Worlds of Ash

Part 6 (Chapters 30-33)

Chapter Thirty

Ash couldn't take her eyes off Amalin. How she stood peering out after the Kawshun horses until they were mere specks on the horizon. How her fists kept clinching tight too—white knuckles going whiter, then relaxing, going whiter, then relaxing again. Also, strangest of all, how Amalin never blinked.

Ash made certain of it. Whenever she wasn't taking a quick glimpse at those tightening knuckles, she stayed fixed only on electric blue. Even when Casten began to moan, and Jeth shuffled over to again kneel beside him, Ash clearly saw how Amalin just stared, and stared, at muddy hills and a grey sky. She wouldn't turn away.

There was a slight rustling of clothes. Jeth was rolling up the green of Casten's shirt, worrying over his wounds for about the hundredth time.

"Elf," Amalin sighed, "you know he has been healing. He thrashed about while Henry Ash had us in that Remembrance, he's been healing quite a lot. Leave him be."

Ash had quickly turned, the briefest switch from staring at Amalin to taking a hurried peek at what was going on behind. But she was sure Amalin hadn't stopped looking at those hills. How had she known what had happened?

"I also told you the Pool would cure him," Amalin continued. This was her longest bit of talking in quite some time. Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing. "And you've already checked on him endlessly. Why keep that up?"

"But" Jeth said. He stood up quick, as if caught doing something naughty. "It really has taken a while."

Amalin finally turned. She even rolled her eyes, something so extraordinary—just how could deepest sapphire spark such electric intensity—that Ash kind of hoped she might do it again.

"This, too, I have explained," Amalin sighed, her eyes staying completely still as she did. That was disappointing. "His injuries were severe and they occurred not on the Unkindness. I doubt if he wasn't an Elf he would have survived. But he is Elf, and he put himself into a state of meditation to slow his loss of blood. He is fine."

Jeth walked over to Amalin, letting loose a sigh of his own before wiping bits of the Kawshun off his legs. "How about you," he asked.

"What," Amalin said.

"I'll leave a potential kinsman of mine alone, but you need to do the same."

"I don't follow?"

Amalin looked at Jeth in confusion. It was another something extraordinary, and Ash was so happy—how was Amalin's blue able to do even that—yet she could already tell that that confusion wouldn't last. Amalin quickly sized Jeth up, perhaps finding him somewhat wanting, before she angled her sight back towards where every Rider had gone.

"Your brother has left," Jeth said. He pointed to the endless amounts of muddy hills. "Stop trying to find him when there is nothing to see."

Amalin sighed one last time. "Since they just took off, maybe you could give me a moment."

"And since a potential kinsman just got hurt," Jeth countered, "why can't you indulge my worry? If you can't stop looking at things you can't possibly see, then why should I stop checking out his injuries?"

Amalin whirled. "You have no clue about this place," she smiled, Ash quickly hoping she would again roll her eyes. Or be confused. Either would have been so much better. "You have no clue about me."

"Of course not," Jeth said. "I may have been a wolf on the Kawshun, but how could I know of this place; how could anyone know of it?"

He turned towards Poppa Henry and Ash. It was clear he wanted support—a tiny smile of agreement or a hearty nod. Amalin had asked if he knew anything about her, and Jeth was sure that no one, especially not he, could know the answer.