The Path of Giants by B.T. Narro (year 7 reading list .TXT) 📗

couple of hours of daylight left. I couldn’t imagine sleeping now, and even if we could, we would be up again while it was still dark.

“You’re going to have to keep going a lot longer.”

She nodded. “I know.”

Over the better part of the hour, I watched her. Her eyes seemed heavy as she blinked, but she didn’t seem to be dozing off like before. Eventually I took my gaze off her.

That turned out to be a mistake.

It wasn’t long after that I heard a gasp as I noticed movement—Hadley falling from her horse.

She hit the ground awkwardly and screamed at the top of her lungs, clearly in terrible pain. I pulled my horse to a stop and jumped off. I ran for her as she grabbed her shoulder and continued to cry out in agony.

There was a grotesque bulge of her shoulder; it was clearly severely dislocated. The pain seemed to be torturing her as she continued to scream and squirm.

“Try to hold still!” I told her as I urgently put my hands around her shoulder. “This is going to hurt even worse, but it will be over quickly.”

I felt the hand of her good arm fisting in my shirt. She twisted her whole body as I began to heal, my mana actually moving her shoulder back into place. She seemed to be holding in a scream as she buried her face in my chest, but this was a fairly easy injury to heal. My mana knew exactly what to do.

It only took a moment to get her shoulder back in place and a single moment more to repair the damage of the dislocation.

“It’s done,” I told her.

She sucked in air as she slowly uncurled her fist from the side of my shirt and peeled her face away from my chest. Her breath slowly returned to normal as she moved her arm around, testing her shoulder.

“By the devil’s tail,” she uttered as she glanced up at me. I was hovered over her on my knees as she sat on the ground. “I’ve felt pain before, but not like that. Thank you, Jon.”

I figured it was a little intrusive, but I couldn’t help my curiosity as I let my mana run through her body to look for old damage. No, she was fit and healthy. I didn’t know why I had the sense that this was not her worst injury. Perhaps whatever had happened to her, it was too long ago to matter much anymore. At least in regard to her body.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

I noticed the dark circles under her eyes as I looked at her from close up. She seemed even more tired now after this ordeal, as quick as it was. I stood up first, but she looked as if she didn’t have the strength to get up on her own. I offered my hand.

She took it. I pulled her up with hardly any effort.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I don’t think I can ride any longer without falling off again. I didn’t sleep last night.”

“At all?” I asked.

“Maybe an hour. I was just starting to rest when I heard your message. I traveled through the night to get to you.”

“Oh.” I checked on the setting sun. “We’ll only lose an hour or two if we make camp now rather than later. It’s fine.”

She nodded, then rubbed her shoulder a bit. “It still hurts, though I can tell it shouldn’t.”

“Phantom pain,” I said. “It’s normal.”

She nodded again. “Yes, sometimes pain is more in the mind than in the body.”

It sounded as if she was speaking from experience.

“Jon?” she asked as we went for our horses.

“Yeah?”

“I’m not sure what might happen tonight.”

My heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”

“With the callstone.”

Oh. I’d had the wrong idea. “What about it?”

“I don’t know what it might do. It’s a recent creation of mine. I’ve never had it close while sleeping near someone else.”

“Isn’t there some way you can disable it?”

“No, it’s not like a typical enchantment. Disabling and re-enabling would take too much time and effort. I just wanted to warn you.”

“Consider me warned.”

Frankly, after everything that happened in the last couple of days, I wasn’t worried about it. In fact, sharing some sort of waking dream with Hadley didn’t sound too bad.

My spirits were picking up. Soon we would be at the castle. I hoped my friends had returned from Koluk after dismantling the Thieves’ Guild and regaining control of the city. It had been a long time since I had seen them. And I could probably pass Hadley to Remi, who would look after her and speak up on her behalf.

I didn’t like the looks Kataleya had given me when she seemed to think I was standing up for the witch just because of her beauty. The last thing I wanted was to hear that from Reuben and Michael as well.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I had many odd sensations before I realized that I was dreaming. I knew where I was, in the room of King Frederick Garlin of Rohaer. I didn’t know how I knew that it was him here with me in his room, but that wasn’t the strangest part. It was how I felt fear like I had never felt before. It was a terror of complete vulnerability, like he was about to tell me to disrobe in front of him and I would have to obey.

The king gawked at me. He had gray hair, fat cheeks, and beady, dark eyes. When he spoke, it felt like my worst nightmare was coming true.

“Remove your dress now,” he demanded casually.

I looked toward the door and thought about making a run for it, but I knew there were guards outside who would stop me by the king’s orders. Then Frederick would be angry. I didn’t want that.

I found a mirror on the other side of the room and saw myself in it. It was me, Jon Oklar, but I was wearing a thin dress like the kind a