CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ARLEN
Tyos was so sweetly earnest, I didn’t argue with him. I smiled to myself as he carefully scooped two bowls of some kind of soup, the ingredients unfamiliar but smelled delicious once the meal had started to boil. When he sat beside me, he sat hip-to-hip with me and kept checking me over with a worried expression that made my insides melt. When he eventually took his turn to rest, he pulled me with him, wrapping his big body around me from behind and resting his forehead against the back of my head, surrounding me with his warmth. It was a little hot to be cuddled like that, but I wasn’t about to start complaining.
Once the sun went down, we were urged back into the wagon or on horses to continue our journey. One of the barbarians, Rukon, explained that we traveled at night and during the early morning to avoid the sun’s heat. It also made it feel like the journey went by faster because I’d fall asleep in Tyos’s arms on his horse and wake up when the sun rose and we made our way to a sentry point or town to allow the barbarians to rest.
“How do they know where we’re going?” Melanie asked, leaning against the side of the wagon as the barbarians loaded everyone up for the next leg of the journey. “All I see is sand, sand, and more sand.”
The sun had just dipped below the horizon, and I was starting to get a little tired of the view, too. It was pretty, but if it had been me alone, I would’ve gotten lost days ago.
“The sun helps,” Dras said as he set a small barrel of water into the back of the wagon. “It rises and sets the same every day. If it rises on the wrong side, we’re going the wrong way.”
The logic made me snicker, and Melanie rolled her eyes, though she looked more amused than annoyed. She didn’t ignore Dras’s hand to help her into the wagon either, though she did give him a narrow eyed look as she pointed out, “What about when the sun is above?”
“No traveling when the sun is above,” he grinned. “That is for resting.”
“Is it really that simple?” I asked, sucking in a breath when an arm came around me and scooped me up, dragging me into my spot on Tyos’s horse’s back.
“What simple?” he asked curiously, catching the fur Melanie tossed at him for me to keep warm when the desert air chilled.
“Knowing where to go,” Melanie said. “Dras makes it sound easy. But what about when it’s dark, and there’s no sun to follow?”
“Stars,” Tyos answered automatically, pointing to a bright cluster of stars in the distance that could be seen even with the pink of the sunset still stretching across the sky. “The Leader is guide. Follow for safe travels.”
Melanie had to lean out of the wagon to look, but when she straightened, she nodded like Tyos’s explanation made more sense than Dras’s had. “I can understand that. Sailors navigate the same way. I guess I never considered doing that on land.”
“You can ride up front with Brenek if you wish. He knows the stars best,” Dras suggested.
I hadn’t gotten to know all the barbarians much, not when we were always on the move, and Tyos’s horse was near the back of the wagon so he could watch over those inside, but Brenek seemed nice, and when Dras made the request for Melanie to learn about the stars, he nodded in agreement and let her join him. All the barbarians I’d met from Tyos’s clan were kind. It made me eager to get to our final destination. My town was full of gossips and backstabbers. People you grew up with your whole life would chase you down and threaten to hang you for trying to find your happiness. I was eager to see what a community would be like if the people in it were genuinely kind and helpful like these barbarians were.
“What is Arlen thinking?” Tyos asked, doing his best to use a proper sentence like I’d been teaching him. I twisted to smile at him, showing him that I was proud of his efforts.
“I’m thinking I’m excited to get to our destination. I want to meet your clan.”
The wagon moved forward, and the horses followed without any direction from Tyos. Which was a good thing since he’d gone unusually still, staring down at me with a serious expression I couldn’t quite decipher. My heart twisted, and I swallowed hard, shrinking a little. “Unless… you don’t want me to? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed. I only thought–”
He cut me off the way he always did, with his mouth on mine and his hands in my hair, pushing his tongue between my lips in a demanding kiss that left me breathless and dangerously at risk of toppling off the horse’s back. He shouldn’t be allowed to do that when I had no way to maintain balance afterward.
“I want that. I want–” He switched to his language, his words rapid and excited, way too fast for me to even begin trying to understand, the beaming smile on his face easing themomentary worry I’d had. I’d wondered how to bring up what we were doing. I’d planned on waiting until we got to our destination. If it turned out he was only having fun, I would have been heartbroken and needed to move to the city to escape the humiliation. I was glad that he seemed so excited now.
Twisting like I was wasn’t comfortable, but I was a little afraid I’d fall off if I sat sideways. I switched sides, looking over my other shoulder to watch him talk, and he must have noticed my discomfort because he scooped me up and readjusted me until I was riding backward, my legs over his and his arms around me to keep me close. My face flushed bright red, and my eyes widened so much, it was possible they might fall out of my face.
“Tyos!”
He grinned at me, pressing a kiss to the tip of my nose. “You are safe, velren. I will keep you safe.”
I didn’t think I’d ever smiled as much as I had since meeting Tyos. At the rate I was going, my face would be permanently stuck that way. My cheeks hurt at the end of each night, and I had to massage them and force my face to relax in order to sleep. Sometimes, I even woke up smiling. I wasn’t sure it was possible to be this happy.
A small part of me was still afraid I’d lose it once we got to our final destination.
“Arlen. Wake up,” Tyos’s voice encouraged softly.
I was asleep against his chest like I had been since I started riding with him, the warmth of his body against my back and his thick arms wrapped around me making me feel safe to rest even on horseback. When I opened my eyes, I expected daylightsince that was often when I woke, usually around when we found somewhere to stop. But it was still night time, the stars and moonlight being the only light in the sky. I shot a questioning look over my shoulder at Tyos, my words gravelly from sleep.
“What’s wrong?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Look.”