Page 95 of The Garnet Daughter
We painstakingly shuffle our way to the top, taking it slower than before. August reaches the steep plateau first, climbing to the ledge and reaching down to pull me the rest of the way. I grasp his strong hand until we both roll onto our backs, out of breath and happy we did not plummet to our deaths.
He turns to me, all grin and dimple. “Climbing isn’t so bad when you have even more reason not to fall.” He wiggles his brows suggestively.
I dig my elbow into his side, trying my best to laugh and not be embarrassed by his playful teasing. “Thank you for keeping me calm. If I fell, I don’t know how the ward would have affected me if I needed to fold.” I pant.
“Of course. How close are we to it?” He sits up, resting his fatigued arms on his knees.
“We are well within it.”
The sky is murky, the eclipse light mixed with the foggy clouds of this altitude casting a masked ceiling above us.
“Looks . . . empty.” August stands next to me, holding a hand out for me to take.
When I do, he pulls me upward until I crash into his chest, pinned against him.
I gasp in surprise at the sudden change in orientation. “You did that on purpose.”
He tucks a curl of my hair behind my ear and kisses me, so quickly and so pleased with himself I can feel him smiling against my lips. “That was on purpose too.”
First Mother save me, I have never seen him this happy.
“We need to look around,” I say sternly and regretfully wiggle out of his hold.
The plateau is not much bigger than the cargo hull of the ship we came in, open on the one side we ascended but encased on all the others. The walls around it are sharp and jut upward.
“I thought this was the top, but now I’m not so sure.” August runs his palm across the rock surfaces, seemingly cut and smoothed, looking completely different than the ones we clung to on our way up.
I shake my head and search for another trail to the level above, but there is nothing. “This can’t be right.”
“Look.” He points with his chin to the middle of the plateau, where a ring of rocks and charred logs are arranged as if this place were used by someone recently.
“But there is no wood up here,” I point out, and for some reason, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. Why would someone camp here? Did they bring logs that size with them up the steep climb? It doesn’t make sense.
“Odd place to make camp,” August adds and then takes a seat at the base of a smoothed boulder near the stone fire circle. He adjusts the long First Son weapon, laying it next to his leg and pulling the waterskin out from his hip. “Thirsty?”
“Go ahead,” I say, but he shakes it violently for me to take.
I tilt it back and pour a long swig of the water he collected from the oasis below and hand it back. The perimeter of the plateau only takes me moments to walk the length of. I run my hand along the smooth stone, hoping something will present itself.
“It has to be the ward,” I conclude.
“You said it could read our intentions. Maybe it doesn’t like what it saw.” He sighs.
“I don’t think either of us have solid enough intentions for it to know for sure.” I slide down the rock to sit next to him, giving up on my search.
“What now, Calliape?” he asks patiently.
“It spoke to me. That has to count for something, at least an audience,” I think aloud.
“And what about—” He makes big eyes, afraid to say anything too definitive.
I sink down a little, my muscles sore and begging for rest. “The elders said it keeps the balance. If First Son is going to attack the Estate, then I imagine we will need help from every priestess in it, including the ones like Ferren.”
“If they were . . . culled.” He swallows hard. “That would be a great advantage for First Son’s army.”
I nod. “I cannot think of a more imbalanced world.”
He runs his knuckles across my leg, gently soothing that thought. “We have come this far. It saw you, maybe even recognized you.”
