The fire crackles hypnotically, fighting as the wind plucks at the edges it the fmes. The scent of cumin and paprika lingers in the cool air, wrapping me for the first time in something familiar, fvours from my old life. I run the st bit of the roti around the inside of the bowl, catching the st smear of chicken and herbs, and shove it in my mouth without shame. Fvours! No cold meats, no sad old cheese, no stale bread! Fvours, real fvours. My eyes drift to the soldiers passing by, and for a moment, I want to fling myself at them and beg them with every fibre of my being: Please. Take me with you. Please!

  “Arken really needs to import some of this stuff,” I murmur to Caspian between moans of gluttonous pleasure.

  Caspian looks down at me with a raised brow and a limp smirk, letting out an amused huff before returning his attention to the horse. He tightens the buckles with a pull that shifts his shoulder beneath his dark fabric.

  We’ve stayed here longer than pnned. Pavlore and Caspian spent what felt like hours bent over maps in the war tent with hushed voices, heads close, plotting allies, assessing loyalty and counting those already tied to Caspian’s pn. Now the evening is pressing in, and we should have already left.

  Caspian stands in the dying light, his silhouette framed against the darkening sky, as I cross my legs on the ground, polishing off his pte. He adjusts the horse’s straps, tightening them with the same practised ease and authority.

  After the speech, the men came and shook hands with Caspian, pledging their loyalty to him. It’s not apparent now, but I know his voice will spread like fire in their vilges once they return. Caspian, the freedom fighter. That’s what Pavlore said the men decided to call him.

  We are going to war…and I’ll be there to see it.

  The thought sets deep anxiety within me, and my will to go back to my reimagined closet— is greater than…ever.

  …Arken isn’t my home…why did I think that?

  This isn’t my world. These aren’t my people. Get a grip, Genevieve.

  I drag myself to my feet, brushing the crumbs from my hands, and cross the space to join Caspian, adjusting the bridle. His hand slips, the strap tugging awkwardly, and before I can think about it, I step closer.

  “Here,” I mumble, reaching to hold the edge steady.

  For a moment, my fingers brush his. A snap of heat jumps up my arm, and I yank the limb back like I’ve just touched a live wire. He gives me a concerned gnce and looks me over, assessing for any damage.

  “Are you okay?” He brushes his hand on my arm, and I jerk it back, avoiding his touch.

  What am I doing? Holding a warhorse steady for a half-mythical soldier in the middle of a rebel camp? This isn’t me. This isn’t my life.

  Is this what Stockholm syndrome is? Have I started to think I belong here?

  Why the hell am I trusting a man who’s keeping me hostage without a shred of expnation? He’s literally strapped a fucking tracker to my wrist.

  “I don’t know anymore.” My throat tightens unexpectedly, and I cover it with a cough, stepping back as he finishes the strap without comment.

  By night's fall, the world has turned into a frosty silver and dark blue. The camp’s ughter dies down behind us as we lead the horse out into the trees, the mist clinging to the ground in low swirls. I look behind, watching the dim glow of the camp die out as we walk further away with the horse. What am I supposed to do now? How do I escape a magical tracker, a massive man, and a war?

  “Am I going to die?” I turn to face Caspian’s back as he leads the horse.

  “What?” He turns his head slightly to answer me.

  “...nothing.” I sigh, facing behind us again.

  Once we walk through the forest entrance, Caspian stops the horse and gets us situated in the saddle. We ride through lengths of dark trees and miles of shrubbery. The more ground we cover, the further away from my thoughts I become. But with every step towards Arken, the politics, and the war, the coil in my chest tightens.

  The pale sky causes Caspian’s amber bracelet to glint, and in a stark moment of crity, I realise…I am completely and utterly at the mercy of the world. There is nothing I can do to change the fate I’ve been dragged into, and I don’t think Caspian can either. We’ve both been set up for Death’s game, and the probability of us pying checkmate is slim. Too slim…

  I can’t hide or run from this war, especially with him by my side. Even if I make it to the forest, who is to say it’ll still be standing when I get there or even if I can get back?

  The huts of Eibera…Pavlore made it seem like they knew what happened to me. Do they also know how I can get back? I need to go there. Caspian knows about me, and he pns to keep me near. He’s going to take me there. This is it. Get to Eibera. Get home. Avoid the war.

  Caspian curves the horse off from the trees, taking a road we didn’t pass through on the way here. He cuts the horse through the frostbitten grass towards the silhouette of a crumbling farmhouse. The roof is half-caved in, and the stone walls are cracked and weary with age, but it’s shelter. Thank God, I don’t need to be caressing him in a tent again.

  Caspian swings off the horse and guides it inside, tying it to a broken post as he scouts the area. The horse drinks from a rain-filled bucket, and Caspian takes off the bundles tied to it. Inside, the air smells of damp wood and old ash. Moonlight spills in through the broken beams overhead, raining the ground in a silvery light. Caspian drops the packs near the strongest wall and, with his ferra, starts a quick fire. Once lit, he leans against the wall and sinks down the cold stone, head tilted back, eyes half-lidded as if listening to something I can’t hear. He must be thinking over today…

  Well, I mean it’s official. He’s going to commit treason. That is a heavy thought to bear on your chest.

  I take the bundle Caspian gave me with his clothes, and without a word, I slip into one of the narrow horse stalls. Making sure that Caspian wouldn’t be able to see in. I don’t need him to see anymore of me. I take off my outer yers and pce them on the cloth. I pull out Caspian’s clothes, the scent of cloves and cedar clinging to the fabric. I pull them over my shift, and become drowned in them as they swallow my frame.

  When I step back out, the cold night air whistles through the rough fabric.

  Caspian opens his eyes at my noise, and locks his gaze onto me. For a moment, he keeps his stare, dragging it over me in his clothes, and the air between us seems to tighten. He squints in thought and closes his eyes again, leaning his head back against the wall.

  He pats the ground next to him, and I walk over, sitting cross-legged a foot from the wall, our knees almost touching. I watch him, thoughts swirling around my head as I analyse his face. The flickers of the firelight highlight the hardness of his jaw as it clenches, and the curve of his furrowed brows. Even in rest, his face speaks of the weight of his thoughts.

  “Why did you ask me that?” His voice cuts through the fire's crackles and the building's hanging silence. He opens his eyes slowly, looking at me with hazel eyes, the fire highlighting his green specks.

  “Ask what?” I tilt my head at him, my smile long gone since the border.

  “Why do you think you’re going to die?”

  I look at him, unblinking. I hesitate to answer, swallowing a lump in my throat.

  “We’re going to war, aren’t we…you said I’d be of use.” At this, Caspian sits up straighter and rests his arm over his knee, half facing my direction.

  “You’ll be lucky if you even see it. I wouldn’t drag you onto a battlefield, that’s just murder.” He takes a breath and leans on his arm. “You can be put to more uses than just war. You’re smart. Pavlore doesn’t need to know all the details.” So he was implying to Pavlore that I could be useful in any regard, not just the war?

  Pawell people…That’s been thrown about a lot in retion to me. He asked Pavlore about it. Does that mean he knows too…about my unworldly pce?

  I have to know what he knows.

  “You know, don’t you?” I stare at him, my heart beating so loudly that there is no room for it to hide.

  “Know what?” His eyes look over my face, as if calcuting my next response.

  “That…I’m not from here.” There. I’ve said it. Here comes the moment of truth…

  Caspian squints at me with a look showing he’s weighing up whether he should answer my question.

  “Yes…But it’s not where you’re from that concerns me. It’s why you’re here that does.”

  “I came here by accident. I tried to tell you that when we first met.”

  “That doesn’t change the reality that your soul is walking on the wrong ground.” Caspian takes a breath and leans back against the stone. ”We have stories. Myths. Of people like you, and they’re not kind stories. You could be a danger to everyone here.”

  “Is that what Ester is doing…researching if I am?” Business in the south my ass.

  Caspian doesn’t look at me, but he huffs, shaking his head against the stone.

  “You really are a smart girl.”

  He pauses for a moment.

  “If it is true…that fact makes everything the more terrifying.”

  “So…why keep me close? Why not…hand me over? Or kill me?” The words leave me quietly, heavy with the fear that it still might be an option for him.

  Caspian replies in a low, measured tone. “Because if you are what I fear…you’re safer near me than in anyone else’s hands.” Like Nesseth and Aaedan…the people he tried to hide me from in the capital.

  Has Caspian kept me chained to his side…to protect me? What would others want from me? What do I need protection from, because I doubt that what Nesseth and Aaedan could do to me can be so severe that I have to have a constant bodyguard? What am I to these people, that makes them go out of their noble duty to keep me secure? I am a nobody to these people. I am just a lost girl who stumbled in from another world.

  I take a deep breath, calming the rise of annoyance in my attitude.

  “Am I something you’re afraid of, Caspian?”

  Caspian takes a long pause.

  “...I don’t know yet.”

  Well, that’s comforting…

  I need to know what I am to him. What’s he so afraid of?

  I open my mouth and begin to speak, but Caspian’s voice cuts into mine with a firm tone.

  “No more questions tonight.” He then turns his head away, stretching his legs out, and casually rests his hand near his sword.

  “But—”

  “Sleep, Genevieve.” His voice is low and leaves no room for argument.

  I’ll find out. I need to know what my presence means to these people.

  I shuffle back and lean against the wall. I stare up at the hole in the roof, listening to the creaks of the old wood and the whistles of the wind as they surge through the cracks in the stone. He doesn’t want people he doesn’t trust to know. He has Ester out investigating me…

  I pull my knees closer to my chest and rest my head and arms over them, letting out a thoughtful sigh. Caspian keeps me close so others can’t ‘harm me’. But he’s afraid of what I am? I mean, I’d be afraid of an alien as well. Is that what it—

  My thoughts are cut by Caspian’s arm wrapping low around me, and in one swift motion, he pulls me to him, pressing me firmly into his side—the heat of his hand sears through the thin fabric onto my waist.

  “Let your thoughts sleep. We have no time to spare at dawn, so rest up.” He turns his head slightly toward me, his breath brushing my temple.

  I freeze at the unexpected touch. My pulse tripping over itself wildly and unsteadily. His hand lingers for a second too long, then slips away, retreating back to its pce by the wall without another word. I turn my face to him, and take a small breath, closing my eyes and leaning against him. I want to hate him. I need to hate him. But somehow, without even trying, he disarms the fight in me. There must be walls between us, and they need to be there for what he’s done. Yet how can he pacify me so? Pacify me enough for me to forget about them entirely?

  …I suppose I’ll find out soon enough.

  cxxx{}::::::::::::::::::::::::::::>

  The dark, cloudy sky looms overhead as we ride towards Arken. The bitter wind cuts through my clothes, and I pull my cloak tighter around my body. The farmhouse fades behind us, another location swallowed by frost and dust. There is a light drizzle falling onto our clothes, and I predict it’s going to get worse by the colour of the sky and the lowness of the clouds. But we ride on like rain is the least of our problems.

  The route to the farmhouse was a bit out of our way, extending our journey back to Arken. But the rain and the lengthy journey don’t fill my thoughts; the ndscape does. I don’t think I’ve appreciated the beauty of this world. The hills, the clean air, the trueness of what Earth should look like? It’s astounding. Purple flowers litter the ground, glistening with the dew that blesses them.

  “What are they called?” I shout through the strong wind and light rain, pointing at the flowers.

  “Nabi.” Caspian presses his head to my ear and replies just as loudly, so I can hear his response. Nabi…

  “They’re beautiful!” I call out.

  “Do they remind you of home?”

  I’m not sure why, but I giggle at his words, a little soft and breathless, like it slips out before I can catch it. Maybe it’s the absurdity of it all. Maybe it’s because, for once, someone knows the truth, and I’m not afraid they know.

  Rain trickles down my cheeks, catching at the corners of my mouth. The air smells like wet grass and crushed petals, the Nabi flowers painting the ground like soft strokes of a violet wash. My heart should feel heavy. It should be crushed under the weight of everything that’s happened, and everything still to come.

  But instead, it flutters.

  “I think I forgot how to miss home,” I say, almost to myself. “It feels…far away. Not just in distance, but in shape. In colour.” I do not miss the grey.

  Caspian’s arm tightens slightly at my waist, just enough to keep me steady. He doesn’t answer, but I swear I feel the faintest hum in his chest. It’s not quite ughter and not quiet words, but it’s a grounding sound. Like, he’s also trying to accept that I’m unworldly, a fool who walked in and didn’t come with a map.

  The horse’s hooves spsh through the muddy path, droplets flickering up against my shoes. I throw my head back for a moment and let the rain fall on my face, cool and clean, as if it could wash the worry from my skin. And I don’t miss the pollution!

  For a heartbeat, it feels like I could almost belong here. Almost. Like this is a pce I once knew, but lost in memory. But the moment fades as quickly as it comes.

  Almost belong here. But not.

  This isn’t my home.