After we finally reach the Delta and make it safely inside the gate, Roen helps me off Larn’s back. Jeni grabs several canisters from the hooks in the wall and passes them out. We all take several long drinks and then Jeni and Roen say their goodbyes. As they leave for their habitats, I rub more sap on my thigh.
“Do you want me to carry you to your habitat?” Larn asks.
“No,” I answer, “but will you to please do me a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Go to Home and find Aven. Tell her that I made it back safely but hurt my leg. I need her to stay at Home until it heals. I’ll come see her soon.”
“What should I tell her about Sash?”
“Tell her the truth,” I answer. “Sash went after Tela. But I don’t think Aven needs to know that Sash is wounded.”
Larn nods his agreement. “What are you planning to do?”
I glance at the gate and then back at Larn. “I’ll wait by the bridge until she comes back. If she’s not back by the time I can run on this leg and travel, I’m going to the northern Barrens.”
“She’ll be back,” he says. “I don’t think it’s her time to die yet. You need to have faith.”
“That’s about all I have right now, but it’s running a little low.”
Larn looks down at my leg. “Take care of your wound.”
“I will. Again, I’m sorry that I yelled at you.”
“Apology already accepted,” he replies.
“And thank you for saving my life.”
He nods his head. “It’s what we do for each other.”
After Larn heads towards Home, I use my spear as a crutch and walk back outside the gate. I step off the short path to the bridge and make my way along the gigantic marble wall. When I find a spot with a rock large enough to rest my injured leg on, I sit down with my back against the wall. Using both hands, I lift my leg and prop it up on the stone. Silvery-blue waves leap from the rapids in front of me and crash back down to the river, bathing my body in mist.
For the second time in a couple of morrows, I find myself staring at the Barrens and waiting for Sash to return. But it’s different this time. She’s not just spying from a distance. She’s wounded, on her own in the wasteland, and there’s no way for anyone to help her. If that Murkovin woman catches up to her, I don’t know that Sash is strong enough in her current state to defeat her.
I look up at the stationary clouds with a new question haunting my mind. If Sash never makes it back, if all that’s happened leads to her death in the Barrens, how can I tell Aven that it’s my fault? How can I explain to her that if I’d been stronger, if I hadn’t given in to the wild sap, if I’d just brought Tela back to the Delta sooner, none of this would have happened?
I already know that if Sash doesn’t return, I’ll punish myself for as long as I live. There is no absolution for me putting her in this position. But I don’t know how I can live with the guilt of knowing that if Aven never sees her mother again, it’s because of me.
Chapter 39
Hidden by large boulders clustered on a hillside, the woman spies through a seam in two rocks. She’s certain that the Hunter is somewhere in the maze of narrow, intersecting canyons in front of her, but not aware of her exact location.
After raising a hand to her face, the woman traces her fingers over the thick scab on her cheek and nose. The wound will leave a scar, but a scar she’ll wear with great pride. It will be a reminder to all who see it that she was the one who finally ended the extraordinary Hunter’s life.
The woman and the former Watcher had often discussed the need to eliminate the Hunter. The Hunter’s glimpses of the future might somehow expose their plan to conquer the Delta. Now it will be the woman, not the former Watcher, who finally brings death to the Hunter. It will be absolute proof that she is the most powerful being in the Barrens.
She may have led the former Watcher to believe that she needed his aid, but she was never as helpless as she presented herself to be when they first met. For the many pieces of her plan to fall together in a way that would result in victory, she required his knowledge of the Delta and his skill at making items from steel. But the scheme to overthrow the Delta was the spawn of her mind, planted in his spectrum like a seed in the dirt.
He had many clever ideas, including hiding the steelworkers deep in the Desert, but only she could unite the Murkovin. Just as the tall Murkovin would never have put his trust in a former Watcher of the Delta, her kind wouldn’t have followed him. The first few Murkovin they recruited to join them only agreed because the woman was at his side. She and the former Watcher soon learned that it was better to keep his true identity hidden, better to let the people of the Barrens believe he was one of them.
Before they ever met, the woman knew that he, a Watcher of the Delta at the time, had been observing her from a distance. She’d already witnessed several of his treks to the Barrens to secretly consume wild sap. When she finally let him see her, she pretended not to notice him. After the first time he spotted her, he searched for her again and again. It was obvious that she had captivated him in a way that no
