[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]
“Wait up,” he said, jogging a few steps to catch up to me when I didn’t slow down. He slid his arm around my waist once he drew abreast of me, squeezing me closer for a few steps before his grip loosened. “You okay?”
“Better than you,” I said, grinning at him. “I’m not the one currently wrestling with self-doubt.”
“How did—”
“I’ve known you a long time now, Thom. You don’t have to say it for me to figure it out.”
He shook his head again, smiling crookedly. “Sometimes I wonder what the hell I was thinking when I thought I could walk away from you.”
“Well, that’s in the past, now,” I said, idly rubbing Lin’s back in the sling. The newborn made a soft sighing sound and I looked down to see him watching me with huge blue eyes. I smiled and leaned down to kiss his head before I turned my eyes back to the path that continued trips up toward the forge had worn through the grass. Someday we’d need to lay bricks or gravel or something keep it from turning completely to mud.
Someday when we have time to breathe, someday when we have a chance to worry about more than just surviving day to day and fighting everything that comes at us.
The next threat would be coming far too soon—that much was certain. It would probably be Leviathan, though Vammatar’s sisters would probably show up hard on his heels—if they didn’t come first—and then there Olympium. Somehow, I doubted they were done with us. We still had things and people they wanted.
They wouldn’t get them if I had anything to say or do about it, but they still wanted them anyway. They’d learn a bloody lesson soon enough.
As if they hadn’t already learned one on that field.
A grim smile crossed my face and Thom blinked at me.
“What’s that look for?”
I shook my head. “Just thinking,” I said. Telling him what I’d been thinking about would only make him worried.
He seemed to sense that and didn’t ask, simply shrugging. “All right.”
I could see J.T. standing in the doorway of the forge and smiled faintly. “Looks like I was right.”
Thom followed my gaze. “Apparently. Jay!”
J.T. whipped around and the look on his face coupled with his ashen complexion made my stomach drop.
Shit. What now?
