Risk

Chapter XX

Jasta reached the tent in just a few steps. She was glad that her leg was healing well enough for her to walk around, though it still stung. She had been regularly rewrapping the wound, and the bandages had become progressively less stained. It seemed to be healing quite nicely.

She opened the flap of the tent. Rowan was obviously still deeply asleep.

"Rowan." She knelt down and shook his leg lightly.

He let out a groan and rolled over slightly, opening his eyes groggily and sitting up. He still looked tired, but at least he seemed to have slept a full night, plus however long he'd been sleeping during the day.

"Rowan, it's time to get up," she said, a bit louder, and it seemed to snap him out of his groggy trance. It was hardly minutes after he was awake that they were ready to start riding again. She once again marveled at the speed with which he put the tent away, and it was nicely folded when he was done, too.

This time, she didn't sit in front. She was sure that Rowan wouldn't fall off. He seemed to be moving a lot faster, and the shadows under his eyes weren't so dark. One thing that worried her still was the fact both his side and his arm seemed to still be bothering him a lot more than she would have guessed, with the amount of time that had passed. It had been at least five days, so didn't that mean the wounds would start mending?

She only tried to puzzle it over for a short while because she couldn't figure it out. Her first thought was infection, but that made no sense. Why would he so carefully make sure that her wound didn't get an infection, and then turn around and barely care for his own wounds? After dismissing that idea, she was left with two. Either Risks were hyper-sensitive to pain, or Rowan was just making a show of it to get her sympathy.

She realized after a while that the trees, which had seemed to be getting steadily smaller, had now disappeared altogether, and now they were winding their way down a narrow mountain path that snaked its way between two high cliffs that were overgrowing with scrubby little plants.

A little while more passed, and the cliffs leveled out with the path, giving way to sloping hills of heather and scraggly bushes. She saw a bunch of movement in the brush, but she was never quick enough to see what the cause was.

She felt exposed without the protective shield of the trees above her head, and nothing but sky for as far as she could see. She felt like she was being watched, and she felt like she was missing a shield that had been present all her life. She found herself sinking a bit deeper into her seat.

It seemed like a long time before they came to a small forest, which led into gently sloping foothills, peppered with farms. She felt much more comfortable with things around her, rather than the bare hills they'd left behind.

It was only when they passed a shallow stream where they stopped to allow Star to drink did she realize that she'd never investigated the river she'd known she had heard, and she fretted that she wouldn't have another opportunity to bathe for the rest of the journey.

She would have asked Rowan, but she decided that if he didn't stop for a bath himself, then she could go without one too. She wasn't about to show weakness of any kind.

Although the sky was overcast, and they traveled in the shade for the heat of the day, she soon felt plastered with sweat, and she wished she had lighter, flowing clothes. She envied the way that Rowan's shirt was able to blow in the breeze, whereas her own just stuck to her sweaty frame.

She felt as if she was boiling alive as they made their way over the rocky little lane. The road had widened out a lot since leaving the mountain, but there was still not quite enough room for two carts to ride abreast of each other. She drank almost half of the water skin, hoping that the water would help to cool her off, though it was probably just as warm as she was.

The day wore on, and she was tempted more than once to strip her clothes off, as immodest as that would be. She wondered how anyone could stand it. She was used to maybe the hottest day of the year not even being quite so hot, but she knew that it was only early in the summer, and it was bound to only get hotter.

The day eventually cooled off when the sun started to sink lower and lower in the sky. Either side of the road was bathed in light from the windows of the lovely little houses that were spaced a fair distance apart on either side of the road. The air smelled of fresh fruit ripened by the day's heat. It seemed like a very nice place to live if it weren't for the temperature.

It was deep into the night, when the thin moon was high in the sky, surrounded by glittering stars that Rowan finally stopped. They had left the small houses behind, and now they were surrounded by wild tangles of thick branches and closely woven ivy tendrils. A few feet away, through the trees, seemed to be the only break in the growth that she could see. She wondered why they had so suddenly gone from sparse heather-covered hills to such a thick forest in just one day, but she was too tired to actually think too deeply on it.

She slid off the horse in a half-daze. They had started at the crack of dawn and traveled well into the night, and that didn't even count the fact that she had stayed up through the entire night and the day before. She was exhausted. Not even the slight jolt of pain from her leg hitting the ground was enough to wake her up even a little bit.

Rowan moved around like a shadow, and she thought back the first time he had set up camp for them. He had seemed to move faster than she'd ever seen someone move, and with the ease and grace of having done it countless times before. Thinking back, she realized that now, he was moving jerkily and slowly in comparison, all his former grace seemingly lost to fatigue and injury.

If it really was a lie, and his injuries weren't actually hurting him that badly, then it was a pretty maddening thought. She was nearly falling asleep on her feet, and the reason she wasn't able to go to sleep yet was the fact that he was moving so slowly. She crossed her arms. She would confront him in the morning. It was no use lying anymore, and he had to know that. She would still hate him no matter what he did to make her pity him.

When the tent was set up, she walked over and opened the front flap to enter, but someone grabbed her arm from behind, preventing her from moving further.

In that split second, thousands of thoughts flooded her mind. Was it Totin? How did he catch up so quickly? But what if it's not him? Are there bandits in these woods, come to kill me? Or is it Rowan? Is he finally done with me? Is he finally going to kill me?

The only way to answer them would be to turn around, and she didn't know if she really wanted to find out.