"Ashyn?" he whispered. "Can you hear me?"
She felt a dampness on her cheek. Not a kiss, but a . . . lick. Tova nudged Ronan aside. At the same moment that she realized it was not a dream, she noticed the anxiety in Ronan's dark eyes and the tightness in his voice.
She started to scramble up, but he grasped her shoulder and whispered, "Shhh," moti
oning for her not to wake the others.
She blinked and looked around. Tova was sitting beside her now, wide awake. Gregor's snores said he was sleeping soundly. Across the campsite, Wenda seemed to be doing the same, in the blankets she shared with Beatrix. Except the older woman wasn't there.
"Bea--" Ashyn began.
Ronan shushed her again. "I saw her go to relieve herself. But it's been too long. I thought it better if you checked on her. It could be a . . . female problem."
Ashyn suspected Beatrix was well past any such "problems," but in any event, he was right--Beatrix would panic if a stranger came after her in the night, particularly after what had happened with Wenda. Remembering that, though . . .
"I can't leave Wenda alone with Gregor," Ashyn whispered.
Ronan cursed under his breath.
"I'll go," she said. "You wait here."
He peered into the night. Even the moon's light seemed to shun this place. They'd used the lanterns judiciously, but the last one had run out the night before.
"I'll follow a bit, while staying close to camp," he said.
She nodded and stood.
"You have your blade?" Ronan whispered.
She nodded again, and withdrew it. Then she set out with Tova.
Twenty-six
Ashyn headed across the plain. When her foot touched down on sand, the change came as such a surprise that her boot almost slid out from under her.
Yes, she remembered now--they'd stopped at one of the rare sandy areas, setting up camp on a patch where scrubby cacti had taken hold. It'd been two days since they'd passed the last oasis, and Wenda had spotted red flowers on the cacti nearly fifty paces off the road. She'd insisted they stop early so they could camp there, where the ground was soft. Ashyn had known she ought to refuse--they had to use every moment of sunlight, but the girl had been so entranced by the flowers, and Beatrix's old bones had ached so much from sleeping atop rock. Ashyn hadn't had the heart to refuse.
She adjusted her stride for the sand. It did feel better. Softer. Slower, though, too, as each step slid a little. There were patches of rock, and she found herself steering toward them, to pick up the pace. Tova figured out what she was doing and led the way across the rock.
As they walked, Ashyn squinted around for Beatrix. There were no cacti here, no piles of stones, so the old woman--standing or squatting--should be easy to spot. But Ashyn saw nothing. She tried calling to her. Her voice carried in the silence and no one replied.
How far did she go?
There was no need to go far. Since the scorpion episode, Ashyn had chosen camps carefully. Tonight, there'd been no obstacles to hide behind, so she'd told them to simply walk far enough that smells wouldn't waft back to camp.
Ashyn sighed. Soon she wouldn't be dreaming of dangerous boys, but of hairbrushes, and hot water, and toilets with doors that latched. And as long as she had none of those, she suspected there was little use in dreaming of the other either. She was rather grateful they hadn't passed a still body of water in two days, so she'd been spared the horror of her own reflection.
She was so caught up in her thoughts that when Tova growled, she only reached out and absently patted his head. He grabbed her fingers in his teeth. She stopped abruptly to look around.
"Beatrix?"
No answer.
As Ashyn looked, she caught a rustle. No, not a rustle. This was just as quiet, but more of a rasping, sliding sound, like something moving across sand.
Tova's growl drowned out the noise. She tried to shush him, but when he finally stopped with a snort of satisfaction, the sound was gone.
A snake. That's what it had sounded like. They got them in the village sometimes, coming in from the edge of the forest. Little green ones, harmless, children scooping them up as pets. But the snakes of the Wastes could be dangerous. She'd seen men bitten by them, their fellow travelers rushing them to Edgewood for treatment. Some were merely ill, easily treated. Others . . . others were not.