She didn’t wake again until morning.
* * *
They rode at a comfortable pace.They took the main road northeast, knowing it would branch after half a day’s ride. One way continued east to the capital city of Mirith, while the other turned northward, toward more wilderness and eventually the Cornelian Tower.
The entire journey to the Tower would take days, a fact that made Ru uneasy. So many days alone with Fen and the artifact, knowing what she had done at the dig site, wondering if it might happen again... The thought of it was like an itch on the inside of her skin.
But she had no other choice.
After a few hours of riding in relative silence — Ru wasn’t fond of early mornings, and Fen’s attempts at conversation had been immediately rebuffed or completely ignored — she finally asked the question that had been bothering her since they set out that morning. She felt awkward voicing it, as she was settled firmly between Fen’s thighs, her back to his chest. But she had to know.
“Why are you staying with me?” she asked. “Why take me all the way to the Tower?”
Fen huffed a laugh, and his breath ruffled her hair. “Aside from the fact that you asked me to?”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “You didn’thaveto take me anywhere. You could have left me.” Even to her, the words sounded harsh. But nothing bound him to her. Why should he help her?
“You’re not at your sharpest in the morning, are you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He laughed, truly laughed, for the first time since she’d met him. It was a deep, musical sound, reverberating through his chest. “Do you really believe that anyone with half a heart would abandon you, just like that? I’m not a monster, Ru.”
“I know thatnow,” she grumbled, staring out at the road ahead, wide and lined with sparse trees.
“A good point,” he said, hands adjusting the reins, one arm brushing against Ru’s shoulder. “Strange men, until proven otherwise, should always be considered monsters.”
The morning continued on, the sun rising ahead of them until another hot summer day reached its zenith. Ru found herself relaxing into the horse’s gait, the sound of hooves on packed dirt, the way the breeze lifted her hair off her ears.
Fen kept her entertained with stories about his travels over the years. They were all harmless, silly tales that revealed little about who he truly was. But the more stories he told, the more Ru wondered how old he actually was; how he’d had time for all of these adventures. For a relatively young man, he claimed to have done a lot of things in quite a lot of places.
As Fen finished his latest tale, Ru found herself only half-listening. The sun was now falling behind them, their shadows lengthening along the road. It was only when he feigned a cough that she realized she had failed to react to an exciting moment in his story.
“Sorry,” she said quickly, “my mind wandered.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he asked, almost cautiously, “How are you feeling?”
Ru wasn’t sure how to respond. If she was honest with herself, she didn’t know. But she wasn’t fine, she wasn't all right. So instead of answering directly, she asked a question of her own. “You've studied the Destruction. Do you know anything about the Destroyer? Beyond what’s commonly known, I mean.”
Fen’s gloved hands flexed on the reins. “An open-ended question, but I might.”
“I keep wondering whether he was a catalyst or a weapon of sorts. The Destroyer, I mean. Taryel. Could he have been an explosive device? Or did he use a focus, a magical object, something he might have activated in order to create such a massive reaction? Something that could vaporize an entire city.”
She was glad that her words came out so calmly, matter-of-fact. Her insides were the opposite, her gut in knots as she thought of the Destroyer, and the blackness that had — as the stories said — burst outward from him.
Fen leaned forward, his cheek nearly touching hers. She could feel him smile. “You’re talking about that infernal rock,” he whispered, and the hairs on her neck stood on end.
“I am not,” she lied. “I’m asking a scientific question. Trying to make sense of things.”
“If I wanted to take that thing from you and leave you dead on the roadside,” he said, voice low in her ear, “I would have done so already. You can speak openly.”
Ru shivered. “I don’t even know if Iamtalking about the artifact,” she admitted, exhausted, wanting to be honest. Wanting to open up. She was tired of evading, tired of feeling as if she had something to hide. And then she remembered Fen's voice from the night before, just as she had drifted off to sleep. She'd thought it was a dream, but she was certain he had said it.
I believe in magic, too.
Then why not share her fears, her worries about the stone? If he believed, maybe he could help her find answers. Help her come to understand it. “That’s why I want to bring it to the Tower,” she said. “I need to know what it is, how it ticks. Whether or not it’s magic. To find out what happened, to determine if it’s my fault.”
She carefully refrained from mentioning the fact that the artifact seemed to be speaking to her, calling to her in the subtlest of ways. That, too, spurred her academic curiosity — if it was magic, and it had to be, was its communication with her a remnant of a spell? Was it sentient in some way?
