Page 117 of Fires of the Forsaken
Hot.Hot.It was hot AF.
Because his gaze wasn’t toneless at all. It was pondering, sad, confused, enthralled…intense.The emotions were there, no matter how hard he tried to hide them.
Now Ireallywanted to kiss him and see what else hid behind those emerald eyes.
My skin tingled—both with nerves and excitement. Fuck, when was the last time I gotnervousover a possible kiss?
When was the last time I got excited?
Cheriour leaned closer, turning his head atjust the right angle,so I felt the tickle of his breath against my lips.My belly did a full backflip.
CRASH!
Across the room, Maddox teetered, sending a wooden bowl clattering to the floor.
Cheriour was on his feet in an instant, leaving me sitting there, my head reeling.
What…thefuck…had just happened?
33
Polaris
Time is a fickle thing, is it not?
For example: the afternoon sun had still been high in the sky when I beganrighting—writing this tale. But it has long since set, and now the moonlight is decreasing as well. I’ve sat here for a full day, but it seems as though only mere moments have passed.
I dread what these next days will bring; perhaps another reason time is fleeing from me. I’m worried I won’t have enough of it; that I will expire before Iright—write everything I want to say.
* * *
My yearsat Darfield had been the opposite: each day so dreadfully tedious that an hour seemed like a year. A year seemed like a decade.
And yet, as I walked along the river and found myself in unfamiliar terrain, my time at Darfield seemed little more than a long night’s slumber. The memories of those years were more akin to a dream; too muddled and disorienting to have been real. But those long and very real years had taken a hard toll on me.
A chill seeped into my bones. I trembled so forcefully, my body ached—a deep, gnawing pain that throbbedincessintly—incessantlywhen I was still and wailed when I moved. My feet burned, even though I wrapped them in stalks of grass to protect them from the elements. Walking drove sharp pinpricks of pain into my knees.
The riverbank steepened; the grass slickened. Twice, I nearly slid into the water. After the second time, I cried. I was so cold. The prospect of plunging into the icy water terrified me.
And my tunic was already saturated. I’d started sweating quite profusely, even though I shivered.
“It’s not a fever,” I said as my teeth chattered.
But it was.
I refused to acknowledge it as I crawled away from the river.
“It’snota fever.”
Terrick was not here to press cool cloths to my fevered skin, or nurse me through the worst of the illness, as he’d done when he first found me in the woods. A fever would almost certainly mean death.
Perhaps it was what I deserved. But I feared it. My last memories of Mama, with the cough ravaging her lungs and the fever burning her from the inside, were still vivid. Terrifying.
“It’s not a fever!”
I dragged myself into the shelter of the nearby forest, certain I would feel warm and steady once I left the eternal chill of the water.
Breathinghurt.I became winded after only a few minutes of movement.
