Jason nodded. There was a strange awkwardness between them that hadn’t been there before, but he didn’t blame her for that. He had changed as much as she had after his father’s death.
He still hadn’t mustered the courage to question her and find out what she knew about his father’s death, though he didn’t think she had any significant insight. She had been terrified. All she remembered, at least reportedly, was flames.
It had been Therin. Jason knew that now. If not necessarily Therin directly, then Dragon Souls.
“Thank you.”
She looked as if she wanted to say more, before glancing past him and smiling. “I really should be going.”
Jason nodded, and he moved past her along the street. He heard a familiar voice and headed toward it. He found Kayla talking quickly to two others. When he approached, she cut off, turning toward him.
“What happened to you?”
She grabbed him, checking him over before releasing him. She was almost the same height as him, a typical height for women in the village, and she had deep blue eyes that matched everyone else—other than Jason.
“I got stuck out of the village last night.”
She took a step toward him, and her long bearskin jacket, which draped almost to the snow, dragged through it. “Angus said you decided to stay out. You went after your bow, of all things.”
“I need my bow to hunt.”
“How can you hunt if you lose your life?”
“I didn’t lose my life.”
“You could have.”
Jason shrugged. “I could have many times, but I haven’t.”
Kayla shook her head, and her tight braid swung beneath her hat. “Why do you make us worry about you like that?”
“I wasn’t trying to make you worry about me, I was just—”
“You were just going after your bow.”
Jason looked past her, realizing whom she’d been talking to. He nodded to Terrence and Selena, smiling at them. They were a few years older than him, and newly married. Selena came from one of the smaller villages farther down the back face of the mountain, and he didn’t know her as well as he knew Terrence. But then, Jason didn’t know Terrence all that well, either.
“Like I said. I need my bow to hunt.”
“What happens if you freeze? How will we know what happened to you?”
“I wouldn’t have gone after it if I thought I was in any danger.”
“But the storm last night was one of the worst we’ve had in weeks!”
The cave had offered a certain protection from the weather, enough that he hadn’t feared getting caught out in it, and yet, even finding out that the storm had been bad, he hadn’t realized that he was in any danger.
He needed to be careful. He didn’t want his sister worrying for him, and he didn’t need his mother retreating any more than she already had. Both of them already had gone through enough, and it was his job to protect them now. It was the reason he’d remained rather than going with Henry. As much as he might have wanted to understand what it meant to have some potential to become a Dragon Soul, he had to do so carefully.
“At least tell me you caught something?”
He shook his head. “Not this time.”
“We’re getting thin with our stores.”
They still had quite a bit more than they ever had before. Since Jason had managed to bring down the deer, they had been well supplied. It had given him a buffer, time he could hunt and not have to worry about not bringing anything home. He still went out every day, trying to stay ahead, wanting to make sure that they had enough. It was better to have a full belly than to worry about when the next meal might come. In the time since then, he found himself getting stronger. It made hunts go more easily. He was able to climb faster than he had before. It was one thing he hadn’t expected to change so dramatically with a full belly, but he shouldn’t have been surprised by that.
“I’ll go back out tomorrow,” he said before catching himself. “What do you mean we’re getting thin?”
Kayla glanced behind her and flashed a smile at Terrence and Selena before turning her attention to him. She twisted so that her back was to them, lowering her voice. “We have one rabbit left.”
“One? When I brought the last one, we still had two squirrels and two rabbits.”
“That was several days ago,” she whispered.
“With that much, it should last a few more days than that.”
She nodded.
“Who’s getting into our supplies?”
A flush of color flashed across Kayla’s cheeks. “I don’t know,” she said.
Stealing was rare in the village, though not unheard of. Finding enough food could be difficult, and there were plenty of people who went hungry, the same way that Jason and his family had been going hungry before he had managed to find the deer.
“I can keep a watch.”
“You need to be out hunting. Mother and I can watch.”
He cocked a brow at her.
“Fine. I can watch.”
“Where is Mother?”
“Why?”
“She wasn’t there when I stopped by our house.”
Kayla frowned, but turned and went racing through the village.
Jason could do nothing other than chase after.
He followed her back to the home, and when he reached it, she had thrown the door open, unmindful of the heat dissipating through the open door. He stepped inside as she was searching through the back room, calling out for their mother.
“She wasn’t here,” he said.
“Where would she have gone?”
“I thought she was with you.”
Kayla shook her head. “When was the last time you remember Mother leaving the house?”
“The last time was before Father…”
He should have been more surprised by his mother’s absence. She had been here ever since his father had been killed, and finding her missing was unusual enough that he should have known something was wrong.
He glanced at the rack along the wall to find that her coat and hat were missing. At least she wouldn’t be out in the weather without any sort of protection, but where would she have gone? He followed Kayla back outside and closed the door tightly behind him, searching through the village with her.
“I’m going to stop at Keva’s place and see if she might know where Mother has gone.”
Jason nodded. The two women had once been close, but since his father had died, his mother had retreated, spending no time with anyone else. She’d been no place other than her bed.
Jason followed his sister, and when he reached the door to Keva’s home, he paused, listening in, but there were no voices coming from the inside.
His sister knocked, and it took a moment for the door to open and the solid woman on the other side to glance at them. “I haven’t seen either of you for quite some time,” she said.
“Is Mother here?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t seen your mother since your father died.”
Kayla nodded, turning back toward Jason. Her eyes were moist, and she dabbed her knuckle at the corner of her left eye, trying to smear away the tears before they dropped.
Where would their mother have gone? She should not have disappeared like this, not gone out into the village without letting them know, but then again, had she not retreated from the world as she had, it wouldn’t have been all that strange for her to have explored.
“I can help you look,” Keva said.
“That’s all right,” Kayla said.
They went to the village, pausing at several shops, looking inside, and there was no sign of their mother.
They stopped again near the center part of the village, near the festival square where he had first encountered his sister. He glanced over toward the cannon, wondering if perhaps she might have gone there. At least the cannon might be tied to their father, a way of reminiscing, but there was no sign of her there, either.