At Faith's End by Chris Galford

Author:Chris Galford [Galford, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, General
Publisher: Chris Galford
Published: 2013-10-06T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

He kissed me. An octave later, the fact had not changed, no matter how much Essa wished it so.

How to frame the tumultuous twists of the heart’s best intents? She wished to go to him, to set things right again—to that familiar, safe harbor that was their friendship—but as the hours turned to days, she shamed herself to admit that she hid from him. Not in the same manner a child might take to the trees, or a scorned woman to shuttered homes, for there was none of that here. Days were a march and nights were tents and familiar faces—faces Voren was now among. So instead she hid herself in plain sight, taking care to never be alone.

Though the baker had grown bold in recent days, he seemed to take the hint. But his quiet discomfited her as much as her own. His seeming patience infuriated her. What gives him the right? Should he not have been angry with her? Thrown himself prostrate and foolish at her feet? It was what Rurik would have done.

With a sudden, irrational vehemence she despised even as she felt it, she hated him. For reminding her of Rurik. For trying to take a friendship away. None of it was his fault, of course, and she knew well the heart careened where it would, but she could not bridle the anger in her. It nestled in her heart and guided her of its own accord, as though the woman that was Essa was but a puppet on its strings.

Worse was that the others noticed the change of airs. There were days Alviss would watch her for a time, as though considering some counsel. Blessedly, he never took it beyond a look. He would stare a time, and turn away again, silent as a mountain. Whether he believed she would come to him of her own accord, or trusted her to do right, she could not say. Rowan held none of that care. By day he teased her as some courtly fool, and by night, as they lay damp and miserable on muddied sheets, he badgered her relentlessly for her thoughts.

Sometimes she ignored him. Others, she cuffed him.

Worst of all was the Gorjes. She and the rest of the Company watched them as foxes looked to wolves—two scavengers, intent upon the same meal and the same ground, with the wariness that one was great enough to add the other to that meal. Already they had worried about them. Voren, try as he might to be discreet, only added to those concerns.

The fact was they no longer had protection. Captain Haruld had perished in the nobles’ flight. Deprived of Ivon and the Brickheart both, the men of Verdan, already chastened by Tessel, no longer guided the ranks of Witold’s additions to this mad rebellion. Though the Company had shifted their camp, their accompaniment had grown beyond mere Gunther and Marvelle, the brothers fool, to include no less than half a dozen Gorjes at any time

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