"I don't think I could."
"Would you like me to tell you a story?"
She laughed softly, but he looked over and said, "The offer is a true one. You did much for me tonight. More than . . ." He shifted. "You did much, and it is appreciated. To save me from that horror, you had to face it yourself and . . . And I . . . cannot imagine what it was like, but I am grateful. So I offer you a story, though perhaps not one well told."
"Do you even know any stories?"
"One or two, but I'll not admit it past tonight."
She smiled. "All right then, Kitsune." She stretched onto the floor. "Tell me a tale."
EIGHTEEN
"Keeper."
Moria woke to Gavril shaking her shoulder, his voice taut with urgency.
"Moria."
When she moved, his hand shot to her mouth. That startled her enough to make her leap up, but as sleep scattered, she remembered Kiri's death and went still.
"Stay quiet," he said, and waited for her nod before lowering his hand.
Quiet. That's what it was outside the wagon. Completely silent. Gavril's whisper had echoed through the dark wagon. They had stopped, and Moria couldn't even pick up the sound of the horses sighing or stamping.
She felt something though. Her skin prickled, as if she'd caught a smell or a sound. But she hadn't. She rubbed her eyes and gave her head a sharp shake to clear the last fog of sleep.
"It's still night," she whispered, looking up at the stars through the hole.
Gavril nodded. She tried to calculate the time. The moon had been at its zenith when they'd left Kiri's compound. Then they'd talked and Gavril had told her a story. One about the Keeper of Edgewood, from ages past. An old and comforting tale. She'd fallen asleep as he reached the end.
"Were you awake?" she asked.
"I thought I was, but I must have drifted off. I woke to this."
He crawled to the door flap. Moria resisted the urge to pull him back. She held herself still, ready to leap at the first sign of trouble, but he undid the flap and opened it, and the silence continued.
Moria crept up beside him and looked out. There was nothing to see. Nothing at all. They were still in the steppes, the land an endless plain of grass, dotted with distant hills. But that was all they saw. There was no sign of the bandits.
"Are they waiting for us to follow on foot again?" Gavril murmured.
"It's not the same," Moria said, the words coming before she could consider them.
"Hmm?"
She shook her head, but he peered down at her. "What's wrong, Keeper?"
When she didn't answer, he said, "You're unsettled again, and it has nothing to do with the lack of your blade and your beast." He drew back onto his haunches. "Nor was that it entirely the last time. You sensed something. The passing of spirits. Death."
"I have no ability to--"
"You are attuned to the spirits. You could not hear them at my mother's house, but you sensed their anguished departure." He considered. "A learned ability, having been in such spirit-disturbed places repeatedly. Now you sense that here."
"Yes, and yet . . . no. It's . . ." She rubbed her arms briskly. "I'm no good at analyzing such things, Kitsune. I am unsettled, and it is not the same as earlier. That's all I can tell you."
He nodded and carefully stepped from the wagon. Again, she had to fight not to yank him back in. She shook that off. Cowering in a wagon was not her way or his, and she was hardly going to make it so now.
She lowered herself to the ground and peered into the night.