Page 82 of The Garnet Daughter
“You sure you don’t want to sleep?”
“I don’t want to fold again,” I confess and then realize the difference. “It wasn’t across the space between this time. I’m not nearly as exhausted as before.”
“Where were you?”
“Looking out a cliff’s edge. It must have been here. Something was moving out in the darkness, in the fog,” I whisper.
“There is no fog here.”
“Clouds maybe. I could have been high up. It was colder.”
“Did you hear anything, water or anyone speaking?” He leans in expectantly.
“No,” I lie. “But the clouds moved, pulsed in a sort of . . . rhythm, like something was moving through them and making swirls in the fog.”
“Omnesis?”
“I don’t know.” I considered it, but it doesn’t explain the voice I heard. “I wish I knew what it wanted. The spell book said nothing of weaknesses. I wish we knew more. Ferren said she was able to bargain with the Albright because it wanted to return back to the moon. I wonder if Omnesis wants the same thing.” I trail off.
August studies me, eyes narrowed like he doesn’t like where my thoughts are headed. “We will just have to kill it.” His joke is halfhearted.
“You can’t.” Sav’s voice cuts across our campsite from the other side of the small fire. She stays in the same relaxed pose that made us believe she was sleeping.
August shifts uncomfortably, like he wishes he could block us more.
“You are looking for the temple of Omnesis. You cannot kill an old god,” she continues and nestles into a better position, as if she can finally sleep now that she has delivered the intruding news.
It’s silent for a long time, neither of us wanting to engage with her about the topic.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell August and stand, brushing the sand from my backside.
“I will go with you.”
“I need privacy, and I will only be a moment. Stay here.”
I keep close enough to the camp that I can still view the dancing orange light of our modest fire from my spot behind a tall rock. I linger a bit once I’ve done my business, takingadvantage of the calm place to gather my thoughts, now that we are no longer on the run and in constant danger.
We are close to the temple. This time tomorrow, we may even be standing in it. August is right, we need a plan, but figuring it out with Sav around will be difficult. She doesn’t trust us, and there is something unnerving about her as well. She fell for August’s friendly routine but now she is suspicious. It’s as if she wanted us to believe she was sleeping so we would talk freely. She clearly knows of the old god that lives in her desert, but I’m unsure if the answers she could provide are factual or folktales passed down from her people. However, she is correct. We can’t kill Omnesis.
I’ve considered trapping it again so that it cannot hurt the priestesses it considers abominations. Maybe I could find a way to fold it back to its moon, where most of First Mother’s children call home. Bargain with it as Ferren did on Frith with the Albright.
Footsteps sober my ranting thoughts. Small, crumbly rocks rustle against the orange sand as August walks in the direction I left our camp. He approaches slowly, like he is unsure I’m done.
“It’s fine. You can come over,” I whisper in his direction when he stops briefly.
He turns the rocky edge of our camp and smiles just a little when he sees me sitting on a small boulder. “There you are.”
The air is growing even more brisk as the night continues, but the chill that spreads across my skin at the sight of him walking toward me is for an entirely different reason. The hard peaks of my breasts rub against my tunic shamelessly and I hunch my shoulders slightly to prevent it from happening again.
What is wrong with me? I used to have so much control over myself, but ever since he confessed he doesn’t see me as a friend, I can’t picture him as one either. Even in the heart of thebirthlands, when creatures and carnivorous sand is all around us, I can’t restrain myself from thinking of kissing him again.
“You alright?” He angles his back to the tall boulder across from me, his entire lean form on display, his biceps pushing out as he crosses his arms followed by his strong legs, reminding me exactly how they felt under me when I sat in his lap.
“Yes.” I can’t tell him that I am not, that I must be delirious from the miserable day or so fatigued and overwhelmed with what we will face tomorrow that my own mind is trying to calm me and use him as a distraction.
“I think . . .” He tilts his head in the direction of Sav. “Isn’t going to let us go so easily. I have a feeling she will stay until I can make good on our end of the bargain.”
“Keep it down,” I scold him. He is speaking too loudly and our voices bounce off the rocks.
