Ghostwalker - Erik Scott De Bie [69]
Then she snapped back to reality. Arya had been around dead bodies in her time, and nothing distinguished Walker's body from a corpse.
Had Walker made it to the grove alive only to die in the night? Arya remembered nothing beyond the ghostfire elemental's attack. Had she fought so hard to save Walker only to fail now? Had she lost him before she could figure out the key to this whole mystery?
Tears leaking down her cheeks, Arya knelt beside Walker and pleaded with him to wake, open his eyes, and rise up.
Then, to her surprise, he did.
Walker's eyes flickered open and he looked up at her in confusion.
"What is the matter?" he asked matter-of-factly, though worry flashed through his eyes.
Blinking with wonder, Arya thought her senses had deceived her. "Walker?"
"Of course," said the ghostwalker. "What is wrong?" He sat up with startling smoothness of movement, looking around for attackers, and Arya stumbled back, stunned.
"N-no," she stammered. "I-I just thought you were… you were…"
"Dead," finished Walker, his voice a dry rasp. He made no move to replace his leathers. She noticed he rubbed at his silver ring, as though reassuring himself.
"Yes," whispered Arya. Remembering the tears on her cheeks, she wiped them away with an embarrassed jerk.
If Walker had noticed the tears, he made no sign.
Rising, Walker drew his sword and stalked around the clearing, peering into the shadows cast by tree branches. It was a wide grove, surrounded on all sides by towering shadowtops and firs taller than any Arya had seen before. A stream ran through it, and a few boulders were scattered around in piles. A doe and her two young stood on the other side of the grove, drinking at a small pool, paying no attention as Walker made his way within an arm's length of them, though he paid them scrupulous attention.
Alone for the moment, and without worry gripping her, Arya felt surrounded by the deepest feeling of peace she had ever known, as though this grove were a font of the primeval nature that had given birth to humankind and all races of Faerun. She had heard rangers and druids speak of the tranquility of the natural world, but she had never felt it herself. Everything seemed right, in balance… all except for the shadowy man walking toward her.
"What is it?" asked Arya, surprised at how calm her voice sounded. "What were you looking for?"
"No one," answered Walker, sitting down cross-legged before her.
It was not until he fixed her with his sapphire gaze that she realized he had not answered her question as she had asked it, but by then it did not matter.
The two sat and stared at one another, neither speaking.
Arya was not sure why, but she felt more comfortable around this man who looked so forbidding than she felt around her friends. She was peripherally aware of his cold aura, but she saw through it. In the light, his eyes shone blue and his hair was a dirty blond. His ears were slightly pointed, though not as pointed as a half-elf's. This man definitely had elf blood in his family line-perhaps even a parent who was a half-elf.
"Why have you brought me here?" she asked, without really meaning to speak.
"I do not know," said Walker.
"You don't know or you can't tell me?"
"Either," came the soft response. Walker reached for the cloak discarded at his side.
Arya caught his hand and his eyes shot to hers. She shook her head. "It's all right." She motioned to his scars. "They don't frighten me."
Walker seemed assuaged by this, but he still hesitated before he sat back, no cloak in hand. Arya had watched an inner conflict take place, she knew, but whether it was over his cloak or her hand on his wrist, she did not know.
She smiled. "You haven't been around many women before, have you?"
For just an instant, the thick aura of resolve slipped from around Walker and she caught the hint of an ironic smile.
It might have been the first real show