Page 79 of The Garnet Daughter
August notices me falling behind immediately and asks her to find a safe spot to rest. She guides us to a small cropping of petrified-looking trees and rocks, then stands atop the largest, surveying out into the distance at our vast surroundings.
August juts his chin away from her, beckoning me to follow him past a house-sized boulder and out of earshot from Sav.
I lean against the stone surface, catching my breath. The air is so hot and dry, my sweat doesn’t stay on my skin for long. For a moment, I think he will bring up our kiss now that we are alone, but he looks a little unnerved instead.
“Something is very off.” He rests next to me and leans in to whisper, “I don’t trust her at all.”
“I noticed.” I smile at him.
His eyes light up slightly at my correct observation. “If you see anything strange, tell me, no matter how small.”
“Like what?”
“Anything . . . off.”
Sav is odd. There is no doubting it. Her home is harsh and the life she leads seems to match it. Everything she does is a bit off.
“She saw you fold?” he asks. “Knows you’re Mother blessed?”
“She saw me fold out of the pod when it was sinking.”
His expression changes a tad, flashing to pain for a moment at the reminder of where I landed. “What else did she say when it was just the two of you?”
“Not much.” I replay it in my mind. “She mentioned other scrappers would have seen my pod landing in the area, gave me the impression they were hostile.”
He doesn’t like the sound of that, pressing his shoulder closer against mine and crossing his arms, his jaw flexing and setting into a hard line.
“Found food,” Sav says, jumping to a rock next to us. “And water.”
If I wasn’t already dehydrated, I would cry at even the possibility.
“Everything ok?” Sav jumps down to the ground in front of August.
“Everything’s perfect.” August beams at her. “Show us the way.”
We climb upward with Sav leading the way, scaling the uneven terrain with minimal effort. My fingertips tingle from me touching the hot surface of the rocks, using them to balance and pull myself up. Here, the boulders turn into rolling cliffs, different levels of smaller mountains and ridges housing plateaus of sand and dry vegetation.
Sav gestures for us to come to a stop and then points to a flat rock below, where a man is sitting crossed-legged in light clothing and staring out onto the horizon. The man resembles the people with conjunction sickness in the village we came from, down to the clothing and blank stare. A woman approaches him from the cliffs behind, dressed in nicergarments than Sav but just as dirty on the edges where her feet kick out her long skirts. She places a satchel next to the man, with two waterskins in a pile of others left previously, untouched with a layer of sand on the surface.
“Conjunction devotees have no need for food or water. We wait until she leaves and pick what we can.”
“No,” August says firmly and gives me a knowing stare.
“Then you both die. There is no food or water for miles. He won’t accept either. I have seen it before.”
“I can fold down and bring the supplies back,” I offer. I don’t like the thought of stealing from him, but it is clear he has no intention other than staring at the horizon.
August exhales, frustrated with the choice of taking food from this clearly sick man and keeping us alive. “It’s not right.”
“There are older waterskins untouched. She’s right, he has no need for it. We do.” I give August a pleading look.
The moment the woman providing supplies below disappears out of view, Sav begins a creeping descent down the rocks to claim the modest bounty.
August seems to have a silent inner struggle with it, working his jaw and exhaling loudly. “Will you stay back?”
I nod. “But if something is off, I will fold down and get you out of there.”
He smiles on one side, an understanding crossing between us that makes me feel warm down to my marrow. “I would expect no less.”
