Page 87 of Warrior of the Wild
“He’s smart. He has his traps placed all around his forge and the tree house. He’ll be fine.”
“But what if something happens while we’re gone?”
I reach out a hand and touch his shoulder, stilling him a moment. “You’re a good friend to be concerned about him, but Ithink you’ve spent too much time worrying about Iric and not enough worrying about yourself.”
“Worrying about Iric is all I’ve done for the last year.”
“I know. You’re a selfless person. May the goddess take note of it, but it’s all right to take care of yourself as well. Iric forgave you, but you need to forgive yourself, too.”
Soren glances at my hand on his shoulder before meeting my gaze.
“Thank you,” he says. “I think you might be right, but it’s hard to change.”
“It’s something you have to work at. I know better than anyone.”
Soren reaches for my hand on his shoulder, and he threads our fingers together. “I like the changes you prompt in me.”
I stare at our clasped hands, unable to move for a moment. I wait for Torrin to surface, wait for his mocking laughter to whisper in my ears and the phantom pain of the bite to take root in my arm.
But they don’t come. Soren’s hand in mine grounds me in the present.
A bad thing happened to me back in the village. There’s no point in trying to pretend otherwise. I’ve spent so much time trying to forget. I put all my focus into killing the god, into helping Iric and Soren, because I couldn’t deal with what came before.
But it’s why I’m here. The goddess saw fit to test me in this overgrown, dangerous place. My own kind betrayed me, but I have survived nonetheless.
I’m glad I was banished.
The thought startles me, but I realize at once how true it is. If it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have met Iric and Soren, who havecome to mean so much to me. I wouldn’t have learned so much about myself and what I can do. I wouldn’t have learned about teamwork and survival. I wouldn’t have learned so much about the god.
I may have lost much.
But I have also gained much.
And I am better for it.
Acceptance settles within me, and I finally look up.
“Are you all right?” Soren asks. “Is this okay?” He gives my hand a little squeeze so I know what he means.
“When we first met, you asked me if I had a boy waiting for me back in my village. I don’t.”
He grins at me, and we continue climbing, this time hand in hand.
EVENTUALLY,WE CONNECT WITHa thin stream of runoff during one of our cutbacks. We both pause to drink deeply from our canteens, then refill them.
“Where there’s water, there will be animals nearby,” Soren says.
He’s not wrong. We pass by no fewer than three goats in the next crossing. They have great, sweeping horns that jut over the tops of their heads, but they give us no trouble, hopping away as soon as we’re spotted. They have incredible strength in their back legs as they leap at least ten feet in the air to climb up ridges in the mountain.
“I wish I could jump like that,” Soren says.
“And what would you do with such an ability? Jump over everyone’s heads?”
“I’d make it up the tree house a lot faster.”
“Just think of how much more you’ll get done every day with the extra four seconds you save climbing the tree house.”
He smiles, but then his eyes catch on something over my shoulder. Soren launches himself at me. We both go down on the ground, hard. At least he gets an arm beneath my head so it doesn’t crack on the rocks below. Still, his weight nearly knocks the wind out of me. My armor clinks against the rocks, so if we’re hiding from something, I have a hard time believing we did a good job.
