“I am tired,” he admitted because she had told him not to pretend otherwise. “And I fear for you.”
Her lips thinned, and she glanced back toward the source of their upset. “Because of that?”
He put down his biscuit, and gave her a long look. “We spent the day fleeing a danger I cannot name. I do not know the beast so I do not know its patterns. Should we be travelling at night instead while it slumbers? Or is that when it hunts?”
He had not intended his tone to become hard, but it had, and Penryn was staring steadily at her plate rather than look at him.
He was frustrated, yes, but that was no cause to force her to retreat, to regret having asked after him.
He sighed deeply. There was so much he did not know, did not understand, and every day it became clearer that the instructors had under-prepared him for this mission.
It was not enough to learn of how to kill a nameless creature, to ascertain its weak points and plunge a blade with skill. He needed to know what was out in the wilds.
A niggling thought fluttered through his mind and refused to let go.
Perhaps they did not teach it because they did not know.
Grimult swallowed. He did not care if there was no proper seat in a house they should never have found. He staggered back and sat upon the bed, uncaring that he was sitting on a sheet that belonged to someone long dead.
“Grimult?” Penryn asked, standing from her seat and coming toward him. “You have gone pale.”
He wiped at his face. Had he? He was being ridiculous. Food and a good sleep were all that was required. Not all this thinking.
“We should not be here,” Grimult told her. Everything in him told him so. It was forbidden, it was knowledge that he should not have but would be unable to purge from his mind. Would the sages know? Once he returned home and they made their enquiries?
Penryn sighed before she approached, settling down beside him. “I will not touch anything else,” she assured him, although something in her tone suggested she would promise much of anything, that he was frightening her with his adamance. “All right? Just... I will bring your plate and you will eat and all will be well again.”
Grimult barked out a laugh, derisive and—if he truly thought of it—bordering on cruel. “Will it?”
He did not expect her to touch him. For her fingers to suddenly be at his chin, firm enough that comfort dictated that he obey and turn his head so he might look at her. “I will not pretend to know what is going on in that head of yours,” Penryn began, her tone transformed. There was an edge of fear to it, but it was buried beneath an authority she claimed not to have. It stilled him, settled something that had come loose in the short time they had spent in this dwelling, and he sobered quickly. “But you are my Guardian. And a fine one. You saw what I did not today, and got us out of danger I had not even perceived. We found shelter, better than we have had since the start, and I am grateful for it.”
“We are off our course,” he reminded her, although even now he felt stronger, as if something in her touch bolstered something he could not muster on his own.
Was there some spell involved? For a Lightkeep to bestow when her Guardian despaired?
As if such things had been necessary before him, he thought darkly. The previous ones who held his title were great men, heroes of their day, not... not like him.
“Then we will find our way back tomorrow,” she answered simply, her voice gentling as she gave him a small smile.
He nodded glumly. She was right, they would. Once he could slow their pace enough to think, to look for markers, the position of the sun. When panic did not rule his thoughts and drive their decisions.
“Now,” she continued, releasing his chin and settling back. “Why do you say we should not be here?”
That was not as easy to answer. How did he explain such a feeling? She was the one with mystic powers, and if she did not experience the wrongness of it, why did he?
“We have always lived on the coast,” he tired instead, choosing history over feeling. “These lands... they are forbidden to all but the two of us, yes?”
He could not immediately read her expression, guarded as it was. “Yes,” she agreed, although there was a hint of caution in her voice as well. He would be careful, would not pry to ancient knowledge that was not his to know.
He felt already that he carried too much that did not belong to him.
“And yet this is here,” Grimult concluded, waving his hand toward the dwelling that had obviously been crafted with some care. Included technology that Grimult did not understand but made a great deal too much noise when touched. Penryn sat quietly and did not look at him, which made little difference as he was not inclined to look at her either. There was a heavy weight that burdened him, a want for explanation beyond what his mind was conjuring, and he doubted she could provide anything of reason.
“I do not know what to tell you,” Penryn said at last, just as he had suspected. “There is no answer that would appease you.”
He closed his eyes. “But you know it? The answer?”
He waited, waited for confirmation that he was alone in his doubts, his uncertainty of what had been so perfectly known just a little while ago.
“Your people did not simply sprout out of the earth you know,” Penryn countered, her voice soft. Coaxing. “It is certainly
