Blood for her Crown

Chapter Twenty-One

Jamie

After only one week, he was already incredibly tired of sitting on a horse. He'd reached the point where he let Aderah ride Makhi at times, while jogging beside them. Of course, that drove Grace insane, but he felt like his legs' muscles were disintegrating. He had always enjoyed riding, but over the last week, he had spent approximately fourteen hours per day riding, with the remaining ten spent sleeping and sitting around. Even walking would have been more exciting by now, which was obviously not an option. He had been doing that an hour ago, but as he'd seen Aderah nearly falling asleep he had gotten on Makhi's back behind her to take the reins.

He'd go insane if nothing interesting happened in the next two days. Where were the bounty hunters when they needed them? It was as though they took a break to let them suffer from boredom.

Grace hadn't been in the mood for banter. She had recently become about as chatty as Tanner, which added to the reasons he wanted to run headfirst into a tree. He couldn't talk much to Aderah since he was afraid of making a fool of himself by saying the wrong things. Despite this, he continued to make comments about everything and nothing that were directed at no one in particular. It was alright if the others didn't want to engage, but he wasn't going to let his vocal cords diminish as well. They probably couldn't anyway, but he wouldn't take the chance.

The only good thing that had happened in the last five days was that the weather had changed. Instead of scolding sunlight, they were blessed with a dark sky that threatened to shower rain on them at any moment. It was getting darker by the day. He suspected Grace wasn't far off with her prediction of an intense storm. It always ended badly when there was one of those. And they all started the same way: a light breeze on a warm day that grew into violent and sudden gusts, clouds that became heavier by the day without ever raining, and then all hell would break loose.

That was probably the reason Grace ushered them forward, and had been hiding inside her head the entire time. She was trying to figure out what they were going to do once the storm arrived. They've passed two caves today, but if the storm was as brutal as they feared, neither of them could have withstood it. The open forest, therefore, was the last considerable option. They'd have to find a stable cave large enough for them and the horses, or they'd have to seek shelter in a nearby village, which would force them off their initial route. The problem with that option was that they didn't know where the next village was. That left them with either the first plan or, well, death.

Because he didn't know as much about the issue as Grace, he softly pushed Makhi forward until he was right next to her. "How many days do we have left?" he asked seriously.

She gazed up at the dark gray skies, just as another gust of wind blew her hair around her face. "Not days. Hours," she guessed. "I'm not entirely sure, but as far as I can tell, there aren't more than four hours before it gets...difficult." She glanced at Aderah, who was sleeping in front of Jamie, leaning against his chest. "I told her it was a bad idea for her to come with us."

He looked down at her head, which was resting on his shoulder. She looked so careless that it seemed surreal that they were talking about their possible end in less than a day. But she had chosen to come along, even though he wished she hadn't for her own sake. But it was a blessing for him. Even though neither of them would have much left to heal after the storm if they stayed outside.

"This isn't the first time we've discussed dying in a storm because we can't find shelter. And we're still here," he tried to reassure Grace. "It was close every time, but we always found safety."