darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,68
is in your heart, too.”
“Aral—”
“Wait. I’m not finished. I know you don’t believe in yourself, but I want you to know that I believe in you. I want you to know that no matter what you think or what anyone else says, there’s at least one person in the world who believes that you are no monster. You are a good woman. When you can’t believe that for yourself, please remember there’s someone out there who is believing it for you.”
Faran caught my hand and lifted it to her lips, kissing the palm of it as gently as a courtier. “Thank you, Aral. That was . . . just, thank you. It means the world to me. Now, come on, if we keep stopping like this, we’ll never catch up.” She let my hand go, turned away, and started into a slow jog.
I fell in behind her.
That was well done, Aral, sent Triss.
Hey, every once in a while I get something right.
And, now you’re doing it, he sent—his mental tone chiding.
Doing what? I asked.
Selling yourself short. I have known you all the days of your life, and with a few notable exceptions, I think that you do get it right most of the time. Especially on the big stuff.
Thank you, Triss. I appreciate it.
Don’t think it means I won’t keep riding your ass and pushing you to do better, but you’re very welcome.
* * *
“Fuck!” Faran snarled as she crawled back into the tent. “I nearly froze some very delicate bits of my plumbing pissing in that snowbank. I wish we had a pot around that we didn’t have to cook in later.”
Siri laughed. “I, for one, am glad that’s a bridge too far for you. I’ve known a few who would have chosen the dinner pot over even a short walk in a mountain blizzard.”
Faran rubbed her ass. “I can’t say that I might not change my mind later if the storm doesn’t ease up. It really is colder than a snow drake’s balls out there. Hell, it’s not all that warm in here.”
She settled down cross-legged between me and Kumi, which involved a good bit of adjustment on everyone’s part. The little silk tents were designed for four people to sleep in—if they didn’t mind getting close, and they left their gear outside. We’d originally packed enough of the things so that each one would only have had to accommodate three sleepers. Unfortunately, most of them had gone wherever the missing agutes went. Which meant that now that we had caught up with students, the tents were splitting at the seams with seven occupants each, and all our gear.
Well, except ours. We only had five. The reason for that was that one of our five was Kelos. Jax didn’t trust herself in that small a space with him after the losses she’d suffered in the last few days, and she’d insisted on taking Javan with her to keep an eye on him. Since Kelos terrified the rest of the youngsters so badly that no one who hadn’t been part of the rear guard with us was willing to share a tent with him, it meant we had a tiny bit of extra space. It wasn’t much, but going on three days trapped by the blizzard, we had all come to appreciate it.
“We need to get down off this mountainside,” said Kelos. “We’ve been pinned up here too long already. And that’s even if the food weren’t running short. The agents of the Son of Heaven who are running the Kvani invasion will have sent messages on to whatever Varyan forces he controls at the base of the mountains, as well as the Caeni clans across the river. The longer we’re stuck here, the worse our odds of getting past whatever is waiting for us down below.”
I shrugged. “I can’t say I disagree, but the track is iced over where it’s exposed and buried where it’s not. We’ve got no good way to move on from here short of a melt. You remember what it was like hiking through the first rough edges of this storm. We nearly lost Javan and Maryam both when we hit that ice patch. I’m not sure we’d still be alive if we hadn’t come on this little hanging valley when we did. It’s provided a much needed refuge.”
“And a trap,” said Kelos. “If we hadn’t found such a good shelter, we might have pushed on and gotten down below the storm’s snow line.”