Shade rumbled quietly at that last comment, exposing her teeth.
Daughters and fathers, sons and mothers—in Osha’s life, he had too often seen them at odds with one another. Apparently, this was also so among the majay-hì, the sacred guardians of his abandoned homeland. But still, none of them had eaten since leaving the ship last dusk.
“We passed two small markets last night,” he said in his own tongue. “Perhaps something more than travel rations can be found in one of them.”
Wynn hesitated and looked up at him. “The domin told us to stay here, out of sight. Unfortunately, he didn’t mention how little was left in the cupboards of this place.”
She tried to sound conversational, but her manner and words were strained. It pained him, for there was a time when she had been more at ease with him than with anyone else in the world.
Roughly two years before, Osha had accompanied Wynn and her companions, as well as his jeóin and teacher Sgäilsheilleache, into the eastern continent’s ever frozen heights of the Pock Peaks. He had helped the best that he could in their search for what he now knew as the orb or “anchor” of Water. At that time, he had been an anmaglâhk in training, and his mentor, Sgäilsheilleache, had sworn guardianship over Magiere, Leesil, Chap, and Wynn.
Osha had stood true to that oath as well, perhaps most especially for Wynn, and this had slowly grown into something more.
Near the beginning of that journey, she had startled him by asking about his life and dreams. No one else had ever done so. Once they began the climb into the snowy peaks, conditions became so grueling that customs broke down for the sake of survival. In the freezing nights within a thin tent for shelter, Wynn had slept against his chest beneath both of their blankets and wrapped inside his cloak to keep warm.
She had been—was—nothing like the humans that he and his people had been taught to hate and fear.
He had scavenged food for her, melted snow and ice for them to drink, and when she felt threatened, she had run to him for protection. It meant something, though he could not find words for it. Later, she tried to teach him to dance at Magiere and Leesil’s wedding, and no one had ever paid him so much notice. When he had been forced to finally leave to catch one of his people’s living ships waiting in hiding near the city of Bela, she came after him to those crowded docks. When they said a final farewell, and he reluctantly turned away ...
Wynn ran after him, threw herself at him, and kissed him.
She then ran off through the crowd.
Osha had no choice but to leave for the ship with a journal Wynn had given him to deliver to Brot’ân’duivé. He and Wynn had gone their separate ways. And even now, so long afterward in this foreign land, he could not forget the press of her small mouth.
Too much had happened since that kiss—too much blood spilled, too much forced upon him, and too much taken from him. Through a mix of forced choices, he was no longer an anmaglâhk. The Chein’âs—the Burning Ones—were a race who lived in the heated depths of the world. They created all weapons of the Anmaglâhk. They had called him to them, and then, for reasons unknown, they had stripped his stilettos and bone knife from him and forced new weapons upon him. First, a sword that he never used, would not touch, but always kept bundled in cloth and out of sight. Second, a set of five white metal arrowheads and a matching handle for a longbow, and these he had later reluctantly learned to use.
Osha’s peace and sense of place had been shattered not long after that kiss upon the docks. He no longer knew who or what he was; though later, after he, Brot’ân’duivé, and Leanâlhâm found themselves on this new continent, a new thought had come to him when they had reconnected with Wynn.
If he could only get her to recognize what they had once been to each other, then he might find purpose again at her side.
When he was expected to leave Calm Seatt and go with Magiere’s group in search of the orb of Air, he had made a secret choice to let their ship sail without him. This weighed on him heavily, as he still regretted having abandoned Leanâlhâm.
But a chance to once more be with Wynn had overridden all else.
Nothing had turned out as he had envisioned. During their separation, many events had also occurred in her life, including the reappearance and intrusion of Chane. Worse, she had come to accept Chane’s help and protection.
The very thought made Osha ill, but there was nothing to be done about it. He had tried to get her to speak of their past and what they had been to each other in the Pock Peaks.
She had changed—and so had he.
She accepted his help, even welcomed it, and was always kind to him, but he longed for something deeper again. The more he wanted this, the more she withdrew, and he did not know why. So he continued to throw himself into her purpose to find the final orb and to protect the orb of Spirit they had found in the hope that she might reach out to him again.
Here, right now, in this invisible hideaway, at least he had her to himself—except for Shade.
“Should we go?” he asked.
Wynn glanced up at him in mild discomfort.
“All right, but we need to be quick,” she answered. “There’s no telling when Ghassan will return.”
He noticed that she had begun referring to the domin by his first name. Perhaps in their current situation, this was more appropriate and he should follow her example? Human customs sometimes escaped him.
As Wynn rose, Osha slipped off his cloak and held it out. “Leave your sage’s robe behind and wear this instead of your own cloak.”
She hesitated, frowning in puzzlement. He waited to be questioned and challenged, but instead she took the cloak from his hand and put it on. He did not bother donning a cloak at all, but again, she did not ask him what he had in mind.
“Come, Shade,” she said, turning away from him.
Emerging from the stairwell into the filthy tenement’s bottom floor, Wynn headed straight for the front door. She hadn’t looked back to see the hideaway’s entrance close and apparently vanish. She didn’t really want to see the passage’s end suddenly become a wall with the same window as in the chamber. There was something wrong about that ... something more than a mere illusion to hide the door.
Even that was half as unnerving as being alone with Osha and wearing his cloak—which was too long and nearly dragged along the ground. She had also left her staff behind at his insistent claim that it would attract attention.
Well, she wasn’t completely alone with him, and at least she had Shade along.
For some time now, Wynn had managed to avoid being isolated with Osha and thereby not given him a chance to dredge up their shared past. Yes, she cared deeply for him, but that was complicated. She had to remain focused on freeing her friends and then finding the orb of Air. And yet, she realized there was some freedom to express concerns now that Ghassan was elsewhere.
As she slipped out the front door behind Shade, she finally glanced back. “Osha? Did you notice that when Ghassan spoke of Magiere, Leesil, Chap, and Leanâlhâm being arrested, he mentioned nothing about Brot’an?”
Osha, in his long stride, closed the distance from behind her, carrying a burlap bag for whatever they found at the market.
“Yes, I noticed,” he answered, though she spotted the slight wrinkle of his brow.
“Why is that? Where do you suppose he is?”
Osha remained quiet at first. Wynn had to look ahead twice to avoid stumbling into Shade.
“It has been several moons since we have seen any of them,” he finally answered, and Wynn looked up at him again. “From what your domin told us, it is possible that the remainder of the anmaglâhk loyalists followed Magiere.” He paused. “Perhaps along the way, Brot’ân’duivé was ...”