Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
“Why.”
The word he speaks lingers between us like smoke in a cave.
“I don’t know,” I mumble.
“Yes, you do.”
His voice has a different tone than I’ve heard, and not just because it’s a full octave lower than usual. No, this is something else.
“At least now I know why you hide yourself.” There’s a long pause. “You are…”
When he stops there and clears his throat, I touch my face as if it’s someone else’s. The idea he thinks I’m ugly has me backing up, bending down … picking up the thin blue cloth from where it drifted into the soot.
“There’s no reason to put that back on.” His tone is brisk now, and I hear the weapons he wears on his body shifting in their metal holsters as he resettles on the floor against the door. “Besides, it’s dark as the inside of a hat in here. I see nothing.”
Before I can sit back down in my own spot, I go over to where the coats are hanging on pegs. I know that the night will only grow colder as it goes on, so I take one of them off its wall secure. The folds of wool smell like smoke, and there’s something that seems all wrong about putting on a stranger’s clothing. But I have to get some sleep, and it certainly seems like winter as I lower myself back down and tuck my knees up to my chest.
Silence. So much … silence.
The weight on my shoulders reminds me of my cloaks, and I look at the length of cloth I’ve used to cover my face. It’s thin as a wisp in my hand, and I marvel at how such a delicate thing can be so powerful. Shame makes me want to drape myself in bolts of heavy fabric, but something deep within me rebels at that.
I’ve always felt as though I had to hide, and not just because of that voice in my head or all the things I’ve done in my village in secret. There was another level to it, I’ve just never bothered to look into why—and I don’t have the answer for that now. But I am clear that I’m done. I’m tired of suffocating under fabric, especially as we head off into a territory where no one knows me or what I can do.
And if Merc thinks I’m that hard to look at, then his eyes can go elsewhere.
Winding my arms around my steep-angled legs, I let the piece of turban fall back to the floor.
“Where did you go?” I ask.
“I do rounds to ensure our safety.” Now, his tone goes dry: “Such as it is. Go to sleep. We have about three more hours before the sun’s up, and we’d be wise to head off as soon as we can see properly. I’d like to enter the Badlands in broad daylight and we’re still hours away.”
There’s a determined exhale, and I don’t know whether it’s about continuing the journey before us, or him trying to follow his own order to sleep.
“Stop thinking,” he says.
“You cannot read my mind,” I snap. “And I’m not thinking of anything.”
A grunt comes back at me. “Sleep…”
There’s another word after that one, spoken so softly, it barely travels. Yet my ears in all their straining hear it well enough.
Woman, he calls me.
Thirty-One
A Harvest of Sorrow.
When I wake up again, the morning has finally arrived. All of the windows and doors leak threads of the dawn’s light, the closed shutters not nearly as tightly fit as I thought. Merc and the horse are gone, but his pack and his leather surcoat are by the door next to the saddle, so I know he hasn’t left me.
Or at least … I can’t imagine he’d leave without so much of his gear.
Rubbing my eyes, I get to my feet and stretch, my bones realigning themselves in a series of pops and snaps. As I look around, my face registers the subtle currents of the drafts in the room, and it feels good for my nose to be unfettered, my eyes to be unobstructed, my skin to feel the air, even with all the ash. When I bring up my hand to brush some wisps of hair back, another part of the turban unwinds, and on reflex, I start to pull the length over my forehead and nose.
I stop myself. And tuck the soft fabric back into the twist from which it came.
Then I go for the door, following the path of footfalls in the soot made by Merc going in and out during the night.
With the early daylight coming in so many kinds of gaps, it’s impossible not to properly notice the overturned chairs, the dishes that are broken, the things that have been scattered around. Whoever owns—or owned—this house left in a hurry, which is what one would do when a fire has broken out in your neighbors’ places and you want to save as much as you can of your things. Even though I don’t know the people, I picture the merchants who traveled to my village, and pray they’re okay.