Page 33 of The Lost Guard's Healer

“Fine,” I grit out, but am not fully happy.

A cool breeze blows through the mountain path, causing me to shiver and hug myself. My teeth begin clattering. With the sun behind the mountain, the weather has shifted fairly quickly.

“Alright,” I finally say. “We can find shelter here for the night.”

“Fantastic,” he says with a smirk. “I have some good scary stories.”

I roll my eyes and follow him through a descending slope in the rocks. It’s fairly steep and my boots don’t seem to hold well on the gravelly slope, so Tarin takes my hand and helps me down.

Rourk. Not Tarin. I have to get used to that. Why would he hide his name? Was he afraid we would know who he was? I can’t think of any Oathlander I know by name, other than its ruler, Arthur Bearon. Even his Fae Queen’s name is beyond me.

“You must have a strong magical lineage,” Rourk says as we search for a suitable resting place.

I continue hugging myself against the cold. “My father used to tell Leila and I how we were descended from a famous heroine. Someone from the old world. It was just a story, though. Or we thought it was, anyway. And when magic returned to the world, we found his stories to be true.”

“Leila has the same abilities as you?”

“My gifts came in the form of summoning light from my hands,” I say. “Same as my father. Leila, on the other hand, has shadows. And she can sometimes sense what a person is thinking or feeling.”

He turns to me. “Like you.”

I’m not sure if he truly knows that or is just testing me. I shake my head. “Not like me.”

“But that’s how you knew my name wasn’t Tarin?”

“I see how you respond to your own name,” I lie. “As though you’re not used to hearing it.”

I don’t meet his gaze as he watches me.

Not comfortable with the silence, I continue, “Leila has hardly used her ability, anyway. It mostly comes without her trying. She doesn’t like the idea of invading people’s privacy like that.”

I don’t tell him that Leila and I are unusual. It seems that everyone who received magic unlocked one major magical gift, while Leila and I both received two. The ability to summon light, or in her case, darkness, and to sense people’s thoughts.

I had been the first to show my light power to the public while Leila had managed to hide the fact that she could do the same with darkness from everyone but me. And when the villagers wondered why Leila had not attained light-summoning magic like our father and me, she had eventually admitted her ability to sense things in people’s minds, but hid the shadows she carried in her veins. I’m glad I was wise enough not to reveal my own mind-sensing abilities. I still don’t know how it works. I just get glimpses of feelings from others sometimes.

The light has faded rapidly around us, and the wind is picking up. Angry dark clouds are building overhead. We are less than a day away from the village, but this feels like we’re trapped in another world.

“Here we go,” Rourk says.

He points to a small crevasse in the rock, like a tiny cave, hidden by shrubs and gnarled weeds. The gap is long and narrow, small enough to barely fit one of us.

“You want us both to get in there?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

“It’ll help us stay warm, at least,” he says, but looks just as doubtful as I am.

My heart begins to race.

Chapter fourteen

Rourk

Ihave to be careful how I lay next to Galene, as I don’t want to risk overstepping or making things any more awkward than they already are. Although our options are limited in the small gap in the rock wall, and it feels like we are laying in a coffin-shaped hole with a rocky ceiling close to our heads.

It’s awkward to press our shoulders against each other, so I lift my arm to curl it around Galene to allow her head to rest on my shoulder.

“Hey,” she says when I move my arm over her.

I give her an innocent look and continue moving, but very slowly. It’s hard to deny that my arm being around her has made the space more comfortable for both of us. Regardless of how inappropriate it feels.

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