Free Midland Refugee (Ultimate Passage Book 3) by Elle Thorne

was now covered in rocky outgrowths barren of much foliage. The rocky outgrowths ranged from a man’s height to a building’s height.
    In the distance a tall mountain range spanned the entire horizon.
    Taya froze in her spot, staring at the visage. Corzine stopped walking and came back to where she stood. “Do you need to rest?”
    “No. I am fine, but this . . .” she waved her arms at the panoramic view of desolation peppered with rockiness and a few occasional sparsely-leaved trees.
    Corzine nodded. “The Farlands. You have never been?”
    “No. never. Asazi do not come here. It’s forbidden.”
    His head snapped back to study her.
    She tried to explain. “It’s not—” How could she explain, without stirring up the animosities between their people? Animosities she didn’t feel. And animosities she was certain were not merited. None of that seemed to matter now, she was not Asazi, not really. Nor would she ever be. She wasn’t Kormic. She wasn’t anything. She was a Midlander, if she had to put a term to it. More like a Midland refugee, she thought, since she had sought refuge here. Then again, so had the rest of their group.
    Corzine took her hand. “It is . . . what? Finish your thought.”
    Barz approached. “She does not want to say it. The Asazi. The Kormic. The Asazi do not come here. They do not lower themselves to come to the scene of abandonment, where they left their babies to die all those centuries ago.”
    Taya gasped. What the curses was he talking about? “You are despicable, you know that? And you are a liar. Why would you seek to promote such a myth? One that is so divisive. Why do you hate us—me—so?” She shoved at his huge chest, but the Kormic man did not budge. He was solid, like one of the rocky outgrowths. She burst into tears, except she didn’t know if it was because of his statement about Asazi or if it was because he was so hostile toward her.
    Corzine embraced her. “Why is this so upsetting to you?”
    She couldn’t answer that. And didn’t want to answer. How could she say that for some reason how Barz felt about her mattered? And now he’d lumped her and all Asazi into some type of category, claiming they abandoned babies here. “You heard what he said. About Asazi. Why would he say that?”
    Corzine was silent. She pulled back a little from his hug so she could looked up at his face. His expression was sad.
    “What?”
    “This is not the time to discuss this.”
    “Just tell me.”
    “Taya, do you trust me?”
    That was an odd question. All those weeks in Midland, all that she had seen of his character, of what a good man he was. Of course she trusted him. She would trust him with her life. She was trusting him with her life, just by being alone with him. In Midland. And now in the Farlands. “Yes.” Her voice was the quietest whisper.
    “Then please, let us not discuss this now. It creates too much upheaval and our energies will need to be focused on finding Cinia.”
    There was something he wasn’t telling her. She could tell. “And?”
    He clenched his jaw, then released it. “And we are in the Farlands. Where there are Kormic that have never seen a good Asazi. Between that and finding Cinia, I think our efforts will be better spent without worrying about what Barz said.” Corzine gave his brother a cautioning look.
    This was puzzling to Taya, because Barz was always the one who made decisions when it came to the two of them. And Corzine yielded. But he was right. They had enough to worry about. Just wait until they got back to camp. Barz could make those wild accusations in front of Finn and Norn. They would take him to task for his misgivings and lies.
    Corzine took her hand, nodded to Barz, and they began their walk, leaving the Midland forest behind them, and heading toward an environment that seemed as unforgiving and unyielding as Barz himself.

Chapter 17
    N ow what ? Marissa looked from Norn to Raiza. She was in the middle of this. Norn was