his cloak over his shoulder. Our arms touched, and he didn’t move away. “I—I think I like you better when y-y-you’re a bird,” I joked. I inhaled, taking in his scent. “Your enchanter form is obnoxious.”
“Don’t get too used to it,” Edan returned, but I heard the anxiety in his voice. “I look forward to my full powers returning once we’re back.”
We sat in comfortable silence, me sipping my tea, Edan observing the snowfall outside. “We’ll have to wait out the snow before we descend the peak,” he said. “Some rest will be good for you.”
“I’m not tired,” I lied in protest. The air stung my throat even before the words formed. My teeth chattered once more, and I folded my body inward and scooted closer to the flames. I tried again: “I j-just slept. I’m n-not t-t-tired.”
Edan took my cold hands. He rubbed them, transferring back some of that heat I’d already begun to miss. Then he breathed into my palms. It felt nice, the warmth of his lips on my skin.
“Liar,” he whispered. “Of course you’re tired. You were swimming in a freezing pool. Your body’s in shock.”
He drew me to him, enveloping me with his warmth. I wanted to push him away, but my body drank in his heat, my arm instinctively hooking under his. When I noticed what I’d done, I tried to pull back. But he tilted my chin and kissed me. Heat flooded me from my lips to my toes, and my heart hammered, its beat rushing and skipping to my head.
I opened my mouth, only for Edan to stifle my words by kissing me again. I didn’t stop him, but I tried to get a word in. “I told you I’m not—”
“Shhh,” he said, brushing my lips with his. “Sleep.”
I leaned into him, resting my head against his chest. His pulse skipped, a sound that sent a shock wave of thrills jolting through me. He wrapped a warm arm over my waist and pulled me closer.
He fell asleep first. I listened to him breathing, in and out, in and out. A rhythm I matched even without knowing it.
A strange, wonderful contentment filled me.
Edan had been right—this journey had changed me irrevocably.
And for the first time, I stopped counting the days until it was over. Now I didn’t want it to end.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
When I woke and saw that the world outside the cave was white, my first thought was that the clouds had fallen, so soft and satiny was the snow.
I began my descent. The climb down Rainmaker’s Peak was easier than the ascent. My enchanted shoes had dried, and with Edan’s help on the summit, I used a rope to rappel down the other side. But still it took me the better part of the day. At nightfall, Edan joined me in his hawk form. He made a glorious sight, his night-black feathers and milky-white wings gliding down. He landed neatly on my shoulder, his talons curving gently against my collarbone. I smiled at him. “Show-off.”
In his beak was a knot of wildflowers, which he dropped onto my lap.
“For me?” I asked.
Edan the hawk merely blinked. With a laugh, I put the flowers in my hair and kissed his beak. Then I readied our mounts, me riding Opal with Edan perched on my shoulder, and Rook pacing behind.
Moonlight lit our path through the mountains, so we had no difficulty traveling by night. Sometimes Edan disappeared for an hour or two. He was a predatory bird, after all, so I didn’t wonder about him. He always found his way back to me, sometimes with a spider or a snake trapped in his beak.
I touched his throat, rubbing it with my finger. “Wonder if that’ll give you indigestion tomorrow, Edan.”
It was so easy talking to his bird form that I found myself telling him about my brothers, about Finlei wanting to explore the world, and Sendo writing poems about the sea. About Baba and Keton, and my dream to become the best tailor in A’landi.
It made the time fly, and it helped me stay awake. When sunrise came, Edan flew off my shoulder and onto Rook’s back. And as the first rays of sun shone upon us, I was no longer traveling with a bird.
“Tired?” was Edan’s first word to me.
I shook my head.
He smiled, seeing the flowers tucked behind my ear; then he cleared his throat. “You accepted them.”