Windburn

The water shrank away and left behind a tiny pile of sand.

I drank from the hook, which still kept up a steady dripping stream.

Time passed.

The moringa seed took root in the sand that had washed in, sprouted into three trunks and gave me a food source. I ate the leaves sparingly—enough to live. That was all I had. A part of me wanted to stop—to give up and die. But my dreams were full of those who searched for me. For Ash and Peta working together while Shazer and Cactus scoured the land from the sky. Of Bella’s growing pregnancy, of the birth of her daughter. The first year of her child’s life.

I wondered what Elle would do when she needed help; I knew it wasn’t a matter of if she did, but when. Who would help the mouthy Tracker?

Time passed.

Still they looked for me. And so I hung on. I did stomach crunches, and awkward push-ups, miniature squats and stretches as best I could. I had to keep my strength up.

Time passed.

My anger at the mother goddess grew.

Time passed.

I was alone, my thoughts my only companion.

A most dangerous companion indeed.

CHAPTER 19

Voices floated to me, on the edges of my dreams. Voices of those I loved, those who had loved me. They comforted me, soothing the edges of panic that reared its head from time to time.

“Peta, you’re smelling things again.”

“No, this time I’m sure I smell her. She’s here, I know it.”

I shifted, my body callused in strange places from lying hunched for an amount of time that had no meaning to me.

A soft snuffling, and the sound of dirt trickling down the edge of the oubliette, whispered through one of the cracks.

“Here, she’s here! Barely under the surface.”

The shifting of the oubliette around me stunned me. They’d found me. They hadn’t given up.

And somehow, neither had I.

They pulled the oubliette up, the movement rolling me around.

“Peta, you know she won’t be alive. Before I open this, tell me you understand. We do this to lay her to rest.”

“You have no faith,” she spat out, and I could imagine her back raised in a growing arch. “Do you love her?”

“Do not ask me that. She is—” His voice caught, and I pressed my hands against the door of the oubliette. I couldn’t find my voice, couldn’t find the words to assure them that I was alive.

I knocked on the plastic with my knuckles.

“Mother goddess,” he said, and then the door was ripped open. I fell out and into his arms. Peta let out a shriek and pushed her way between Ash and me. I clung to her with one arm, and to him with the other.

He pushed my hair back from my face, his eyes wide with shock. “How, how could you have lasted this long?”

I blinked, swallowed and spoke the first words since the day I’d been put in the oubliette.

“How long?”

“Two years.”

I shivered. “Tell me everything.”

“I’ll make camp, then . . . then I will tell you.” He started a fire and I stood with only a slight tremble, still holding Peta to me. She purred at a rapid, frantic rate I understood because my heart beat in time with hers. “I knew you were alive, Lark. I knew it. Don’t you do that to me again, Dirt Girl. I’ll kill you myself.”

I pressed my face to her body and breathed her in. “I don’t plan on it.”

I stretched my body, the kinks in my bones and muscles protesting the movement. Peta clung to my shoulder, butting her head into my cheek over and over again as she purred. A droplet of moisture hit my cheek and I turned. “Drooling?”

Her green eyes spilled over with tears and I regretted what I’d said. I took her from my shoulder and sat down with her, stretching out beside the fire. Ash strung a line over the fire and set a pot to boiling. The smell of oatmeal filled the air and my mouth filled with saliva. The thought of eating anything not a green plant made me weep with joy.

I curled Peta into my arms and ran a hand down her back over and over again. “Peta, I’m here.”

Ash built the fire up until it blazed, the flames licking at the big black pot. Tasks done, he laid down behind me. His arms went around me and I clung to him, locking the moment in my mind. I would not forget this. That they were the ones to pull me out of the darkness of the oubliette.

“I’m afraid this is a dream, that I will wake up back in . . . there.” My words were barely audible over the pop and crackle of the fire. Ash, he knew me though, and he spoke to distract me.

“Cassava rules the Rim, Lark. Raven is her second and Blackbird has gone missing. Your father has never been found. Bella is in exile in the Deep, but her messages are getting frantic. She has been gone too long from the Rim, she needs to come home soon or risk going mad.” He paused and his hands stroked up and down my arms. “Cactus and Shazer will be here soon, that horse will have picked up on your bond now that you are out.”

“Raven is Blackbird,” I said. “And Cassava may rule the Rim right now, but not for much longer.” I made a move to sit up and he tugged me back down.

“You need to gain your strength, Lark, before you go after them.”

Peta sniffed. “You see, he is the one for you. He knows enough to not try and talk you out of this.”

I turned my head so I could look into Ash’s eyes. “I do not see this ending well.”

He kissed me gently. “I am with you, Lark. From now until whatever the end holds for us.”