Chapter 107 “Eli”

Chapter 107 “Eli”
Lyanna

We left the mill before Marta woke enough to find another task for Elias.

That had been his intention, at least.

We made it as far as the yard before the kitchen door opened behind us.

“Lias.”

Elias stopped with one hand on the mare’s bridle.

Marta crossed the yard carrying a cloth-wrapped bundle and thrust it at him.

“For the road.”

“You’ve already given us enough.”

She continued holding it out.

Elias looked at the bundle, then at her, and I watched the exact moment he accepted defeat.

“Thank you.”

Marta nodded as though he had finally said something sensible. She turned to me, pointed at the bundle, then at Elias, and made a stern eating gesture.

I looked at him.

He signed, She says it is all mine.

I stared at him, but his expression did not change.

Marta pointed at him again, shook her head emphatically and mimed eating.

Interesting, I signed.

His mouth twitched.

I took the bundle from him.

Marta looked pleased, while Elias did not.

We were on the road before the sun cleared the mountains.

The rain had stopped sometime before dawn, but the world remained wet from it. Water hung from the pine needles and flashed whenever sunlight found its way through the branches. The path beneath us was soft enough that the mare’s hooves sank into it.

For the first few hours, the road continued downward, and I walked while it remained level.

The mattress had done more for my back than I had realized. For a while, I managed a decent pace beside Elias without having to think about every step.

Then the road began climbing.

It was not particularly steep, but it did not need to be.

Halfway up the first long incline, my breathing had grown loud enough to annoy me.

Elias continued for another dozen steps before noticing I was no longer beside him.

He stopped beside a flat stretch of rock and took out the water flask.

I accepted it without comment, and he said nothing while I drank. Instead, he crouched beside the mare and ran one hand down her left foreleg.

There was nothing wrong with the mare’s left foreleg, but I chose not to mention that either.

When my breathing settled, I handed the flask back.

“Ready.”

He looked at me once, then nodded.

By midday, I was riding.

The road widened gradually as we left the higher slopes. We passed two abandoned cottages before we saw another person, an old man gathering fallen branches who watched us until the trees hid him from view.

That afternoon, we stopped beneath a rocky overhang rather than push farther before dark.

The following night, we found an old charcoal burner’s shelter with one wall half-collapsed and enough dry ground for our bedroll.

By the third morning, getting onto the mare had become an argument between me, my stomach and gravity.

I put my foot into Elias’s joined hands, and he lifted me.

I caught the saddle and hauled myself upward, only for my stomach to meet the front of it.

I stopped, and Elias looked up at me.

I shifted backward.

The baby kicked, so I shifted again.

“Problem?”

“No.”

He waited.

I glared down at him.

“Everything is in the way.”

His eyes dropped briefly to my stomach.

I pointed at him.

“Don’t.”

“I said nothing.”

“You were going to.”

“I value my life.”

I finally found a position that did not crush some part of me and held out my hand for the reins.

He gave them to me, but his mouth was still doing something suspicious.

I narrowed my eyes.

He turned and started walking.

Coward.

By afternoon, the mountain settlement appeared below us.

It was larger than I had expected, perhaps thirty houses gathered around a narrow road with a smithy at one end and a squat stone shrine at the other. Smoke rose from several chimneys, and a miller’s cart stood outside what looked like a storehouse.

There were people moving along the road, but not many.

That was the first thing I noticed.

The second was how few of them were young men.

An old woman carried two buckets from the well. A boy barely into adolescence split wood outside the smithy while an older man worked the forge. Two women were repairing a broken section of fencing themselves.

A building near the centre of the settlement had blackened rafters where half its roof should have been, and nobody appeared particularly interested in fixing it.

Elias slowed before we entered.

“Food, grain and medicine.”

I nodded.

“No unnecessary stopping.”

I looked down at him.

You say that as though I enjoy shopping with you.

He glanced back.

“I distinctly remember carrying things for you.”

Badly.

His eyebrows rose.

I continued before he could defend himself.

You complained about the weight.

“I carried two blankets, a cooking pot and enough dried meat to feed a garrison.”

And complained.

“I made one observation.”

I raised three fingers.

His eyes narrowed, and I smiled.

The road grew busier as we entered the settlement, and my hands fell still.

I pulled my hood farther forward.

When Elias spoke directly to me, he signed along with his words. When someone else addressed me, I waited for him to interpret before responding.

The old habit settled over us easily.

A woman selling root vegetables glanced at my stomach and then at Elias before offering us a bundle for less than she had initially asked.

Elias did not argue with charity nearly as well as he argued with me.

We bought dried beans, oats, onions and enough grain for the mare to last several days.

The medicinal supplies proved more difficult.

The first woman Elias asked had only willow bark and something dried in a jar that looked old enough to have survived several wars.

She directed us farther down the road.

I was signing my opinion of the jar as we walked.

I think it moved.

“It did not move.”

You didn’t look.

“I did.”

Not properly.

“It was dried feverroot.”

It had legs.

Elias gave me a flat look.

I began forming my next insult when a woman’s voice came from across the road.

“Eli?”

My hands stopped.

So did Elias.

I looked at him.

Across the road stood a woman with a woven basket hooked over one arm. She was perhaps Elias’s age, with dark hair disappearing beneath a faded scarf. The basket at her hip held folded cloth, small bottles and bundles of herbs.

She was an omega, and she was staring at Elias.

He stared back.

“Asha?”

Something changed in his face.

It was small, but I saw it.

The hard line between his brows disappeared, his eyes widened slightly, and for one strange heartbeat I saw someone in him I had never met.

Asha took one step toward him before stopping.

Her eyes moved past us, down the road and toward the market before returning to Elias.

Whatever had risen into her face vanished.

“Are you insane?”

Elias glanced around us too.

“Possibly.”

Her expression suggested this was not the time.

She crossed the remaining distance quickly.

I expected questions, but instead she threw her arms around him.

Elias caught her just like that, without hesitation, stiffness or a moment spent deciding whether he would permit the touch.

His arms closed around her, and something unpleasant twisted low beneath my ribs.

Asha released him almost immediately, not because he did, but because we were standing in the middle of a road.

She stepped back and looked at him once from head to toe.

“You’re alive.”

“I am.”

Her jaw tightened.

For a moment, I thought she might hit him.

Instead, she hissed, “Do you have any idea how many soldiers are looking for you?”

“Yes.”

“And you walked into a village?”

“We needed supplies.”

“Oh, good. Then this is sensible.”

“Asha.”

“Not here.”

That ended it.

Her attention finally shifted to me.

Her eyes found my face first before dropping to my stomach, where they stopped.

The change was immediate.

I watched her take in the mare, my clothes, the curve beneath them and Elias standing beside me before her gaze returned to his face.

Elias stepped closer to my side.

“Asha, this is Lyanna.”

Her eyes snapped back to mine.

There was a pause.

“Lyanna?”

Elias nodded once.

Recognition came slowly.

Several pieces began to fall into place behind her eyes: the missing Aelorian omega, Elias’s disappearance, the soldiers searching the roads, and now me and my stomach.

Her gaze dropped to it again before returning sharply to Elias.

He shook his head once.

Whatever she had been about to ask disappeared.

Asha bent to pick up her basket and tightened her grip around the handle.

“Come with me.”

“Where?”

“My cottage.”

Elias nodded without asking another question.

That surprised me almost as much as the embrace had.

Asha turned immediately and headed away from the market.

I caught two of Elias’s fingers before he could follow.

He looked at me.

You trust her?

“Yes.”

There was no hesitation.

I glanced toward Asha’s retreating back.

That much?

His hand moved.

That much.

I released him.

That was enough.

Asha led us away from the market toward the quieter edge of the village, where the houses thinned near the trees.

Her cottage stood behind a low stone wall, with bundles of drying herbs hanging beneath the eaves and two narrow garden beds crowded against the wall despite the cold.

She unlocked the door.

Elias helped me down from the mare before following Asha inside.

The cottage smelled of rosemary, smoke and something bitter simmering near the hearth.

Asha entered behind us and closed the door before sliding the bolt into place.

Elias turned toward her.

Asha kept one hand on the bolt and simply looked at him for several seconds.

“Your family thinks you’re dead.”