CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
On the fourth day, we hadn’t gotten far when Kaden said, “We have company.”
“I saw,” I answered sharply.
“What do you want to do?” Tavish asked.
I kept my eyes straight ahead. “Nothing. Just keep going.”
“She’s waiting for an invitation,” Jeb said.
“She’s not going to get one!” I snapped. “I told her she couldn’t come. She’ll turn around.”
Orrin smacked his lips. “If she made it through three nights alone, I doubt she’ll give up that easily.”
I growled with all the fury of Griz, and snapped my reins, turning my horse around to gallop back toward Natiya. She stopped her horse when she saw me coming.
I came alongside her. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Riding,” she said defiantly.
“This is no holiday, Natiya! Turn around! You can’t come with me!”
“I can go where I want.”
“And it just happens to be in the same direction I’m going?”
She shrugged. Her audacity appalled me. “Did you steal that horse?” I asked, trying to shame her.
“It’s mine.”
“And Reena said you could come?”
“She knew she couldn’t stop me.”
She was not the same girl I had met in the vagabond camp. I hated what I saw in her expression. Her cheerful innocence was gone and replaced with alarming hunger. She wanted more than I could give her. I needed her to go back.
“If you come along, you’re probably going to die,” I told her.
“I heard you’re going to do the same. Why didn’t that stop you?”
Her eyes were clever and sharp like Aster’s, and I looked away. I couldn’t do this. I wanted to strike her, shake her, and make her see how very much she was not welcome here.
Kaden rode over. “Hello, Natiya,” he said, and nodded like we were all out for a spring ride.
“Oh, for the love of gods! Tell her she has to go back! Make her listen.”
He smiled. “The way you listen?”
I looked back at Natiya, a bitter gall climbing up my throat. She met my stare, unblinking, her decision shining in her eyes. Moisture sprang to my face and I was afraid I might lose my morning meal. She was so young. Almost as young as Aster and far more naïve. What if—
I wiped the sweat from my upper lip.
“Come along!” I snapped. “And keep up! We aren’t going to coddle you!”
Journey’s end. The promise. The hope.
Is this the place of staying Ama?