I'll need to send a message to Ra’Sa. We should meet tomorrow—I’m sure I’ll have something to share after the feast.
After I’m finished with Eneko.
Chapter 18
RA’SA
“When I finally cut down my first branch, I thought I was going to die. The tree shoved to the left, and one of the splinters cut my arm,” Nicolás, the climber on my cutting team, says animatedly.
I smirk at his excitement, shaking the sweat out of my hair. He’s got all the youthful hope that Tirin had. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I see bits of my late brother in this young man. From how he grins despite the generally gloomy mood of everyone around him, to how he makes wide gestures with his arms without taking into account those next to him.
“We’ll fell two trees tomorrow!” Nicolás continues, hand crashing into my forearm.“They’ll give us each a leg of lamb.”
I have the strangest urge to reach out, grab his shoulder, and remind him to temper his enthusiasm.
Abet, another cutter, does it for me. “Quiet, boy.”
We continue to trudge along the trail, and Nicolás' head tilts further and further down. His blond hair falls in his eyes, and I feel bad for Nicolás. He’s just proud of himself, as he should be. It was a job well done.
To help him feel better, I pat him on the back.
I glance at Abet and ask him with the lowest voice I can muster. “Why is everyone so quiet?”
He looks up at me. “They execute the ones they think are conspiring to rebel.”
I blink.
A rebellion?
Deep gray plumes of smoke return to my mind, as does the sight of slaves throwing poisoned food under patches of snow to rot. The situation here is worse than I expected. But King Teo wanted me to help the humans, and I keep my word.
"In my last yard, they started burning dens without warning. What caused all of this?" I lie.
Abet bites his flaking lips and looks at me sideways. Our pace remains steady as we pass through the gates leading us back to the slave pens. Abet spits on the ground and then coughs.
"An entire breeding pen full of women escaped."
Obviously, I knew this. I open my mouth to find out more—anything that I could send back to Enduvida—but I am quickly silenced by another look from Abet. He jerks his head to the right, directly toward a line of giant guards waiting for us to arrive.
After giving them a long, appraising look, Nicolás—who stands on my other side—leans over.
"Standing at attention like that, they almost look like uncooked sausages. Some days, I can’t believe they’ve got skin so pale and ruddy," he says.
Thank the gods, his voice was low this time, but I can't help but grin. To hide the emotion, I pull on the shirt I'd sloughed off hours ago. As I do, I feel eyes on me from somewhere nearby and gaze out into the woods.
A small hooded figure stands just behind a tree. Dull red skirts peek out from the heavy black fabric, and slender, umber fingers are splayed across a tree trunk.
Melisa.
She turns and hurries away, and the urge to follow her ripples through my entire body.
I almost do.
Somehow, the ghost of her scent comes over to me, and I… ache.
“Did you see the whore sneaking around?” someone behind me says, almost too low for me to hear.
I grit my teeth.