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)
I’m tempted to call Merc’s name, but something chokes the syllable in my throat.
I’ve never seen the man so still, and I worry he’s spotted something dangerous off in the distance. I scan the horizon, all the way to the slopes of the snowcapped mountains to our west. The sheer breadth of the vista is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, and a sense of vertigo threatens to upend my balance.
There is nothing moving in the landscape. Nothing coming at him … or me.
Meanwhile, he just continues to stay planted there like a statue, his focus unwavering, that eerie lack of motion making me wonder if he’s noted the symbols by the doors, knows what they mean—and is disturbed by where we’ve had to rest the night. Yet that makes little sense. He’s a mercenary who’s traveled anywhere and everywhere to maim or kill on behalf of whoever can pay him most. He has seen such violence before, in one form or another.
May have even committed it from time to time.
As moments pass and dread curdles my gut, I figure I should leave him be. But I should know better than to think I can be sensible when it comes to the man. Unable to stop myself, I step through a fence’s open gate and proceed into a pasture that’s intersected by a sluggish stream.
He doesn’t turn toward me. Not even as I surmount the rounded back of a rickety bridge, my steps causing creaks as I cross the crystal-clear water. The horse hears my approach, however, and cranes his neck around for a brief, disinterested glance—before he resumes his vigorous munching with a nicker.
And still Merc doesn’t seem to notice I’m here.
Pausing to look around again, all I see between us and the mountains are fields planted with crops that were not harvested before the first frost that hit this territory mere nights before, the gourds and melons bruised and browned out, the leaves shriveled up—
Merc drops the lead and starts walking away, as if in a trance. When he gets to the two-rail fence that contains the farming plot, he sheathes his broadsword, ducks through, and continues over to the first of the planted rows. Crouching down, he pushes his hand into the dark soil. As clumps fall through his fingers, his head rises again to the distance.
Wherever he’s gone in his mind, it’s not for the company of others to witness. And because of this, I cannot turn away. I circle to the right, until I catch sight of his profile—
The anguish on his face carves new features into the planes and angles I’ve become so familiar with. He seems twice his age now, and exhausted to the point of illness. Instead of bending down by choice, he appears crushed by burdens so heavy, even he can no longer bear their weight.
A single tear trembles at the corner of his scarred eye, tangling in his long black lashes.
And I’m wrong. His gaze isn’t on the horizon.
It’s on the crops. He’s staring at the cultivated rows of plants, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was regretting the loss as if he were the farmer who had nurtured it all—
The tear makes its escape and travels the slope of his cheek into the hollow underneath his hard jaw. He doesn’t brush it away, even as it slips down the side of his throat. He doesn’t seem to notice he’s crying any more than he does me or the horse.
The image of him staring out with such yearning over that which had been carefully tilled and tended should have been touching. Except he’s not a farmer. He’s dressed for war. And those plants have borne food that is now inedible because the people who should have harvested and consumed the vegetables are all dead.
So it’s a scene of sorrow and loss, a cautionary visual of what happens when violence enters a community.
“What ails you,” I say softly.
Merc wheels around, and for once, his hands don’t go for his weapons and he makes no aggressive response. He puts his arms up defensively, bracing for blows, and in the process, falls backward into one of the rows, crushing the shriveled leaves and rotten vegetables.
As he shrinks away from me, I almost meet his eyes—and for once, it’s not what I don’t want to know about a person that saves me. I want to afford him some privacy.
But it’s too late for that, isn’t it.
“I’m sorry.” I fan out my hands, and try to look unthreatening. Not much of a stretch, really. “I’m … I was just worried about you.”
All he does is stare over at me, like his mind is fighting the reality that’s just intruded on wherever he was.
Later, much, much later, I will reflect that this is where I started to fall in love with him. At the moment, I’m too concerned to think much about what I’m feeling. All I know with surety is I have suddenly seen that he and I have something in common: Underneath my cloak and his strength, we are not as dissimilar as I thought.