A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,178

of water? Her canteen was at the top of her pack, but to halt, to pull it out … She didn’t feel like unbuckling her straps to drop the bag. Like signaling to him that she needed to pause.

Last night had been the same as the previous one: she had reached their camp, collapsed, and barely been able to remove the pack before falling asleep. She woke later to find a plate of cold food beside her, covered with a thin cloth against the elements. She ate while he slept, then closed her eyes again.

Only sheer exhaustion could summon the oblivion she craved. Every time they stopped throughout the day, she was so tired she fell to her knees and dumped the pack. And during the pause in motion, she was so weary she couldn’t think about the ruin she’d made of herself, the ruin she’d always been, deep down. No training, no learning about the Valkyries and their Mind-Stilling would help. Nothing would help.

So she could wait for the water. Because to stop was to allow those thoughts in, even if they trailed behind her like leaden shadows, heavier than the pack.

Her ankle twisted on a loose stone, and she gritted her teeth against the lash of pain, but continued. Cassian hadn’t so much as stumbled once. She would know: she watched him all day long. But he stumbled now. Nesta lurched forward, but—

No. That was her. She was the one falling.

Cassian was halfway up the dried riverbed when stones crunched and clacked behind him.

He whirled to find Nesta facedown. Not moving.

He swore, rushing down the stony path, and slid to his knees before her. The sharp stones bit his legs through his pants, but he didn’t care, not as he turned her over, his heart thundering.

She’d fainted. His relief was a primal thing in him, settling, but—

He hadn’t looked back at her in hours. Filmy white crusted her lips; her skin was flushed and sweaty. He grabbed for the canteen at his belt, unscrewing the cap, and pulled her head into his lap. “Drink,” he ordered, opening her mouth for her, his blood roaring in his ears.

Nesta stirred, but didn’t fight him when he poured a little water down her throat. It was enough to have her opening her eyes. They were glazed.

Cassian demanded, “When was the last time you had water?”

Her eyes sharpened. The first time she’d really looked at him in three solid days. But she only took the canteen and drank deep, draining it.

When she’d finished, she groaned, pushing herself from his lap, but only onto her side.

He snapped, “You should have been drinking water throughout the day.”

She stared at the rocks around them.

He couldn’t stand that look—the vacancy, the indifference, as if she no longer really cared whether she lived or died here in the wild.

His stomach twisted. Instinct bellowed at him to wrap himself around her, to comfort and soothe, but another voice, an ancient and wise voice, whispered to keep going. One more mountain, that voice said. Just one more mountain.

He trusted that voice. “We’ll camp here tonight.”

Nesta didn’t try to rise, and Cassian scanned for a flatter expanse of ground. There—twenty feet up the riverbed and to the left. Flat enough. “Come on,” he coaxed. “A few more feet and you can sleep.”

She didn’t move. As if she couldn’t.

He told himself it was because she’d fainted and might not be sturdy, but he walked back to her. Crouched and picked her up in his arms, pack and all.

She said nothing. Absolutely nothing.

But he knew it was coming—that storm. Knew that Nesta would speak again, and when she did, he’d better be ready to weather it.

Nesta found another plate waiting when she awoke to darkness. The full moon had shown her face, so bright the mountains, the rivers, the valley were illuminated enough that even the leaves on the trees far below were visible. She’d never seen such a view. It seemed like a secret, slumbering land that time had forgotten.

She was nothing before that view, these mountains. As insignificant to any of it as one of the stones that still rattled in her boot. It was a blessed relief, to be nothing and no one.

She didn’t remember falling asleep, but dawn broke, and they were again moving. Heading north, he said—showing her, in a rare moment of civility, that the mossy sides of trees always faced that way, helping him stay on course.

There was a lake, he told her during lunch.