A Girl Named Calamity (Alyria 1)

Whatever he wanted, he wanted it bad. And if I wanted to keep the seal closed, I needed to find out what it was.

* * *

“When did you realize who I was?” I asked Weston while riding sideways in front of him on Gallant. The sun was warm, and the soft breeze blew through my dress. I was more than angry at Weston that his arms around me only felt like a really warm prison cell.

“Why do you ask questions you know the answers to?”

“Maybe because I don’t know,” I grumbled. Had he known before we’d even left Cameron? Was that why he’d changed his mind? Something flashed in my mind, and I had a moment of realization.

“Were you in my room in Cameron?” My eyes traveled from his stubbled jaw to his sparkling eyes.

“Why do you think that?” he asked with a small smile.

He so was.

“What the hell were you doing in my room, Weston?” I suddenly remembered the table being missing. “Did you take my table?”

“I didn’t think you would want it.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“Because it wasn’t exactly a table anymore.”

“Then what was it?”

“A pile of wood.”

I blinked. “You smashed my table? What’s wrong with you?”

“Just keeping you safe as always, Princess.”

I snorted. “Yea, until the seal is open.”

He didn’t say anything, but I thought I saw something else in his eyes before he looked away.

Indecision. Turmoil. Uncertainty.

Call it what you will.

But I called it hope.

He only confirmed what I saw by looking away; he’d apparently figured out that I could read his eyes like an open book.

I was glad for the interruption of my thoughts when we rode over a hill, and I saw what was on the other side.

I was glad for the interruption of my thoughts.

Not at all about what I saw.

“No, no, no . . .” I said while I shook my head in accord, “you’ve absolutely lost it. No, no, no . . .” I repeated with a terror I had never felt before. Weston ignored me and kept walking us forward. “We’re not going on that!”

“Yes, we are.”

Panic crawled up my back while I looked at the cliff in front of us, and the thin, translucent bridge that ran to the other side.

“You can do whatever you want, but I’m not going on it.” I tried to jump down, but he held me tight. I had never known I was scared of heights, but I’d never been around them before. This was by far the scariest encounter so far, and I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.

“Please, Weston. I can’t. Let’s just go around,” I begged. The bridge didn’t even look wide enough for a horse. How he would get Gallant to walk across it was a mystery to me. He was brave, but not that brave.