Page 23 of Destroyer

“I’m not a child,” she snapped, letting obstinacy mask the residual terror that coursed through her, the sense that she shouldn’t be alive. She stepped back and brushed herself off. She glanced at the wolf, its gray shape still in the underbrush. That could have been her. Should have been.

“Exactly,” Fen said. “You’re old enough to know not to barge into a strange wood without a guide or a weapon.”

“What do you care?” said Ru. The instinct to live, to fight off the wolf, it was fading now, replaced by a burning self-loathing that Fen couldn’t possibly understand. “You don’t know me. It’s not as if you’d be implicated if I was eaten by a wolf.”

His eyes darkened. “It’s basic human decency. I couldn’t let you just… disappear.”

“Letme? I suppose because you found me helpless in a crater, you think you’re responsible for me. Well, you’re not. If I want to disappear into the woods, then I’ll damn well disappear.”

Fen glared at her. She glared back. Then, wordlessly, he knelt. Ru thought for one hysterical second that he was about to propose until he reached into the underbrush and pulled out the artifact.

“You dropped this.”

Ru snatched it out of his hands, cold fear washing over her all of a sudden. She could have lost it, or broken it. What would have happened if she had? Would it be safe there, lost forever in the ferns? Or would it come back to her somehow?

Still shaking, sweat beading on her forehead, Ru tucked the artifact into a pocket. “I’m going back to camp,” she said. Not waiting for Fen’s response, she turned on her heel.

“Camp’s the other way,” said Fen, pointing.

She pressed her lips together. “Just take us there.”

As soon as they arrived at the makeshift camp, Fen went to where his saddlebags lay against a tree, and started looking for something inside.

“Get that thing wrapped up,” he said, not turning as he crouched, broad shoulders flexing as he dug through one of the leather bags.

Ru, hovering near the now-dead fire, froze. “What thing?”

“That cursed rock you’ve been carrying around. I have a bad feeling about it.”

She reached for it involuntarily, touching it with the tip of a finger. He couldn’t know; he couldn’t possibly know that it spoke to her. “It’s just a rock.”

Fen turned, one eyebrow raised, and tossed her the woolen blanket he had pulled from the depths of his saddlebags. “Swaddle it in this. We’ll put it in with the other things.”

She caught the blanket, her senses now on full alert. Did Fen know more than he was saying? Did he believe that the artifact was a weapon, a bomb? Sheshouldwrap it up. They didn’t know what it could do. But she didn’twantto. She wanted to have it close.

“Ruellian.” Her name on Fen’s tongue was a warning. “I promise you, I will not let any harm come to you,oryour little rock. I would die first.”

“That’s a little dramatic.”

“I’m serious.”

His tone was clear and unaffected in the same way he'd spoken of fate. Ru’s inclination was to believe him, to trust him. As it had been from the moment she’d felt his touch on her shoulder.

And now, after the run-in with the wolf, Fen had proven to be true in his word to protect not only her, but also the artifact. He was the one who had lifted it from the forest floor and handed it back to her. If he wanted it for himself, or if he wanted to destroy it, he could have done so easily.

Ru sighed, wrapped the artifact in the blanket as tightly as she could, and handed it grudgingly to Fen. He took it and tucked it gently into a saddlebag.

“There,” he said. “Now sit down and let me have a look at your knees.”

“My knees?”

He came back toward her, a small box in his hands. “They’re torn up. You tripped when you were blind.”

As if realizing her knees existed for the first time, Ru looked down at them. They were skinned, raw, and red. Dirt and bits of forest debris were stuck to them. And they did sting, now that she thought about it. With everything else, that small pain had been the last thing on her mind.

“Oh,” was all she said.

Fen raised a dark eyebrow. “Sit.”

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