"It helps," I replied, touched by the thoughtfulness of someone who beat his opponent to death barehanded not twelve hours before.
"You can fashion a new crown." His eyes went to the delicate silver ring around my head in amusement.
I had forgotten about it and touched the filigreed silver. I always wanted to be a princess when I was little. Maybe a goddess of sorts was close enough. "Can I keep one?" I asked and studied the murky green glass.
He hesitated.
"Or … maybe I can see them whenever I'm feeling homesick?" I added, realizing how important the fragments of Moldavite were to him if they represented his family honor.
"I like this better."
Replacing them in the pouch, I tossed them back to him. "Thank you, Batu."
"I understand." He shrugged.
You are so weird. Sweet in one instance, collecting human ears in the next … I didn't understand what I was dealing with, because he was too foreign to the kind of people I'd met thus far in my life.
"When you are ready to sleep, we have shelter," he said and motioned to the pup tent.
"I'm ready," I said, exhausted by my day. "Will we both fit?"
"We'll make do, ugly one."
Whatever. I still didn't get his sense of humor. I went to the tent and saw he'd put down one blanket on the ground, and there was another rolled and waiting. He didn't follow me, for which I was somewhat grateful. I was tired enough to tell him this sucked, and I didn't think it was the right emotion considering he didn't have to help me survive out here at all.
I crawled into the pup tent. The felt blocked the breeze. While nowhere near as comfortable as a bed, it had to do. Resting on my side, facing the felt wall with my back to the center of the tent, I closed my eyes.
I think I do want Carter to find me. But I wasn't sure. What was worst about everything I'd been through: the helplessness of knowing I could do nothing to change my fate? I was either being manipulated by others or … lost.
I slept deeply at first, until I rolled from my side onto my stomach. Pain from my hands and arms shot through me, and I jerked awake.
"Owww," I muttered and delicately shifted off of them once more. My lower body was so stiff, it trumped my arm pain, if only for a moment.
"What is it, goddess?" Batu's sleepy voice came from beside me.
My back was pressed to his once I straightened. He was warm and solid. I stifled tears of pain and released the breath I was holding.