Tad chuckled. “Good. Now we just need to find something that will keep the bugs off us in the first place—without driving us crazy with the smell!”
With her mind off her itching, she turned a critical eye on Tad, and without warning him what she was about to do, reached over to feel his keelbone, the prominent breastbone that both gryphon and bird anatomy shared. That was the first place that a bird showed health or illness, as muscle-mass was consumed by a gryphon or bird that was not eating enough.
It was a bit sharper, the muscles on either side of it just a little shrunken. Not something an ordinary person would notice, but Tad was her partner, and it was her job to do as much for him as she could. “You’ve lost some weight,” she said thoughtfully. “Not a lot, but it has to be either the short rations or the fact that you’re using up energy in healing. Or both.”
“Or that I’m building leg-muscle and losing wing-muscle because I’m not using it,” he pointed out. “I don’t remember walking this much before in my life. Much more of this and I’m going to look more like a plowhorse than a hawk.”
She granted him a skeptical look, and crossed her legs and rested her chin on her good hand. “I wish we’d find the river,” she replied fretfully. “No matter what is following us, if we just had the river, we could fish; I’d get some decent food into you. Even if there’s something following us and scaring off the game, I doubt that fish would be frightened off by a land predator.” The river, the promise of the river, it now seemed to embody the promise of everything—food, shelter and rescue as well. Perhaps she was placing too much hope on a strip of water, but at the moment it was a good goal to concentrate on.
He heaved a huge sigh and scratched at one bug-bitten ear. “I really have no idea where we are in relation to the cliff and the river,” he confessed. “And this kind of forest is very strange to me. If this place were more like home, I could probably find a river, but I can’t see the sky and the ground cover is ten or twelve layers thick here. . . .”
“I know, and I’m not blaming you,” she assured him hastily. “How could you know anything about this kind of forest? We never trained here. We expected we’d be going to an established outpost, with shelter, a garden, food stores, and weapons.”
“Emphasis on the food stores,” Tad said hoarsely, as if the momentary thought of all the food he was used to eating made him homesick. He rubbed at his throat a moment and then swallowed. He’d been gulping more air for days than was healthy for him.
She frowned with frustration. “I’m sure there are plenty of things to eat growing all around us, if only I knew what they were! Roots, stalks, leaves—even some things you might be able to eat, too!” She waved her hand, helplessly. “We haven’t the luxury of experimenting, since we don’t dare make ourselves sick, so we’re stuck. Only a native would know how to find his way around a place like this.”
“A native like Ikala?” Tad replied shrewdly, and chuckled when she blushed involuntarily. “Well, I wish he was with us.”
“I do, too—” she began, intending to change the subject, quickly.
“And probably for more reasons than one!” he teased, not giving her a chance to change the subject, and sounding more like his old self than he had in days. “I can’t blame you; he’s a handsome fellow, and he certainly accounted well for himself in training. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to get to know him better.”
“I suppose,” she said, suddenly wary. There was nothing that Tad liked better than to meddle in other peoples’ love lives. “If we’d had a chance to ask him more about forests like these, we might be faring better now.”
He saw what she was trying to do. “Oh, come on, Blade!” he coaxed. “Stop being coy with me! Am I your partner, or not? Shouldn’t your partner know who you’re attracted to?” He gave her a sly, sideways look. “I know he’s attracted to you. It’s obvious, if you’re watching.”
“And you were watching, I suppose,” she grumbled, giving up on her attempt to distract him to something more serious. He laughed.
“I’m supposed to watch out for you, aren’t I? You’d be happier with a male friend to share some— hmm—pleasant moments with, and I know it would be easier dealing with you if you were happier.” He tilted his head comically to the side.
“Oh, thank you,” she said sarcastically. “Now you sound like both my parents. They can’t wait to get me—attached.”
Into bed with someone, you mean, she thought sourly. And Tad knows it. He should know better than to echo them! He knows how I feel about that!
‘They’re obsessed with it, and have built much of their lives around pleasures of flesh. They think of it as a means to all happiness, even if it is by a strange, obscure path! Seeing you bedded with someone is not my goal. I simply want to see you content in all areas of your life,” Tad said persuasively. “He’s certainly a fine prospect. Good-looking, intelligent, and open-minded enough that you wouldn’t get all tangled up in Haighlei custom with him. Good sense of humor, too, and that’s important. And being trained as a prince, he knows that you have to be able to concentrate on your duty, you can’t just devote yourself slavishly to a man. Hmm?”
Blade fixed her partner with a stern and fierce gaze, neither agreeing nor denying any of it. “You’re matchmaking,” she accused. “Don’t try to deny it; I’ve seen you matchmake before, you’re as bad as an old woman about it! You want to see everyone paired off and living—well, if not happily ever after, at least having a good time while the affair lasts!”
“Of course!” Tad replied smugly. “And why not?”
She growled at him. “Because—because it’s invasive, that’s why not! I repeat—I get enough of that kind of nonsense from my parents! Why should I put up with it from you?”
He only snorted. “I’m your partner, I have to know these things, and I have to try to help you get what you want and need, whether or not you know what it is! I’d tell you, and I’d expect you to help me. We both have to know if there’s something that is going to have us emotionally off-balance, because that’s going to affect how we do our job. Right? Admit it!”
She growled again, but nodded with extreme reluctance. He was right, of course. A Silver’s partnership was as close as many marriages, and partners were supposed to confide in each other, cooperate with each other, in and out of the duty times.
And for some reason, what seemed so invasive from her parents didn’t seem so bad, coming from Tad. Perhaps it was because Tad was a gryphon, and not human. Despite the gryphons’ abilities to see things like a human did, Tad would always be one step removed from complete empathy with Blade, and that gave her a barrier of safety.
“So tell your partner how you feel about it.” He settled his head down on his foreclaws. “What do you think of Ikala, then?”
Rain drummed down outside their shelter and pattered through the branches they had piled on the roof. Lightning made patterns of the branches screening the front of the shelter, reflecting whitely off Tad’s eyes and the silver gryphon-badge on her tunic. As usual, rain and thunder were the only sounds that could be heard outside.
Inside—the smoke had finally cleared away and the fire burned brightly. She was dry, full, and warm. Her shoulder didn’t hurt too much, and she was in a well-camouflaged shelter with two very solid walls on either side of her and a cushioning of springy boughs between her and the cold, damp ground. In short, there was nothing to distract her from her thoughts, which were confused to say the least.