“Is this your first apology?”
“It’s not an apology at all. We’ve got a lot to do, and I don’t want to waste time fighting. Do you?”
“I guess not. This yours?” I handed him the green and brown flannel that smelled like heartbreak and Christmas.
“Yeah. You were tossing and turning half the night. Thought you might be cold. You calmed down once I covered you with it.” He opened his pack, rolled the shirt and shoved it inside. He wore only his white undershirt, looking far too good in it to have such a surly personality. The taut material stretched across his muscles, daring me to ogle, which I refused to do.
I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to make sense of his rollercoaster-sized mood swings. “Thanks. Yeah, I get acrobatic sometimes when I sleep by myself.”
He handed me an apple from his pack. “You and Lane share a bed?”
“Not since elementary school. No, Judah’s my roommate. You know that.”
He scoffed, his shiny truce easily broken. “Are you trying to make me jealous?”
I rolled my eyes, exasperated. “Would that even be possible?”
“No,” he replied, taking a succinct bite from his apple.
I frowned, wiping the sleep from my eyes. “Then that’s clearly not what I was trying to do. I thought you didn’t want to fight. Threw in the towel on that one easy enough. I was just making conversation. Letting you know I don’t toss because I’m cold. Next time you don’t have to make yourself uncomfortable by loaning me your shirt, if you don’t want. But thank you for the gesture. It really was nice of you to do that.”
He didn’t know what to do with my non-antagonistic demeanor. “Whatever. It’s my job to make sure you don’t die out here. Stop reading into everything.”
My face soured. “Reading into what? I called you nice. Jeez! Lesson learned. Bastien’s a raging butthole. Tread lightly. I don’t know why I’m always surprised when you turn, but you get me every time.” I stood in unison with Cheval, who snorted and shook out his legs to get some life flowing through them again. “Let’s go.”
Bastien stood in front of me, his backpack and quiver fixed on his shoulders as he handed me my pack with a little less attitude. “I was a jerk,” he admitted, shoulders drooping. “I really didn’t want to start the day fighting with you.” He turned me around and hoisted me up. Once I was in position, I extended my arm to help him get on the horse behind me. When Cheval started trotting, I tried to ignore Bastien’s hands on my hips. “So, you and Judah live together, but you’re not married? That’s different than how it works in Avalon.”
“Uh-huh. You mentioned.”
Bastien waited for a more eloquent response, but I couldn’t give him one. He pressed onward, trying to keep everything conversational and light. “Here it’s all very serious with talks of intentions on the first sign of attraction. It’s a lot of pressure. Sounds nice in your world.”
“Yup.”
Cheval picked up speed, running through the wheat until the golden crops turned to a flat prairie stretching to a gray bit of land in the distance. Bastien tried a few more attempts at conversation that failed miserably, due to my monosyllabic responses. He let the silence settle the feud between us as much as it was able for half an hour or so, and then picked it up again. “So, you were in school?”
“Yeah.”
“Our schooling only goes until we’re sixteen. Then we either go into a profession, join the Queen’s Army, or start an apprenticeship. Is that how it works with Commoners? Just a longer time in school?”
I sighed, wishing he hadn’t learned not to ask yes or no questions. I had to actually answer this one. “In the country I’m from, we go to school until we’re eighteen, then it’s a lot of the same options. Job, military, loaf around or go to college, which I guess would be a little like your apprenticeship, but more studying and less hands-on. I was in college, but I also worked.”
“What were you going to be?”
I bristled. “I didn’t drop out of school. I’ll go back once I can go home. I’m still going to be a veterinarian. That’s a healer for animals.”
“That makes sense with what you can do.”
“Uh-huh.”
He paused, squeezing my hips too playfully for my liking. “You’re really going to make me work this hard to smooth things over?”
I batted at his mischievous hand. “I don’t really feel pressure to make your life any easier. We’re coworkers. You accused me of getting confused, and now I’m not. You don’t need to care about my life, and I don’t need to know about yours. One day you’ll look back on all this and barely remember my name. You’ll call me ‘that girl I met from Common,’ and that’ll be the name of that tune. How it should be.”
He shook his head, bumping his forehead to the back of my shoulder. “I’ve never had this much trouble with a woman before.”
“Oh, now. Let’s not tell lies. You suck with all women equally, I’m sure.”
He sniggered, thinking I was joking. I was not.
I tried not to lean into him, so as not to get too comfortable. “What happened to Abraham Lincoln? He said he was waiting for you.” A pang of worry shot through me that Bastien had found me, but not my bear.
“I saw you split off from Lane, so I went after you, and I sent Abraham Lincoln to go watch over Lane. I thought you’d prefer her to have the extra backup.”
“That was smart.” I didn’t want to be a jerk, so I offered up a quiet, “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
Cheval slowed down when we reached a stream that separated the grassy prairie from the gray rocky earth on the other side. “Get a drink. Refill your canteens. There won’t be water for a while once we cross,” he warned me.
I relayed the message to Bastien, taking my spot a fair distance from his. I washed my face and drank my fill, refilling both canteens after scooping water onto my arms to liven up my skin. The sun overhead wasn’t oppressive, but the long ride certainly was. “Is the ride always this long?”
“How should I know?” Bastien replied, and then pointed his finger to Cheval. “Right. Not me. You were talking to the horse.”
Cheval nuzzled me affectionately with his head. “It’s long so the person has much time to consider going back to their life. They rarely do, but it’s worth the offer. We’re making good time. You only slept for two hours.”
“You’re telling me. Could we break for longer tonight?”
Bastien opened his mouth to answer, but closed it again to let Cheval respond. “It’s your timeline. We can stop for however long you want.”
“You can take a nap once we find Roland and get the gems,” Bastien ruled. “That’s the most important thing. You’re going to have to suck it up until then.”
I kept my eyes on the water and nodded, expecting as much from someone who didn’t need sleep, and barely understood the concept. I made a promise to myself not to talk to Cheval excessively in hopes of not using up my magic so I didn’t need so much sleep. My heart sank at the thought. I really liked Cheval. He was nice to me, and had a lot he could teach me about Avalon. But no, I would be a team player and get through Avalon as quick as possible.
This was easier said than done. From that moment until night fell again, Cheval kept up a steady stream of conversation that was too interesting to resist. He told me about Master Kerdik, who gave him the abilities he had so that the people of Avalon could have a way out that wasn’t suicide. He both feared and revered Master Kerdik, and wanted to introduce me to him, but dude hadn’t been seen in decades.
We rode through the dark without stopping until the sun cracked over the horizon, spreading light for my bleary eyes. The sun awakened my senses that felt beyond repair and schizophrenically jumpy. My skin felt thin, having been blown by the breeze for too many hours. The sun kept rising until Bastien interrupted the midmorning by breaking in on Cheval’s rant about the rocky terrain he didn’t care for. “I’ve got to pee, and we should probably e
at something. You hungry? We can stop for a couple minutes.”
I nodded, I think. Cheval slowed down, stopping near a clear-ish space of rocky terrain between two larger gray mountains. Everything had been gray since last night, giving my brain nothing new to latch onto.
Bastien dismounted, shaking out his legs and stretching before holding out his arms to me. I wanted to go down the other side, but knew I couldn’t manage that in my bedraggled state. I dropped my backpack onto the crushed rock ground, and then I reached down and let myself fall into his arms, trusting he’d catch me.
Bastien gave me a quick hug before releasing me, no doubt sensing I would push him away. Only this time, I wouldn’t have pushed him. I needed him in order to stay upright. I swayed where I stood, reaching for Cheval with a drunken hand. The world had been moving at such a rapid pace for too long. My vision swam, now that my feet were touched down. I didn’t mean to take a step towards the ground, but I felt the rocky surface yank me toward it, sucking me in with an enormous dose of gravity that hit me out of nowhere. I tried to right myself, but it was no use. My eyes closed as my body careened toward the ground. Gratitude swept through my body, relieved that finally sleep was claiming me.
18
Not Thinking
I awoke to a large hand lightly slapping my face. Then water was poured over me, making me choke and splutter as the world came back. I wasn’t in my bed, and the hand was much too big to be Judah’s. “Rosie! Rosie, wake up! Come on, honey. Talk to me!”
I was on the hard ground with a rock sticking into my spine. I shifted my body, grateful when Bastien helped me to sit up. “What happened?”
“You fainted! You fainted and scraped up your hand on the way down. You’re lucky you didn’t hit your head. Why didn’t you tell me you needed to sleep?”
“I did.” My whole face frowned, unable to keep up with his speed of talking. “You know I need to sleep. You didn’t care. You said I could sleep after the gems and the Roland, and the whole big thing.”
“Well, I didn’t mean for you to faint on me! You have to stop talking to the animals. It’s wearing you out.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Cheval’s nice to me. He cares about my thoughts and he trusts me with his.”
“Was it worth it? Honestly, Rosie.”
“I need to matter to someone, so I take what I can get!” I cut myself off too late. I hated getting openly emotional, especially in front of Bastien, who turned acerbic on a dime. “I just fainted, dude! Back off!”
Bastien took a chance and held me, kneeling by my side and pulling my torso tight to his chest. “You’re right. I wasn’t paying attention. I was too focused on the job. Reyn’s always bugging me about that. Here, take a nap. I’ll keep watch.”
I wanted to weep for a million reasons, but knew I couldn’t shed a tear. I was exhausted and hungry, and wished anyone or anything felt familiar. My hands trembled as I pulled away from him, crawling to a space without too many rocks beneath me so I could collapse somewhere comfortable.
“Oh, man. You’re shaking. I’m sorry, Daisy.”
My voice was quiet, but sharp. “Do not call me that. I’m not your Daisy.”
Bastien paused instead of arguing, and then continued. “I keep thinking you can turn it on and off, but you can’t. People don’t sleep all that often here. Only the Brownies who take on a household do, or people who are very sick. I’ve never actually seen a woman sleep, other than you. I’m a little out of my element. I wasn’t thinking.”
It couldn’t have been more obvious Bastien didn’t think about me, but I didn’t say as much. I didn’t even push him back when he cleared away a few rocks for me and guided my weary head to rest on the ground. He pulled out a shirt from his pack and lifted my head, sliding the folded material under so I had a thin pillow. It was nice. It was so nice that I burst into embarrassing tears, turning away from him to hide my face. “Thanks. You c-c-can go now.”
Bastien softened, his hand on my shoulder. “Rosie. Honey, I’m so sorry.”
“Just go!” I cried, horrified that my emotions were taking me over when Lane was gone. The one person I didn’t want to break down in front of wouldn’t give me any space, in a land filled with plenty of it.
The next thing I knew, I was scooped up in his arms, blubbering and apologizing incoherently. My hands alternated between pushing him away and clinging to his shirt to pull him closer. I didn’t know why he held on tight; I would’ve pushed me away a long time ago.
Finally my trembling arm found its way around his neck, gripping his skin so tight, I knew it had to be uncomfortable. “I’ve got you,” he whispered. “It’s my fault you’re crazy right now. I kissed you and ran, then I came back and made you go till you collapsed, picking fights with you the whole way.” He looked into my tear-filled eyes with such frustration, it temporarily stilled my sobs. “I don’t know why I do that, push when I want to pull, run when I want to stay in one place and hold on tight. Reyn’s always telling me I have a problem.” He gathered me closer in his arms, squeezing me to his chest. “I’m sorry, Rosie. I don’t know how to do this – to be around someone like you. Someone who makes me feel things I’ve got no business feeling.”
He traced my wet and filthy face, seeing something there that I couldn’t in that moment. All I saw in myself was someone unlovable, unsmart, unattractive and un… just un. I held my breath when I saw his resolve shift, his lips aiming for mine. I inhaled sharply, turning my cheek when his lips lowered to my face. The kiss that had undone me a week ago grazed the crest of my cheekbone, stealing my heart when he didn’t have a right to come near it.
He buried his face in the crook of my neck, inhaling my unbathed skin like it was a bouquet of fresh flowers. “I haven’t earned a real kiss yet, but I will. I promise you, Rosie. I’ll be better.”
Then Bastien lowered us both to the hard earth. He shifted his body so my head could rest on his arm that curled me to him. “You sleep better with someone next to you? I can’t fix everything, but I can fix that.” My face landed on his chest, and he picked up the shirt he’d gotten out to use for my pillow and draped it over my arms. “That’s right. Just rest. I’ve got you.”
The simple kindness won me over, if only by the smallest amount. I cried myself to sleep in his arms, not sure how to feel or what to do, other than give up on consciousness.
19
The Most Hydrated Woman in Avalon
I awoke to the feeling of someone staring at me. When my eyes fluttered open, I was greeted to the sight of Bastien inches from my face.
“Finally!” he exhaled, filling me with his Christmasy scent. “I’ve had to pee for hours!” He kissed my nose and slid his arm out from under me, shaking it and rubbing the muscle with a grimace. “Oh! My arm’s asleep. It’s burning! It’s tingling! Ah!”
I wiped my mouth off, chagrinned that I’d been drooling all over his white t-shirt. I stretched, giggling at his upper body dance that had him groaning dramatically as sensation crept back into his arm. “You alright there, chief?”
“Yeah. Hand me my shirt, will you? You drooled all over this one.”
“Gross! I was hoping you wouldn’t notice. Yeah, I drool when I’m in a deep sleep. Not cool to comment on it.”
He walked around behind a rock to relieve himself, and I was reminded how much I sorely missed indoor plumbing. “Sorry, Princess,” he jabbed not unkindly. “I don’t know much about bedtime etiquette.” He came out from behind the rock and fished through his pack for a few hard rolls, sat down on my right and handed one to me.
My stomach lurched, and I almost vomited right then and there. “Here’s a tip: I have to sleep around eight hours every night. I can power through for a little bit, but not forever. Gotta pay the piper.”
“We have that saying, but we have actual pipers. Wildmen with the panpipes. How’d you learn the phrase?”
I shrugged. “Dunno. Don’t listen to me. I’m still waking up.” I chewed my roll, trying to take my t
ime with it so my stomach didn’t go berserk on me. “So what’d you do while I was out?”
“I laid on my back and tried to recite all the names of the soldiers I served with. It’s a long list.”
“But what did you do? Did you and Cheval go exploring?”
Bastien paused with half a roll in his mouth. “I didn’t go anywhere. I stayed right with you the whole time. You said you slept better when you were next to someone, like how you are with Judah.” He looked down as he rubbed the nape of his neck, his voice surprisingly humble. “Look, I feel awful I didn’t take your whole sleeping thing seriously. I mean, I worked you until you passed out. Not good. I used to be better at the details, but I haven’t been responsible for anyone but myself in forever. Smack me around next time.”
“The one thing I didn’t try.” I cleared my throat. “You stayed with me the whole night?”
“I did.”
I tapped my heart. “That’s a big deal. I know you don’t have many sleep rules in this world, but staying with me like that? Way more decent than I thought you’d ever be.”
He met my eyes, and though there was a foot of space between us, the gaze felt very intimate. “I should’ve stayed after things went sideways during our first kiss. I keep kicking myself for it. I panicked, and it was childish.”
I nodded, not willing to defend him on that point. “I can understand freaking out. Can you understand that I wasn’t trying to give you my lueur? Can you be cool and get that all of this is new to me?”
Bastien touched his knuckles to my cheekbone. “I figured all that out about an hour after I ran. I just didn’t think you’d take me back.” He took another meaty bite of his roll and handed the crust to me. “You still hungry?”
“Yeah, but I know you are, too. Plus, you’re bigger than me. I’m not going to take your fuel.”
He dropped the crust in my hand, as if the decision had been settled upon. “Eat it. Seriously, hun. It’s going to be a long day.”
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