Page 109 of Warrior of the Wild
They have their old lives back.
Maybe they’ve decided they’re done with me.
I shake my head. This is Iric and Soren. If they’re late, it’s because they’ve gotten caught up in the excitement of being with their loved ones again.
Nothing more.
I wait one more hour, praying to see their faces come back through the stone archway, but they don’t.
I force my stiff limbs to make the climb back down the tree. Though my stomach grumbles, I don’t touch the food in my pack as I make the trek back to the tree house.
I’m not hungry at all, despite feeling so hollow.
DAYS LATER,WHENImake it back, I can’t bear to stay in the tree house. I return to my little fort. I haven’t been here in weeks.
Before I arrive, it starts to rain, a few drops dampening my hair before I leave the road and cut back into the foliage. My shelter has held, though the place looks a little run-down. Leaves and needles cover the floor, having fallen through the cracks in the logs making up the ceiling. Twigs and moss have scattered onto my things. Smaller plants have broken through the earth in the places I once used as walkways.
The rock I used to carve the clues about the god in my tree seems to have disappeared.
Doesn’t matter. I’ve learned as much as I possibly can about the god. It’s all up in my head.
I go to my shelter, pull the bark door aside, and collapse onto the ground.
I sleep, now that I feel utterly defeated.
The next morning, I return to the tree house. There is still no sign of Soren or Iric.
If they’re back, maybe they went straight to the forge? Iric still needs to build me a new ax.
I race down the trail to the forge, leaping over the traps Iric placed to keep out critters. The whole place smells like ash, the rain from last night likely churning up the scent.
Iric’s tools are neatly in a line, his castings cleaned and stacked. One of his buckets has filled with rain water. Another holds wet coal.
But neither boy is here.
My eyes sting.
But that small pressure only makes me angry.
Fine.
I will defeat Peruxolo on my own. I can try to leave notices outside the villages and hope the hunters from each village find them and take them seriously. Will they travel to the Payment site because a letter from an ostracized girl asks them to?
My throat grows dry. Would my father at least show up? He’d recognize my writing. He’d come, wouldn’t he?
But he’s let me down before.
Everyone has let me down.
Raz…
The sound is so faint, like a whisper on the wind. I’m certain I’ve imagined it.
“Rasmira.” Louder this time and Soren’s deeper tone.
“Raz! Quit playing games. Where are you?”
I pick my head up from where it’s fallen against my chest. Noteveryone.
