Free It Sleeps in Me by Kathleen O’Neal Gear Page B

Skinner. You know how much I loved him. Are you trying to hurt me?”
    He got down on his knees and spread his arms wide in a warrior’s gesture of surrender, exactly the way Flint used to do when he was begging her to listen to him. “Give me three more days, Sora. Just three days of your life. Please, there’s something I must ask you, and so many things I must tell you.”
    The crackling of the Eternal Fire seemed suddenly unbearably loud.
    “If I agree, will your reflection-soul be at peace and able to go on to the Land of the Dead?”
    Tears beaded his lashes. “Yes. I think so.”
    A battle raged inside her: good sense warring against an emotional need so deep and dark it wrung her souls.
    “Wink told the guards you are never to set foot in this town again.”
    “Then I won’t. We can meet in the forest, like we used to.”
    Slowly, as though trying not to frighten her, he rose to his feet and stepped forward. “Please, Sora, let me hold you. I need to feel you in my arms.”
    She shook her head. “No. I—I can’t do that.”
    He extended his hands, and her muscles seemed to freeze solid. She just watched as he slowly came forward. When he embraced her, a stunning wave of calm flooded her veins. She felt as though for three winters her body had been wound up like knotted strips of rawhide, waiting for his arms so it could relax. She leaned against him, and he kissed her.

    Against her lips, he whispered, “Forgive me for ever leaving you. But you know why I did it.”
    “No. I never knew why.”
    The only sound in the world was the roar of blood rushing in her ears. When his kisses grew more passionate, she shoved away and stared at him.
    “I—I have to think about this. About the three days. When I decide, I’ll send word. Where will you be?”
    He exhaled haltingly and clenched his hands into fists at his sides. It surprised her that he was shaking. “Don’t send a messenger, Sora. After all we’ve been through together, if you’re going to tell me to go away, I expect you to do it yourself.”
    Skinner held her gaze for several long moments before he turned and walked out of the temple.
    As soon as he ducked through the front entrance, shouts rose. Sora sprinted from the temple and threw back the curtain.
    “Weapons aren’t necessary!” Skinner shouted.
    Wink hurried toward him with five guards. Her graying hair and yellow dress whipped in the wind that blasted the mound top.
    Two guards grabbed Skinner’s arms, while the other two kept their spears aimed at his belly. The remaining guard, Far Eye, trotted toward Sora.
    Skinner said something to Wink—something Sora couldn’t hear—and Wink gave him a small, satisfied smile that made Sora’s spine stiffen. What had he said?
    As the guards dragged him away, he struggled to look back, to glance over his shoulder at her.
    Just before the guards hustled him down the stairs, out of her sight, he shouted, “Sora, come to me!”
    Wink’s eyes shot to Sora and narrowed, as though daring her to answer.
    When she didn’t, Wink followed the guards down the stairs.
    Far Eye bowed. “The matron instructed me to guard your house, Chieftess. I’ll be outside this door if you need me.”

    In a low voice, she asked, “What did War Chief Skinner say to Wink before they hauled him away?”
    Far Eye straightened. The geometric tattoos that covered his face and arms looked faint against his brown skin. “He said, ‘I just need a few more days.’”
    “Did the matron answer?”
    “Yes, but I didn’t hear her words, I’m sorry.”
    What had Skinner meant? A few more days to do what? To finish saying the things he needed to? Wink would not have given him a satisfied smile if she’d thought that’s what he’d meant. She would have snarled some unpleasant comment. Had they been talking about something else?
    She walked back into her house, down the dim hallway, and straight to the chamber where she’d spent her childhood.
    She lifted the curtain