Maren Goldweaver's Arc

Chapter 27 of 42

Vera's men took Maren and Miller across the clearing to a smaller tent at the edge of the camp. One of them lifted the flap and jerked his head. Inside was a cot, a folded blanket, and a lantern hung from the center pole. The flap fell shut behind them. Maren heard boots move off through the wet grass, then stop close enough to listen. Maren sat down on the cot. Her coat felt too light. Her ribs no longer had a small warm weight pressed against them. She stared at the dirt floor and tried to think of what she still had to trade in the morning. She could not name a single thing. Miller crouched in front of her. He did not speak. He took her wrist and turned it toward the lantern. The stitches he had put in her arm days ago were healing clean. He touched them with the pad of his thumb. Then he moved his hand up to the bare place on her forearm where her gold bracelet used to sit before Miller traded it for bread in the fishing village. He rested his fingers there for a moment. He drew one of her braids forward over her shoulder and ran his hand down its length. Then he pulled his hand back and stood up. "You should sleep," Miller said. "I'll take the floor." "The cot's big enough." He looked at the cot. She looked at it too. It was not big enough. His shoulders alone would hang off the frame. She closed her mouth. He sat down against the tent pole and rested his arms on his knees. Maren lay back. Her arms felt cold where his hand had been. She pulled the blanket up and it did not fix it. "They'll turn us out at sunrise," she said. "With nothing." "Maybe." "I gave her away, Miller. She was the only thing keeping us alive." "You kept Kato alive." "Vera won't feed us past breakfast for that." Miller was quiet for a while. The lantern hissed. Outside, someone laughed low and a pot scraped. "Eir will find us again," he said. Maren turned her head toward him. He was watching the tent flap, not her. She thought of the cub sitting up alert beside Kato, tail curled, not collapsing this time. Stronger here than she had been anywhere else. Fed. Guarded by fourteen names' worth of grief. She thought of Gisela's white knuckles on Kato's sleeve, and of Vera lowering the crossbow when she saw Gisela's face. Maren let her eyes close. The cub was not lost. The cub was placed. Somewhere a sealed file was waiting to be found, and Maren had just spent her last coin buying a night inside the only camp that might help her do it. She would ask Vera at first light. Not for shelter. For a trade.