Allissa
On the fourth day, Squall turned us off the bearing for the first time since we left home, and Thorin came half out of his skin about it.
“That’s the wrong way.” The boy twisted in front of Darren, his arm snapping back to north even as Squall banked west. “She’s that way. We have to go that way. Squall, you’re going the WRONG WAY—”
“I know where she is, little prince.” Squall’s voice came back over the wind, gentle. “We are going to get help finding the rest of the way. Trust me. One afternoon.”
“We don’t have afternoons.”
“We have exactly as many as it takes to do this right,” Darren said, one arm locked around the boy, and Thorin subsided against him, unconvinced, obedient only because the king had said it.
We had been climbing into colder and stranger country for days, an
