“I don’t want to kill you.” He shuddered a sigh of relief. “Thank fuck for that.” His black gaze warmed, and he stepped a little closer. “I was dreading being the one to find you in case I ended up burying you out here in the woods,” he hesitated. “But, now I’m glad I did.” A frown flickered across his brow. “I would have been mad if anyone else had.” He seemed puzzled, which was about right, because I was beyond confused. “Strange.” His deep honey voice made my bones ache. Now he was talking, it was as if I’d always known his voice.
A ridiculous faint smile flitted on my lips. “That’s a relief. I’d like not to be buried out here.” Was I making small talk with the guy now? About him killing me and burying my body in the woods of all things? I’d be checking myself in for psychiatric help at this rate.
He dropped his dark gaze to my bare feet in the dirt. “I'm sorry about last night. I don’t know what came over me.” When he met my eyes, my breath became heavy and dense, like the air before a thunderstorm.
Still clutched in my now sweaty palm the gem pulsed one solid thrum like a heartbeat.
“It’s okay, I would have done the same.” I hesitated. “Although it seems odd now.” We both paused. Only a metre or so separated us and we stood there with our hands hanging at our sides, two total strangers having the most erratic conversation.
His lips stretched into a small smile and the dark depths of his eyes lighted for a brief moment. “Are you injured?”
“Pardon?”
He nodded towards my feet, my toes dirty and scratched. “No, uh —” I had nothing to say that wasn’t all levels of intense craziness. “Have I really been gone for hours?”
He nodded when he met my gaze. His smile stretched into a grin. “Philomena Potts has been running around telling everyone her best friend has been stolen by ghosts.”
I groaned and palmed a sticky hand through my hair. “Great.”
Now I was the new girl in the centre of a drama—wasn’t the first time.
Was I the new girl… wasn’t I leaving...?
He coughed and pushed his hands into his jeans. “I should get you back.” God, his voice. It did something crazy to my insides.
“Yeah, hold on. I’ll put my shoes on.”
“No need. Here.” I shrieked like a girly girl as he swept me up into his arms and then folded his legs to grab my shoes.
“I’m fine, I can walk.” I struggled, but he pinned me tight against his broad chest. The scent clinging to his t-shirt was divine: herbs and fresh air. I could have gone for a full swoon if I hadn’t been burning with embarrassment at being carried like a child.
“We will get there quicker if we go my way.”
“How do you know the way through the forest?” The hairs on my arms stood on end.
My question was met by a brief beat of silence. “I don’t know.” He shrugged, and it jostled me against his chest. The gem pulsed again. “I just do.”
As silly as I felt being carried when there was nothing wrong with me, I relaxed in his hold. When we got back to school, he dropped me with little ceremony onto my bare feet. “Thanks for finding me,” I called after his retreating form as he slipped into the shadows. He didn’t stop, nor did he answer. Tristan Prince was gone again.
11
Caledonia
It had been a day since everything had changed.
Tristram sat huddled with my father as they knelt by the mutilated body of his father. Together they were asking the gods to guide Alen and Eernid into the next life.
Today they would be buried with the honour they deserved.
What had happened nobody knew. The Druria from the bordering lands insisted on their innocence. The rumour of the invaders foreign to this isle ran around the settlement, until mothers were keeping their children inside and the men wore pinched, tight expressions on their faces as they patrolled the circular wall around our homes.
Times had changed. In one cycle of the sun and moon I knew they’d changed forever. How I knew I couldn’t explain. While Tristram had been locked away with Father and the high priests of our order I’d felt a shift within me. The gem Heather had given me felt hot against my skin. I grabbed it now, holding it until my hand was warm as if it had been toasted next to the central hearth.
It seemed childish but in my naïve hopefulness I’d hoped the gem would help me find a way to be who I needed to be, and to be with Tristram. Now I realise that futile hope had been just that—a misplaced hope. The gem was connecting me to something else. What that was I couldn’t explain.
I watched from my spot on a stool by the front of the round house. Clerics worked the land around me, tending to my herbs as I sat and waited. Waited for what, I didn’t know.
Tristram’s face was shallow, his eyes sunken. The light golden flare with which he lit our small society was snuffed out. I stared at him, willing him to catch my eye, but he didn’t look in my direction, although surely he must have known I was there. My red cloak was hardly unmistakable.
Finally, when all of me—excluding my still warm hand—had frozen in the morning chill, they rose from their prayers. I scuttled off the stool, pushing it back, scaring a chicken pecking around my feet.
“Tristram.” My feet stomped, leaden, as I walked towards
