Allissa
The scorch was days cold. The trail from the shelf was sky, and the sky kept its secrets. We were behind, and the mountain made sure we knew it.
But the compass pulled north, steady as ever, and that night, at the fire below the cliff, the smallest member of the party fought sleep like his mate fights blankets, sitting bolt upright with his eyes burning holes in the dark, because the rope behind his ribs did not stop pulling for anything as weak as exhaustion.
Darren went and sat beside him.
I watched my husband settle onto the cold ground next to the boy whose existence he had growled about for years. “Compass reads at dawn and at dusk,” Darren said. “Those are your duty hours. A soldier off duty sleeps because a compass that breaks helps no one. That is an order.”
“But she—”
