normal, talkative type of person. I’d talk to the trees if I could. Shitting shits, I’m cold.”
She got to her feet and jumped around to get warm. “Need to make a fire. Then get some water and food. Then . . .”
But she wasn’t sure what would come after that.
“Who cares? Fire first.”
Tash set off, picking up old dried branches and some moss that was good to get the fire going. She found a stream nearby and drank and washed her face. As she walked, she noticed a faint red glow in a slight depression in the ground ahead of her. She froze. A demon hollow?
Then she realized what it was and smiled.
“I’ve walked in a circle. It’s my demon hollow. I made that.”
She started the fire and wondered if someone might see it. Brigantines or Pitorians. Geratan maybe? But she could see no other fires anywhere. The only light was from the stars and moon.
She lay by the fire, warm at last. “Tomorrow is for setting traps for food. Easy enough when I’m rested.” And she closed her eyes and slept again.
The next time Tash woke, the sky was a pale blue and the sun was over the treetops. Her fire was out, but she was lying in a pool of sunlight. It felt wonderful to have the warmth of the sun on her skin. She got up and stretched—oh, the joy of stretching. That would never get old.
Her stomach made a loud, groaning noise. She hadn’t been this hungry in a long time. She’d have to set some rabbit traps and then go and get her bearings—where exactly was she?
Food first.
She made traps, set them, and started her fire up again, then sat by it, looking over to her demon hollow. It was still there, still glowing faintly red. She had thought it might close—after all, there was no demon alive to keep it open. Somehow, though, it was staying open for her. It was her tunnel, her demon hollow.
But I’m not a demon.
At that thought, Tash looked at her own skin to check.
Definitely human.
But the demon hollow—her hollow—was still there.
There’s a wisp of smoke still in me. That’s why. I’ve still got a bit of demon smoke deep inside that came out of the demon when he was dying. It was heading back to the core of the demon world, but somehow some of it got left behind.
Tash turned away from the hollow. “I may have a bit of demon in me, but I’m not a demon. I’m human. I don’t belong in there. I belong up here in the human world.”
She thought of the human world farther south. Civilization. She really should go back there, back to civilization.
“I should get a job, food . . . a bed to sleep in.” She picked at the worn leather of her shoes. “New boots. The ones I wanted in Dornan. The most beautiful boots in all the world.”
Though now she thought about it, Tash no longer wanted the boots. She wasn’t sure what she did want, other than to sit here by her fire and do nothing.
It was a beautiful spot. The stream was clear and gentle, forming a lovely pool just right for bathing in. It was similar to a pool she’d bathed in last summer, with two flat boulders, one submerged so that you could sit on it comfortably in the water, the other out of the water for drying on. She could do with a good wash now. It would be the perfect place. She got up and went to the pool.
As Tash approached, she could see the two boulders weren’t similar; they were exactly the same shape as the pool she remembered.
Is it the same one?
Impossible, surely.
Of all the millions of places to emerge on the surface of the Northern Plateau, she’d come out at a place she’d been to before?
But it did look exactly the same.
If it’s the same place, then . . .
Tash turned round and walked to the west and, within a short distance, she found what she was looking for. It was partly filled in, one side collapsed, but two of the sides were straight. It was a demon pit that Gravell had dug.
She walked back to her demon hollow and realized it was where she and Gravell had made their campfire. The same spot where they’d sat and talked and . . . and it was the place she’d imagined when she was tunneling.