Page 52 of The Crown of Moonlight
It says nothing good about me that Flora’s thirst for blood distracts me with a flash of desire.But nothing can keep our minds from the desolation we’re riding through for long.The senseless torture, the gratuitous infliction of pain, is far too visible.
We’re both spent as dawn approaches.“We should look for shelter,” I suggest.“It will be too dangerous to keep riding once the sun comes up.”
Flora nods, but a light rain has begun to fall again, and the thin woods of birch and alder don’t provide anywhere for us to sleep.Every rustle and creaking branch has us searching for scarlet coats and booted feet.Flora’s shoulders get tighter and her spine more rigid with every mile.
We stop to let the horses drink at a small river flowing through an open field of boulders.We ride another half hour while the stars dim and the sky fades to grey.
Then two faint shimmers of light bob down the slope to our right, slowing to float briefly three feet above the ground in front of us before darting a short distance back up the hill, inviting us to follow them.
“Whisperwraiths,” I say.“Do you see them?”
Flora reins Eira to a halt.“Should we follow them?”
I should know by now that Flora rarely reacts the way that I’d expect.“Can you hear them whispering?”
She gives a slow nod.“Although it’s not words, is it?Not even voices, unless you’re hearing something different than I am.It’s more as though they’ve whispered an entire idea into my mind.As if it’s my own thought.That should be terrifying.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No…” Flora rolls the word around on her tongue as if she’s testing it.
I wonder if I should be concerned that she’s not afraid.“Of all the Shadelings,” I say, “Whisperwraiths are the ones that worry me.”
“I’ve heard stories about what they do to people they don’t like—the way they can put ideas in people’s heads.”
“Most magical creatures answer cruelty with cruelty, and Vheara has turned some of them, too.Used them to make our soldiers attack each other.”
“These don’t feel dangerous.”
“I’m not sure whether to admire you for being brave or shake you for being too trusting.”
“Is that what Siorai do?Shake women?I am not your sister or your wife.”
“It’s an expression, and trust me, I am aware you’re not my sister.”
She turns in the saddle to look at me, but she says nothing and simply nudges the mare off the trail to follow where the Whisperwraiths lead us.
The bracken-covered slope ends in a rockface that climbs almost vertically a few hundred feet.The Whisperwraiths dart behind a copse of stunted pine trees to the left.Hidden from the track below, a wide rock ledge juts from the granite crag, providing a natural shelter from the rain.The ground beneath the ledge is flat.
Briefly, the Whisperwraiths hover inside, then they give a sudden dip and wink away.
“Do you suppose they’ve been following us all this time—since back when you said we needed to find a shelter?”Flora asks.
I dismount and hold out my hand to help her down.“One or the other of us should have been able to see them.Then again, the Riders and I never saw them on the battlefield either.We only found out later that our soldiers heard them whispering in their heads.”
The overhang is too small for our horses, but a hidden gully nearby provides water and forage.We unsaddle them and rub them down in the fading darkness, then I clean the rabbit and cook it over a small fire before we settle ourselves in the shelter beneath the ledge.I’m more careful than usual to lay my swords and knives within easy reach.
“Let me check the bandage again,” Flora says, and she steps closer to untuck the fabric of my shirt from beneath the kilted plaid and push it upward.Her fingers leave trails of heat along my skin.
She seems to have no idea of the reaction she provokes, no more than she seems to have been aware of the effect each time she moved in the saddle.For all that she once boasted about having brothers, she’s far too innocent about how men behave.
I force myself to stand still, force myself not to reach for her.Even when those eyes look up and her lips are so close that I can feel her breath.
But I concede defeat and step back to put more space between us.“Don’t fuss.It feels much better since you healed it again.”
“You’re still a little warm,” she says.
“I am many things, but cold has never been one of them.”I spread two of the extra plaids on the ground in the same way that she did the last time we stopped to rest.I know it’s insanity; sleeping beside her will only be a steady drip of torture.
