Mara wasn’t where she ought to be.

She ought to be in her sleeping roll. When Eli had returned from his supply run, she’d been too tired to do much more than crawl into the shelter, curl her body around her son’s, and plunge into slumber.

Now, she was in a bed, the feather mattress and soft cotton sheets an unmistakable contrast to the soft earth of the forest floor, and the stiff, scratchy wool of her blankets. The decadent comfort was the first sign that something was amiss.

The second sign was that she felt no fear, despite not being where she knew she ought to be. Her mind strove for alarm, having fallen asleep in one place and woken up in another, but the soft warmth of the bedding soothed her anxiety. Instead of panicking, she stretched and then snuggled deeper into the pillow like a contented cat.

“Maybe I’m dreaming,” she murmured to herself, unwilling to open her eyes.

“You’re definitely dreaming.” The mattress beneath her shifted with a familiar weight.

“Davy?” She ought to be shocked by the sound of his voice, but she wasn’t–the third sign, incidentally, that all was not right in the world.

“Yes, my dear.” A warm hand cradled her cheek and stubble brushed the bridge of her nose, tickled her eyebrow as he visited a soft kiss upon her forehead. “Go back to sleep.” The mattress shifted again as he stood, and she sank into the softness, enveloped in a residual, radiant warmth she recognized instinctually as his. As she had so many mornings before, she basked in the leftover warmth of his body heat as she listened to him prepare for the day. The splash of water, the rhythmic scrub as he lathered shaving soap across his face, the scrape of the razor. More splashing water. Fabric rustling, the clink of a belt.

The edge of the mattress dipped once more, and his hand curled around her shoulder.

“Time to wake up, Mara love.”

Without opening her eyes, lest she shatter this illusion, she reached up and clasped his hand, wrapping it in both of hers. She ran one hand down the back of his arm, soft hairs tickling the side of her hand. “I thought you were dead,” she confessed, and his fingers squeezed hers.

“I know, sweet. But it’s time to wake up.”

~~~

“Mara?” A hand jostled her shoulder and she jerked awake with a gasp, blinking in the darkness. The hand fell away, and the shadows above her came together into a face. Familiar, but not achingly so. “Time to wake up.”

“Sorry,” she croaked, sitting up. “I slept in?”

He shook his head. “Sun’s just rising, but I’ve got a fire going. There’ll be tea and breakfast. Take your time getting ready.”

She lay for a moment, staring at the slanted roof of the shelter. The dream had been so real, she didn’t even feel as if she was waking up. More that she’d passed from one room into another. And the memory of the dream didn’t thin and drift away in tatters, like dreams usually did. It stuck in her head–the sensations, the sounds. Davy’s voice. His touch. Not like a dream, but like a memory. A recent memory.

It was mostly likely a product of her grief, she decided. And her exhaustion. Not to mention, it had been a dream based on real memories, on an oft-repeated ritual, which perhaps explained why it didn’t drift away.

It would probably be better not to think about it anymore, so she unearthed herself from her sleeping roll, leaving Nick still breathing in soft, slow, sleepy puffs in the warm cocoon.

The crackle of the fire greeted her as she emerged from the shelter, but she stumbled away from the warmth and into the woods for a moment of privacy. Her hair had come loose from its braid while she slept, and after relieving herself she spent a long, frustrating few minutes trying to detangle it with her fingers before giving up and tying it back in a messy mass of tangled curls.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Eli didn’t speak when she returned, merely handed her a steaming tin cup. She shrugged off her jacket and spread it on the ground by the fire, sitting cross-legged and letting the warmth radiate into her achy bones.

Sip by sip, the tea brought her stiff mind back into motion and she decided she was wake enough to attempt conversation.

“So… you got everything you were looking for?” She hadn’t registered much the night before, except that he had returned, which meant she was no longer alone, which meant that she could go to sleep. Now, she found herself curious what had been worth the journey. When he nodded, she prodded further. “What all did you have stashed away?”

He shrugged, nodding toward his pack which did look a little more full. A crossbow she didn’t recognize was strapped to the side. “The bow was what I really wanted, but there’s some fishing gear and about ten pounds’ of copper Crit, and a physik’s kit. One of yours, actually.”

She perked up at that, but when he pulled out the kit to show her, she found it was one of the healing bundles she’d put together, far less robust than the one she already had. Still, it warmed her to know that Eli–or, more likely, Davy–had thought to include a kit of her own design in the cache.

“Where to today, then?” she asked after he’d stowed the kit. She could sense that he didn’t really want to talk to her, but she found herself grasping for the sound of his voice, for a few words–like she was shipwrecked in a stormy sea and their little conversations floated by like flotsam. Not what she truly wanted, but enough at least to keep her afloat if she really clung to them.

“More of the same.” He tipped his head to the east, where the sun had yet to peek above the obscured horizon.

Eli was odd about his words, she thought. He wasn’t quite reticent, or sparing when there was something that needed to be said. But if nothing needed saying, getting him to offer more than a sentence of conversational debris was like prying stones from packed earth.

“Why copper?” she asked, searching for a line of questioning that might invite a more robust answer. He seemed willing enough to talk when she had questions, and she’d take a little exposition if that’s what it took to drown out the clamor of her own thoughts. “Gold would have been lighter. More trading power for less weight.”

“Gold’s not much good outside the Triad.” The rough triangle formed of Bedford, the capital, and Clearwater was under strict, unwavering Order control. Beyond the rough boundaries of the Triad, enforced civility began to fray. The Order still held power, but the force needed to maintain that power was more overt. More violent. “It’s more a novelty than a legitimate currency. Most traders will accept it, but it catches the eye and draws suspicion. Copper is more common.”

They descended once more into silence. Mara finished her tea, and he offered her more.

“How long have you known Davy?” she finally asked, curious as much for the answer as the way he offered it. She anticipated vague nonsense, which would further enforce the need for her plan and reinvigorate her foraging efforts. “He only ever told me you were a friend and a fellow rebel. He never said how you knew each other. How did you meet?”

If she’d meant the question as casually as she asked it, she wouldn’t have noticed the way his body tightened with her words, face gone still and blank. For a long breath, the only movement in him was the dance of the fire in his eyes. He never looked at her. She wondered if he would answer.

“We were children together.” Vague, as she’d expected. But not as vague as she’d expected.

Her heart clenched. “Oh. I…” Surely she could manage more than that. “I’m sorry.” Though what she was sorry for, she couldn’t quite say. For asking? For not knowing? For assuming incorrectly? For the loss of a childhood friend? For wrapping herself so tightly in her own grief she hadn’t even considered that he might be carrying some too?

She slipped her hand into her pocket and ran a thumb over the face of the watch he’d given her.

Before she could decide what to say, or if she should say anything, he rose and left her sitting alone by the fire.

By the time he returned, Nick was stirring and the sun had just begun to sparkle off the dew-scattered greenery. Eli didn’t speak, and neither did she, but within an hour they’d broken camp, fed themselves and Nick, and started the day’s trek.

Even without words, though, there was a new weight between them. A new understanding that Mara didn’t think was solely a product of her own mind. She turned her attention outward, eyes peeled for the distinct pointed leaves of ringfeather, for the shadowed recesses of decaying logs where willibut liked to grow. And if her motivation was shifting–if her plan was feeling more like something to occupy her time and less like necessity–that didn’t really matter. She needed answers she could trust, and truth serum was the surest way to get them.