Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (z-lib.org).mobi

CHAPTER 5
The next few days passed in a blur of discomfort and exhaustion. We stayed off
the Vy and kept to side roads and narrow hunting trails, moving as quickly as the
hilly and sometimes treacherous terrain would allow. I lost all sense of where we
were or how far we had gone.
After the first day, the Darkling and I had ridden separately, but I found that I
was always aware of where he was in the column of riders. He didn’t say a word
to me, and as the hours and days wore on, I started to worry that I’d somehow
offended him. (Though, given how little we’d spoken, I wasn’t sure how I could
have managed it.) Occasionally, I caught him looking at me, his eyes cool and
unreadable.
I’d never been a particularly good rider, and the pace the Darkling set was
taking its toll. No matter which way I shifted in my saddle, some part of my
body ached. I stared listlessly at my horse’s twitching ears and tried not to think
of my burning legs or the throbbing in my lower back. On the fifth night, when
we stopped to make camp at an abandoned farm, I wanted to leap from my horse
in joy. But I was so stiff that I settled for sliding awkwardly to the ground. I
thanked the soldier who saw to my mount and waddled slowly down a small hill
to where I could hear the soft gurgle of a stream.
I knelt by the bank on shaky legs and washed my face and hands in the cold
water. The air had changed over the last couple of days, and the bright blue skies
of autumn were giving way to sullen grey. The soldiers seemed to think that we
would reach Os Alta before any real weather came on. And then what? What
would happen to me when we reached the Little Palace? What would happen
when I couldn’t do what they wanted me to do? It wasn’t wise to disappoint