“A feeling,” Grimult repeated, his eyes darting about them, but his thoughts clearly on her earlier confession.
“I am sorry there was not a greater reason,” she apologised most genuinely. Even now she wanted proof, if only to comfort her own mind that she had not reacted rashly.
“My instructors were most clear on that point,” Grimult told her, his eyes finally settling back down to meet hers. “If you sense that you are in danger, you are. The consequence of being wrong, of reacting too strongly are far less than being warned and doing nothing.”
She grimaced. “I would rather trust your instincts than mine,” she admitted.
He pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You know that lot better than anyone,” he reminded her, and there was no mistaking the hint of disrespect in his tone. She would hardly chastise him for it. “If experience told you that things would not go in our favour, than that is reason enough for me.”
She did not expect him to lean down and place a kiss to her lips, quick but present enough that it left a tingle when he pulled away all too soon.
Silence came once more, slightly less burdensome than it had been before, and Penryn wondered how long they were meant to wait.
Or where they might dare go when they finally were free to do so.
A whistle pierced the air, strong but melodious. Grimult turned his head, allowing his body to turn in search of where the sound might have originated.
Another, the voice different, closer than the other had been.
And another, a shorter staccato.
They were speaking to each other, she realised belatedly.
“Do the sages do that?” Grimult asked her, and she shook her head, trying to conjure any memories once forgotten. They spoke through silent glances, of quick gestures with their hands.
“The Mihr, then,” Grimult continued with a nod to himself.
She cocked her head, trying to imagine why they would have such a language between them, and felt a moment’s loss that she had no knowledge of it as they continued their melodious conversation.
Back and forth, some quick, some almost mournful in their cadence.
“The fishing clans do it,” Grimult answered her unspoken query. “To communicate where voices might be lost when speaking to others nearby.”
To coordinate, then. Or perhaps simply to say where a good school of fish was located, and where others were sparse.
Another call, and this time there was no mistaking it was close by. She was suddenly pulled back into Grim’s arms, and he made quick work of breaking through the tree line.
Something in her relaxed to see that it was Rezen, his head shifting back and forth, his posture tense until he caught sight of them. He moved quickly toward them, reaching out to grab hold of her hand, his eyes drifting over her person clutched in her husband’s arms. “You are unhurt?”
She nodded fervently, doing a similar assessment of her own. His clothing was slightly rumpled, as if someone had grabbed tightly and the fabric had not yet relaxed to its previous state. But there were no slashes, no cuts to skin or weave that would indicate he had some hidden injury that required immediate attention. “The others?”
“We will convene eastward,” Rezen informed them. “When each is able.”
Penryn nodded. “I am sorry,” she told him, feeling a bolt of shame go through her. “I wanted them to help us. I thought they would.” She had. However foolishly. She had wanted to think the best of them, to believe that they would put aside their traditions and face the true threat as was needed of them.
She did not know how many clans would choose to listen to a rabble of strangers, most especially when the news they carried was not what they wished to hear, let alone believe.
They trusted the sages to keep them safe. Trusted that their Lightkeep would complete her sacred work and all would be peaceful amongst them.
They had done what they were told, had performed the rites and sent their sons when called.
And now war was coming to their dwellings.
“None of that now,” Rezen insisted, leaning forward as best he could while keeping the proper elevation for them. All so he might press a kiss to her forehead. “None doubt that you did all you could. They are responsible for their own responses, not you.”
She smiled dimly at that, finding it something Grimult would have told her, and finding the same swell of warmth and affection she had always experienced when wisdom mingled with comfort.
How had she gone so long without such things?
They needed a place to go. Not merely a meeting point, but somewhere that they could find reinforcements for what was to come.
And she did not know where to suggest.
She looked to her husband, hoping for guidance. “I do not know what to do next,” she confessed, feeling small, feeling a failure.
Grimult nodded, as if he was expecting such an admission, and she did not know if that should come as a relief or leave her with a stricken feeling in her belly. She experienced some of both.
“We have tried your people,” he gave in answer. “Perhaps it is time we convince some of mine.”
Penryn’s eyes widened, thinking of his family. Of course he would want to go and warn them first, and she felt a moment’s shame that she had not suggested it. “I thought you said your family was far,” she reminded him, wondering if they had time yet to go the distance and for their warning to have any use at all. The horde was slower than the riders to be sure, but their determination gave their weary feet incentive to keep moving forward, and certainly they had only days between them. A week if they were terribly fortunate.
A glimmer of sadness, and Grimult shook his head. “Not my family,” he corrected. He turned his attention toward Rezen. “The others
