The Murkovin narrows his eyes in my direction, holds his hands up in front of him, and grabs his broken finger. The bone crackles under his skin as he bends it straight, but his face never flinches.
“That’s your neck if I ever see you again,” he taunts.
Larn holds a flask out to him. “This is yours to keep. Be on your way.”
The Murkovin takes the flask from Larn and shoves it in the waist of his pants. As he grabs his spear and backpack from the ground, he fires a threatening glance in my direction. Without saying anything else, he jogs away from us and heads deeper into the valley.
“I believe he was telling the truth,” Larn says.
“The others must have caught her,” I reply. “Or maybe they killed her.”
“Not necessarily. She’s a strong, clever person capable of surviving on her own.”
“Then we’ll search until we find her,” I say.
“She may not want to be found,” he tells me. “If that’s the case, it may be impossible to locate her.”
I shake my head. “I can’t believe she’d want to stay in the Barrens.”
“Based on how you were acting when you returned to the Delta, she may have passed the point of having the clarity to make that decision. If her mind is trapped by the wild sap, her only thought might be to stay in a place where she can get it.”
“Then what do we do?” I ask.
Larn shrugs. “I don’t know. She could be fifty thousand miles in any direction by now and hiding in one of many thousands of caverns. A random search by eye is pointless.”
“We can’t just give up,” I argue.
“We’re all exhausted,” Larn says. “I think Jeni’s idea about searching closer to the Expanse is valid, but we need a better plan in place.”
I run a hand through my hair. “I just wish we knew which direction she went in.”
Larn bends down to retrieve his spear from the ground. Sash steps to his side.
“You can try asking the Reflecting Pool,” Sash says to me. “Ask the Pool if Tela is alive and where she is. Since you were with her, you should be the one to ask.”
“Of course,” I reply. “I should have thought of that.”
“Be forewarned,” Larn interjects. “The Pool may not give you the answer you seek.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” I ask him.
“The Barrens is an immense place. The Pool may not be able to show you exactly where Tela is. She might also stay on the move. At the very least, the Pool could let us know that she’s alive.”
“It’s worth a try,” I say.
“Think your questions through carefully,” he counsels. “Only the correct one will lead to a useful answer. And even if we do find her, she may not want to return.”
“We’ll make her. We can use sap from the Delta to change her back.”
“That may not be possible,” Sash says.
“Why not?” I ask.
“Healthy sap from the Delta won’t change a Murkovin into one of us,” she explains. “A Disciple tried it once many Eras ago. No one has ever tried with someone born in the Delta who changed into a Murkovin.”
“It worked on me.”
“You weren’t fully a Murkovin yet,” she says. “Your hair still had a little blue in it. Your eyes were still purple, not red.”
I look out over the endless miles of Barrens around us. “We still have to try. It’s my fault she’s out there.”
“Why is your fault?” Larn asks.
I’m not about to tell anyone other than Sash what happened in the cavern with Tela, nor do I think Sash and Tela would want me to. I also don’t think the others would understand, so I resort to a simple explanation.
“I should have made us come back sooner,” I say to Larn. “I could have carried her. We were worried that my speed was slower from the wild sap, but I should have tried anyway. I made the wrong decision.”
Nodding his head, Larn seems to accept my explanation. “Right or wrong, it’s in the past. Let’s find her first. Then we can worry about how to change her. We’ll take it one step at a time.”
By the time we make it back to the Delta, Aven is already fast asleep. Since we promised to pick her up before we went to sleep, Sash carries her to our habitat. When we step inside the main cavern, Aven stirs a little.
“Sleep wif you,” she groggily mumbles, reaching a hand towards our bed.
Sash lays Aven down in the center of our mattress and rests her head on a pillow. Our daughter falls asleep in an instant. After Sash and I take turns cleaning off in the fall, we dress in sleep clothes and sit on opposite sides of the table. Sash pours each of us a cup of sap.
“I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable,” I say. “Do you want me to stay in an empty habitat?”
“No,” she answers. “I want you to stay here. Aven needs you right now.”
“I know you need time. I just want you to know that I’ll wait as long as I have to. I feel horrible about what happened and want to make things right.”
Sash looks across the room at Aven and takes a sip from her cup. As she returns her eyes to me, she sets her cup down and folds her hands on top of the table.
“When I was younger,” she says, “I crossed the bridge to the edge of the Barrens with Eval and a few Watchers. We were looking for signs of Murkovin near the river. I stopped by a badly damaged tree that was near death.
“A Murkovin walked over a hill in the distance. Even though Eval yelled at me, I couldn’t stop myself from going after him. I wanted to kill
