Page 166 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“Piminy!” Tibbs exclaimed. “That’s even sooner than we’d planned.”
We divided the chores. Pete fished for supper. I gathered kindling and wood to make a fire. The Blue Caps foraged for dinner ingredients. Sionna did the sniffing. Bob did the sulking. And Oats—he flopped over in the mud by the stream and went soundly to sleep.
He didn’t stir even as I bumped his haunches while building my fire ring. Which was good, because I wanted no unfamiliar witnesses, not even livestock, for my successful attempt at igniting a spark out of pure will.
Smirking, I sat back on my heels and added kindling to the baby flames I’d just birthed. I glanced toward the stream, where Pete reclined against a tree trunk, one arm lazing across one bent knee, waiting for a bite on his line bobbing in the stream.
“Couldn’t light a candle, huh?” I snarked.
Even in feigning sleep, Pete didn’t pretend he hadn’t heard me. He grinned, devilish, disarrayed, and—proud?
After supper (mouthwatering, as Pete had foretold), the four of us weary travelers lounged about my gorgeous campfire, making conversation. Pete suggested playing bachram, which we did, using tree nuts as our chips.
“Where are you two from?” I asked our new friends once I collected the sizeable pot of nuts I’d won with my last hand—a measly two of hearts and a four of spades that had become a full house. How awesome was that?
“Tibbs has lived in Evereostre her entire life.” Rhoswen took a tiny swig from the jug of sweet juice being passed around.
The Blue Caps had included the jug as part of the bargain but warned it was dangerous to drink it too quickly. Without proper pacing, it caused hallucinations. So, I’d simply passed the last time the jug wound up in my hands. I would the next too.
“Up north,” Rhoswen continued. “Small mining borough in The Peaks—right snug against the Winter Court.”
A mountain range, I assumed of The Peaks, picturing UPJ in springtime. Exactly what I’d left behind me when I finished finals. I refused to think too hard about never seeing it again.
“But I’m from Autumn.” Rhoswen straightened like a queen on a throne, making Tibbs roll her eyes. “Mac Midhna Hummocks precisely, from where our race originates according to legend. Where there’s a mine for every element—including the sorcery elements.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask what the sorcery elements were, but Tibbs interrupted, gazing at Rhoswen. “I met this one at a hill closer to the Spring Palace. My competition, she was. Forever trying to one-up me.”
Rhoswen smirked, almost feline. “Never had to try too hard.”
They giggled, Tibbs swatting Rhoswen.
Chuckling, Pete dealt the next hand.
I smiled, wondering if their constant proximity was why they smelled the same, both a mix of honeysuckle and roasted acorns. Because I’d recently noticed that I smelled an awful lot like Pete.
Tibbs cast me a curious glance over her cards. “How did you come to know your man here? A human and a Danann—thatmust be a tale to tell.”
I turned tomy man. Us being lovers had been his idea, after all.
Pete cleared his throat, prepared. “I was one of her father’s husbandman—bought and sold nary a year past. Can’t say I felt very fortunate to be where I was—until I chanced upon Shorty one evening in the forest. We’d heard tell of a dangerous creature on the estate—a cantir, as it turned out.”
As Tibbs and Rhoswen quaked with fear at just the creature’s name, I pursed my lips at Pete.Really? I wanted to say but only threw my blind into the pot beside Rhoswen’s.
The memory of my actual encounter with a cantir shimmered like starlight in Pete’s eyes. He called the blinds after a cursory glance at his bachram hand and continued narrating our fictional meet-cute. “All able-bodied males were put to the hunt, but I was the lucky lad who found the cantir—along with Shorty, who was dallying under a tree, reading one of her sugary odes. She wasn’t aware of the beast’s true nature and thought he might make a fine pet.”
My mouth twitched. So far, the Blue Caps thought I was an ignorant debutante. Their chortles said as much.Hmph.
“I killed the cantir just as it was readying to pounce, startling her, like.”
My descriptors now also include spineless. Great.
Pete’s mouth twitched upward, brimming with secrets. “And I spent the rest of that eveningcomfortingher.”
Oh, let’s just add easy to that list, shall we? Ugh, men and their flawed concepts on romance.
As the Blue Caps tittered, Pete laid down the flop, wherein another ace appeared.
Woot!
