The Goblin Warrior (Beneath Sands Book 2) by Emma Hamm (100 books to read txt) 📕

bring more flasks of water. What we carry now is enough to keep us alive, but your skin will be unused to dryness of the desert. Bring what you can to drink, but bring more than you would need here.”

The spark he was so used to was back in her eyes. Perhaps the adventure was bringing back the woman that had fought him so fiercely.

Shusar nodded towards her. “She appears ready.”

“Too ready?” Ruric asked as the woman he called wife gathered more flasks from the corner.

A grim expression crossed the elder goblin’s face. “I’m not sure that there is such a thing in this case. We will all need to be on our guard it seems.”

“I will not have her harmed, Shusar.”

“It is not my intention.” But that grim expression hadn’t shifted from the other goblins face. “But if she strays, I make no promises.”

Ruric was about to argue when Jane finally returned. She stopped before the others and swished the water in the four flasks she held in her arms.

“It’s not quite enough.” She said. “But it’ll have to do. We can’t carry too many or we’ll be slow.”

Ruric nodded. “We should carry as many as we need.”

“I’m not certain where we’ll be exiting the caves, but hopefully we’ll be able to stop at a town and refill. Speed is the goal here isn’t it?”

He stared at her for a long moment. Ruric drank in the excitement and determination on her face. She seemed so small holding the skins of water that were too large for her.

He couldn’t lose her. The thought was always bubbling at the corner of his mind. It hovered around him like a dark shadow that refused to disappear even when the light touched it.

Their mission had given her a purpose. A reason to keep living and surviving. She was going to redeem herself. She was going on an adventure. He understood those feelings. But in this moment she was closer to the Jane that would rather have bit him than let her near him.

The Jane that had looked his Queen in the eye while she was on her knees before creatures she no doubt considered to be nightmares.

That was a woman he knew how to deal with. He knew how to gentle her, how to calm her soul into trusting him again.

“You stay with us.” He muttered as he strode towards her. His hand caught the back of her head and he pulled her towards him so that his other hand could span her back. “Any sign of trouble and you run.”

She did not seem to have any of the same worries as him. “We’re going to be fine, Ruric. But if you or your men start feeling sick, you go to the caves. I’ll find Simon.”

But he did not know whether or not that would be enough. How could she stop a man she did not know how to find? How could any of them?

“Ruric.”

The deep voice snapped both of them away from each other.

Jane tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear and nodded towards the two goblins waiting for them. “Alright then. Time to go isn’t it?”

As one, the goblins and human woman turned. She stayed in between all of them and was quickly lost in the many turns and climbs they made.

There were points when she was certain she was going to get stuck. The small spaces were eerily similar. They travelled further into the caves and she realized this cave ran perpendicular to the cave she had just been in.

There was a certain quality to the air that she had not yet forgotten. A dry heat that made her want to shake off the cloak she had wrapped around her shoulders.

That smell reminded her of home. Or something like it. Not necessarily the place she remembered when she dreamed. But it was the closest thing she would get to a home.

But wasn’t a home supposed to be somewhere filled with love and laughter? In the tent, those emotions had been present. Yet her memories were filled with something much darker than that. Hardship, hunger, dehydration until her tongue had swollen in her mouth. These things always seemed to war with the good memories.

Was a home supposed to feel like that?

Or was it supposed to feel like the beauty the goblins had given her? A safe place to lay down and sleep. Food aplenty and water that chimed in her ears. Glowing fish that skittered whenever she made ripples around them. A protector that wanted nothing more than for her to smile.

Her thoughts were as confusing as they always were. It was impossible to decide whether she liked Above or Below better.

After hours of traveling, Jane paused. Her eyes drifted shut as she breathed in air that seemed to wrap around her body. Arms of wind slid across her skin for the first time in months.

“We’re close.” She whispered into the breeze.

The goblins shared a worried look.

“Yes.” Ruric finally replied.

He raised an arm to point over her shoulder. There in the stone she could see the smallest bit of silver. This time she was allowed to leave. It wasn’t the slow stroke of silver light against her skin, but the chance to be wrapped in familiar arms.

As though in a trance, she floated across the stones and to the small opening. It was a small crack, hardly big enough for the goblins to get through.

Jane disappeared through the crevice.

When the goblins squeezed through to follow her, they were stunned at the sight.

She stood alone in the center of miles of sand. The moons were painfully bright to their delicate eyes, yet they could see only the pale woman who struck a solitary figure in such desolation.

The wind shifted and they watched as her arms wrapped around her waist. Her long blonde hair had turned silver as it whipped across her face and into the wind. Fabric billowed around her and yet she remained immovable in the weather