I Eat Monster and Gain Powers

Chapter 23: That never stops being unsettling

Eto didn’t say anything when he picked her back up. Just got an arm under her knees and started walking, and she made a noise of protest that turned into a sigh, and that was that.

”So,” she said, after maybe ten minutes of nothing but boots on dirt. ”Where are we headed exactly. I mean I know, Torak, but where in Torak. You have people there? Family? Please tell me you’re not just gonna walk in and start asking around because that’s how you get arrested, or worse, that’s how you get noticed, and trust me, you do not want to get noticed.”

”Mm.”

”Is that a yes you have people or a no you don’t or just a sound you make.”

”Sound.”

”Great. Fantastic. Very informative.” She shifted against his shoulder, wincing a little as her leg pulled. ”Okay, different question. Where are you from. Because I’ve heard a lot of accents in my life, ten languages, remember, I was the best in Rostalio, and yours isn’t one I know. It’s not northern, it’s not southern, it’s not anything I’ve heard on this continent.”

He didn’t answer.

”Is it a secret?”

”No.”

”Then where.”

”Far.”

”Far like across the sea far or far like a different kingdom far?”

”Far.”

She groaned, dragging the sound out theatrically. ”You’re impossible. You know that. Absolutely impossible. I’ve interrogated actual spies who talked more than you.”

”Did not ask interrogated.”

”This isn’t an interrogation, this is a conversation, there’s a difference, a conversation has two people talking and right now it’s just me, which, honestly, is starting to feel less like a conversation and more like me narrating a very long walk to a very quiet rock.”

He grunted. Kept walking.

The grass gave way slow to scattered trees, the road curving north the way it had the day before, and the sun climbed higher and started to bite through his shirt, and still he didn’t slow down. Didn’t so much as break stride.

”So why Torak,” she tried again. ”What’s the actual reason. You’ve got a dead man’s message to deliver, sure, but you could’ve given that to literally anyone, a courier, a guard, you didn’t have to walk it yourself carrying an injured woman on your shoulder like some kind of, I don’t know, deranged pack mule.”

”Mine now.”

”Why is it your problem. He wasn’t your family. He wasn’t your friend. He was a stranger who died in front of you and gave you a rock and a name.”

Silence.

”That’s it? That’s the whole answer? Nothing?”

”Not message, stone. Stone mine.”

”That’s not a reason, that’s just, that’s.. so you’re just going to take it for yourself.”

He didn’t correct her. She waited a beat, then two, then let it go with a sound of frustration that dissolved quick into something else, curiosity maybe, or just the restlessness of someone who hadn’t gone this long without talking in years.

”Are you serious about it,” she said, quieter now. ”Making me your woman. You said that. Back at the camp, you said it like it was already decided.”

”Me want you.”

”That’s insane. We met yesterday. Less than that. You don’t know anything about me.”

”Know enough.”

”You know I speak ten languages and used to work for a king and now I don’t. That’s not knowing a person, that’s knowing a resume.”

”You talk.”

”That’s not, that doesn’t count as knowing me, that’s just an observation anyone with ears could make in the first thirty seconds.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He shrugged, the motion jostling her, and she huffed but didn’t push further, not on that, though she circled back to it twice more over the next hour in smaller, sideways ways, testing the edges of it like a bruise she couldn’t stop pressing.

By midday the sun sat straight overhead and sweat had soaked through the back of his shirt, and she kept talking, about Saurata, about the palace, about a translator she’d trained under who used to fall asleep mid sentence, about the taste of some fruit that only grew near the capital that she hadn’t had in three years, and he made noises in the right places and otherwise let her fill the air.

”You could at least pretend to be interested,” she said.

”Yes.”

”You don’t sound like it.”

”Me not used to talk.”

”Not used to talking, what the heck did you go through? How can you know two rare languages and not know how to speak.”

He almost laughed. Almost. She caught the corner of his mouth twitch and pointed at it, triumphant, like she’d won something.

”There. See. You’re in there somewhere.”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t tell her to stop talking either, and she took that as permission and kept going, on and on, through the afternoon, through a stretch of road that ran along a dry creek bed, through her asking what half the plants around them were and answering her own question when he didn’t, until finally, somewhere past the worst heat of the day, she went quiet enough to actually look at him properly.

”What,” he said.

”Your hair.”

”What hair?”

”It’s a disaster. Genuinely. And the beard, I don’t even know what to call that, it’s not a beard, it’s more of a, an incident. You look like something that crawled out of a cave.”

”Did.”

”That explains it, then. But you can’t walk into Torak like that. People are gonna scream. Actually scream. Guards are gonna draw on you before you say a word.”

”So.”

”So you need a haircut. Obviously. And someone needs to deal with that beard before it becomes its own separate person.”

”You cut hair?”

”I mean, yes, sort of, I’ve done it before, it’s not my main skill set but I’m not gonna butcher you either.”

”Good.”

”Wait, really? That easy?”

She looked almost disappointed she hadn’t had to argue harder for it, and muttered something about needing to argue more just for the sport of it, and he kept walking. The light started going orange, long shadows stretching out ahead of them across a wide clearing, trees thinning to open ground, and she shifted against his shoulder, hopeful.

”This looks like a good spot. Camp spot. There’s water somewhere near, I can smell it, and it’s flat, and honestly my back is killing me from this position.”

He kept walking.

”Eto.”

Nothing.

”Eto, the sun’s going down.”

”Know.”

”So we should stop.”

”No.”

”What do you mean no, it’s getting dark, we need a fire, we need to eat, I need to not be slung over your shoulder like luggage for one more second than necessary.”

”Not tired. Later.”

”What do you mean you’re not tired. You’ve been walking for an entire day with no rest. Plus that massive sag you’re carrying that’s basically the weight of a damn noble’s carriage. Later when. It’s already later. This is later.”

He didn’t slow down, didn’t even glance at the clearing, just walked straight past it into the trees on the other side, and she made a sound of pure disbelief and started kicking, actually kicking, heels drumming against his chest, both fists hammering his back.

”Put me down. Put me down right now, I mean it, this is ridiculous, we’ve been walking since dawn, no person walks this long, you’re not human, put me down.”

He kept walking.

”I will bite you.”

”I will.”

He didn’t stop. She kicked twice more, hard, and swore in a language he didn’t recognize, and eventually the fight went out of her, her fists uncurling, her breath coming rough and annoyed against his back.

”You’re insane,” she muttered. ”Genuinely, actually insane.”

He didn’t answer, and the sun dropped fully behind the tree line, and still he walked, one boot after another, the dark coming up soft around them, and her voice kept going for a while, quieter now, less angry and more tired, commentary on the stars, on the cold creeping in, on how her stomach was starting to hurt from hunger, and somewhere in the middle of a sentence about a meal she used to eat as a child, her words slowed, then slurred, then stopped.

She slept.

He kept walking.

The night stretched long and quiet, just the sound of his own boots and her breathing gone even against his shoulder, and something in him, some part that used to be tired after four hours of anything, just wasn’t anymore. He walked through the deep dark and through the cold hour before dawn and through the first grey light bleeding up at the edge of the sky, and it was in that grey light that he saw it.

Walls. Black stone, high enough to swallow the horizon, stretching wide across the land ahead like something that had grown there instead of been built.

Torak.

He stopped.

Mikaela stirred at the change in motion, blinking against his shoulder, confused for a second before her eyes found the walls too and went wide.

”That’s it,” she said, voice thick with sleep. ”That’s Torak.”

He set her down carefully, and she wobbled, catching herself against him before finding her footing, testing weight on the bad leg with a wince.

”We set camp,” he said.

”Obviously not, look at us, look at me, we look like we crawled out of a war.”

He lowered the bag off his shoulder, the massive thing thudding into the grass, and turned toward the tree line without another word, gathering fallen branches in armfuls, dry ones, snapping the longer pieces down to size. When he’d built a rough stack he crouched over it, held two fingers out, and a small crack of lightning jumped from his skin into the wood, catching it in a curl of smoke that bloomed into flame.

”That never stops being unsettling,” she said, easing herself down near the fire.

He didn’t answer, just started digging through the bag, pulling out strips of dried meat, a dented pot, a handful of root vegetables he’d taken off the mercenaries without much thought at the time. He set the pot near the fire, added water from the skin, and started cutting the meat into the pot with one of the daggers, quiet, focused, the first real stillness either of them had had in almost a full day.

Mikaela watched him work, arms wrapped around her knees, and for once, didn’t say anything at all.