Except it was intentional. So much of their actions were, it was startling.
“Grim, we will never make it there at this rate,” Penryn chastised, although she made no move to pull away, her good hand reaching out and holding him in return.
They were out in the open, and that was enough for him to release her. He looked at her, truly looked, and tried to see the knowledge there, the resignation of what was to come.
But simply eyed him quizzically in return, shaking her head briefly with a smile before taking hold of his hand and moving them onward.
Closer to the Wall.
To an end that he could not bear.
While each of his steps were reluctant, hers were sure, and he wondered at the calm that had overtaken her. There was none of the anger that had flared in some of her darker moments as she regaled him with stories of her upbringing. Just a quiet confidence that what she was doing was right, that it was necessary, even while so much of him screamed to snatch her back, to pull her away from what was to come.
Yet they kept moving.
His eyes darted about, looking for any sign of danger, of patrols that he might be able to unleash some of his frustration upon, but there was nothing. The world was strangely still, no birds proclaiming the end of their travels, no wind bringing a breeze from home.
Their trajectory had not been wholly precise, Penryn moving leftward when they reached the structure itself. Stonework, heavy and thick, rising up towards the heavens, the angle of it now they were so close making it appear almost endless.
A cage, penning in his kind.
But also keeping them safe.
Her grip on his hand was tight, and she glanced at him every so often, her expression soft but determined.
He wanted to give her strength, wanted to provide her with confidence, but he did not know how to conjure what he could not seem to muster for himself.
And still, they walked.
She reached out every so often, regardless of her injury, and touched the stones. At first he thought there was a reverence to it, but he soon dismissed that as fingers skimmed against seam. She was looking for the doorway, uncertain of its exact appearance.
He did not know why he had expected a gate, elaborate in its design. A portal to another world, or so he had imagined in his younger years. Somewhere fantastical and different, where fish was not served at nearly every meal, and vegetables tasted more like his mother’s special cakes she would provide on his namedays.
Penryn stopped after a moment, her hand releasing his as she gave a portion of the wall her full attention. Her good hand trailed over what appeared to be quite the same as every other portion of the Wall, although if he held his head just so, his eyes squinted ever so slightly...
There might be a seam.
Penryn ran her hand down, pressing with greater force than he would have anticipated, when the sound of gears met his ears, harsh and ill maintained.
And suddenly that portion of the wall, slim and cut low, was swinging inward.
Open. To a world beyond that he would never see, to a people that he should not know existed.
He wanted to crush her to him, wanted to tell her that all of this was so horribly unfair, but he forced himself not to do so. If she was willing to pass through, to do what came next, then he should have the strength to let her go.
Even if every part of him screamed that it was mistake.
Penryn stared, wide eyed at the open door, as if disbelieving that it was truly there at all. She had known how to look, how to work whatever mechanism opened the door, yet she did not now appear as if she actually thought it would work.
She turned, a rueful smile at her lips. “This is the end, I suppose,” she murmured, her voice tight and strained as she looked at him.
The end.
So final, so terrible as it swirled with unknowns. Would he be able to tell if she had been unable to complete her task? She claimed that her success would maintain the safety of his entire kind, so he supposed if... if others came again. Thirsty for blood and trophies, uncaring for the people they hunted, he would know that something terrible had befallen Penryn along the way.
And he would not be there to help. To set her to rights, to mend whatever damage was done to her. She would be lost and alone, without the skill to fend for herself.
The sages had seen to that.
Wanted to use her and set aside the inconvenience of her knowledge when it suited them, and the familiar heat surged through him at the prospect.
He did not expect her movement. Did not expect the sudden burst of motion, not through the door where he could not follow, but toward his person, her good arm wrapping about his neck as she pressed close, her feet presumably balancing on the tips of her toes to achieve such a height.
Her head was buried beneath his chin, but he could still make out her hasty words. She did not want the door open for long, that much was obvious, and their goodbye would have to be swift.
And final.
“I am going to miss you,” she confessed.
He swallowed, feeling strangely detached, as if this moment that he had dreaded for so long was not truly happening at all.
“And I you,” he managed to get out, and felt something in her relax at the confirmation.
Could that possibly have been in doubt? He had told her he would have petitioned for her time, her company, should their lives have been wholly different.
But then he had grown angry with her, and their time for talking had been waylaid by a need for silence and caution.
He held
