I’m always by your side,” I promised her, pressing a kiss into her palm.
“You better,” she teased, her fingers stroking my stubble.
With a smile on my lips, I looked up.
The terrain ahead was beginning to change, the grass becoming even more sparse, the ground shifting into sand, glinting with gold mica, which meant—
We’d reached the Naftiah Desert.
Avriel
If there was one thing I knew, it was that there weren’t enough hours in the day. Not enough minutes. Not enough seconds. Although Shadow and I used every precious kernel to try to put distance between us and the empress, it never felt like it was enough time. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were running out of it, despite Shadow’s constant encouragement.
Through the wind, I could hear the nickering of her winged horses, chomping at the bit to sink their teeth into us. Each time a branch scraped across my face, I could feel her wicked nails dragging along my skin, threatening to break it.
Still, we moved.
At first, it was through the river—through the tumultuous waters that pushed us further downstream, until we found a well, close enough to the water that we couldcrawl out of.Thathad not been easy, and if not for Shadow going up first and throwing the rope and bucket down to me, I would still be stuck down there. When Shadow pulled me out of the well, I realized we had emerged in a herdsmen’s yard, beside a pasture full of sheep. One looked at me as if to say,What are you doing here?before it returned to its grazing.
That was the last thing I remembered of that place before Shadow grabbed my hand and pulled me through the pasture into the forest.
I couldn’t say how many days had passed since then—they all seemed to blur together. Perhaps it was the constant state of shock. The fear I grappled with, the questions that replayed over and over inside my head . . .
