Morrighan - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,25

stumbled, almost falling at his feet. I got my footing and looked back at Harik uncertainly, wondering if it was a trick.

His eyes lingered on me, and then he abruptly turned to Lasky and yelled, “Take the grain from his horse, and let’s go!”

I watched them ride off, galloping toward the bridge.

“Get on my horse, Morrighan,” Jafir ordered from behind me. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

I whirled, staring at him, his eyes still full of fire. Fury reignited in me, and my hand flew toward his face. His hand shot up, catching my wrist in midair. Both of our arms strained against each other, our gazes locked, and then he pulled me to him, his arms holding me tight, my shoulders shaking, his chest wet with my tears.

“I had no choice, Morrighan,” he whispered. “I had to ride with them. Steffan told them about you. I tried to send them off course, but they caught the scent of the roasting boar.”

He stiffened and pushed me away. His shoulders pulled back. He looked different to me. Distant. Older. There were lines at his eyes that hadn’t been there yesterday. “I’ll take you back to your camp now.”

“So you’re not buying me with my own sack of grain?”

His nostrils flared. “You’ll never have to see me after today. I knew you’d be happy to hear that. I’m leaving with my clan. They still need me.”

I stared at him, a new ache worming through me. My mouth opened, but no words would form. “You’re leaving,” I finally repeated.

“This can’t be all there is,” he said. “It is no way to live. There has to be a better place than this. Somewhere. A place where the children in my clan can have a different life than the one I’ve had.” His jaw clenched, and he added with a harder edge, “A place where someone can fall in love with whoever they want and not be shamed by it.”

He grabbed his horse’s lead and motioned for me to get up.

All I wanted was to get back to the tribe, but I hesitated, feeling a strange nudge, his last words settling in some forgotten hollow. Somewhere. He motioned again, impatient, and I slid my foot into the stirrup. He got up behind me, reaching around to hold the reins as he had so many times, but now his arms felt rigid against my skin, as if he was trying to keep from touching me. We rode in awkward silence. I thought about the grain he had traded me for. My grain. Not his. I had a right to be angry. I owed him nothing.

But he hadn’t betrayed me.

Not in the way I had thought. I’d been quick to believe the worst of him.

And just now, he had risked his life to free me from Harik.

He was leaving. Today.

“It’s dangerous on the other side of the mountains,” I reminded him.

“It’s dangerous here,” he countered. I leaned back against his chest, forcing him to touch me. He cleared his throat. “Piers said he saw an ocean beyond the mountains when he was a boy.”

“He must be the same age as Ama if he remembers it.”

“He doesn’t remember much. Only the blue. We’ll look for that.”

Blue. An ocean that might not even exist anymore. It was a fool’s quest. And yet Ama’s memories had fueled my own dreams.

Are there really such gardens, Ama?

Yes, my child, somewhere. And one day you will find them.

Somewhere. I brushed back the hair whipping across my face and looked ahead at the windblown, barren landscape. No, I will never find those gardens, and Jafir will never find his blue. He and his clan would never make it. They would all perish. Soon. I felt the word burn in my gut as surely as I felt Jafir’s chest at my back. They would die.

“Jafir—”

“What?” he answered, his tone sharp, as if hearing any more arguments from me was too much for him to bear.

There is no future for us, Morrighan. There can never be.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

I had once believed there might be a way for us, but now that seemed as lost and faraway as one of Ama’s gardens.

Chapter Twenty

Morrighan

We saw it at the same time. It was a dust cloud rising behind a knoll, and in seconds, the cloud became something else. A caravan. Horses laden with packs. It looked like a small city, though I already knew the numbers. Jafir had told me. Twenty-seven, eight of which were children.