The Weaver's Source

Part Five: Chapter 61

Grigore remained on the road that wound at the top of the hill, hunkered down by a large boulder with a golden ward in hand. He was half-smiling as I approached him with a sour expression.

"I failed." I announced.

"No, the wolves interrupted. I think you would've shot one of those deer if they hadn't." He said as shook the ward away and pushed himself onto his feet. "Now, let's continue. I doubt we're going to find any lodgings in the next couple of hours so we'll need to find a good place to camp."

I didn't want to tell him how much I didn't want to camp out tonight but I was guessing he already knew by the apologetic glint in his eyes. He strode off and I followed, rubbing my fingers and breathing air onto them.

As he expected, we found no lodgings. There was a cattle farm we stumbled across but the old man who opened the door took one look at Grigore and slammed the door in his face, demanding he leave or perish. I scowled at the house as we moved onwards through the rocky and freezing terrain but Grigore didn't seem to mind, which wasn't abnormal. He didn't care much when someone shouted at him or turned him away rudely. I found it odd, especially when he grew incredibly irritated and protective if someone treated me the exact same way.

I plodded after Grigore, watching his back slowly become whiter with flecks of snow as the day grew older, and once again found myself thinking about what he was doing and why he refused to let me act as his Source. Even after a month, even after he continued to be warmer with me, he still didn't feed from me and kept some physical distance between us. I was his, he openly admitted it and even spoke freely about our bond, but refused to treat me as such. It made me wonder what this final hunt meant to him and a small idea popped into my head, that maybe he wanted to grow old in peace. If I was with him, constantly feeding him the moment he grew hungry, that would never happen; I'd force him to keep his immortality. It was a logical thought but he would refused to speak of the real reason of course. That was the one subject that still turned him sour and made him brood for several hours, so I left him to it. Now I knew he would use me when he absolutely had to and accepted me in some manner, I decided to let him come to me about this quest he was on. I had time.

Soon the sun was setting over the bitter tundra. It was barely touching on evening when dusk came and the cold grew thicker, the snow whirling heavier than it had before, layering thickly upon the earth. Grigore had long given up looking for a place to stay and found a small curved rock some ways from the road, giving us shelter from the bitter wind sifting through the silent trees.

Grigore told me to wait in what little shelter the rock gave me and hunkered down before me, ripping free his cloak from his shoulders and wrapping it around me.

"Grigore, you need it." I said, trying to stop him gently, but his features hardened with stubbornness and ignored my attempts to refuse his cloak, yanking the hood up firmly, before he rose and strode off into the trees.

I sat there, curled up and shivering a little less, waiting for his return. He was quick. He soon came back with a bundle of sticks and set to work on building a fire, weaving a red ward to ignite it. I was thankful that, while it was horribly cold, the wind was practically dead, whispering only gently now and then, and the ground was dry. The fire would've struggled against a strong breeze and I really did want the protection from the cold it gave.

I shuffled closer to the fire, warming up my frozen hands as Grigore set to work on warming up the scraps of hare he'd snared the other day. I watched him quietly as my fingers tingled with heat. The fire's light danced over his face, lighting up his dark eyes and scars. Before I knew it, I found myself mesmerised, gazing at the masculine lines of his exposed throat, the arch of his nose, his mouth. My eyes would not move from his face and I quietly didn't want them to.