“Not.”
“Why?” I exclaim.
“For several reasons.”
“Several?”
“Three.”
“Which are?”
“Firstly,” he says, calm in the face of my vexation, “because you look like you are about to collapse at my feet at any given moment. Tell me, have you eaten a single godsdamned meal since I last saw you, or are you intent on withering away to a skeletal corpse like some boring, self-flagellating martyr?”
My chin jerks higher. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” he says bluntly. “You look…” His eyes scan my face, then move down my form, seeming to take in every dried bloodstain and frayed seam, lingering on the narrow slope of my hips, the sticks of my legs in the tattered uniform.
I know, since Fyremas, I have grown too thin. But even when I find the time to eat a proper meal, I rarely manage to muster the appetite for it. Some days, if Lestyn does not shove a cup of stew or a baked bannock into my hands in the infirmary after a long shift, I do not eat at all.
Something dark moves in Soren’s eyes—a flash, there and gone too quickly to properly decipher—as they shift back to mine. “You would be most unwise to travel by portal in such a state. The leylines…they take a toll. More than the blood you spill to activate them. Given the chance, they will pull at the loose threads of your psyche. Unravel you.”
I purse my lips, unable to contradict him. The terror I felt during my doomed attempt to reach Caeldera is fresh in my mind. I have no desire to ever experience such a thing again.
“Oblivion.That’s what we call it. A state deeper than amnesia. One that erases all that you are, undoes the stitches that hold your very self together.” He shakes his head. “Portal travel is not for the casual voyager, and definitely not for the unprepared one. At the very least, you require a warm meal and a decent night’s sleep before we pass through again.”
“Fine,” I begrudgingly agree. “I can see the sense in that.”
“A first for you?”
I pointedly ignore his sarcastic comment. “You said there were three reasons.”
“Did I?”
“Soren, you cannot detain me here without cause—”
“My second reason involves my own exhaustion, not yours. I myself traveled a very far distance by portal only hours ago. I am not altogether eager to make another trip so soon—especially when a brooding Pendefyre no doubt awaits on the other side, full of acrimony and accusation.”
My teeth sink into my bottom lip. I’ve not thought of Penn since my arrival. Is he already back in Caeldera? It’s nightfall. Surely, he is back by now. Has he realized I have not returned? Does he think I have deserted him on purpose? Gods, he will be worried…
Or relieved,a bitter voice whispers from the back of my mind.He wanted peace of mind. Your absence, however unintentional, may well be a gift to him.
“Tell me.” Soren cuts into my unpleasant thoughts. “How fares our fiery king?”
I swallow hard. “Take me back to Caeldera and see for yourself.”
“Clever. But no.”
My sigh is resigned. “And your third reason?”
He hesitates, staring at me for a long beat. “Consider it an unearned secret.”
“You truly aren’t going to tell me?”
“I would, were you ready to hear it.”
“Soren—”
“We can resume this squabble in the morning. But for now, I have not seen my bed in well over a month and I am most eager to reacquaint myself with it.”