>>6132299“She likes you,” Sandora muses, coming up right behind you.
“Uh—” you wonder if she’s talking about Willow, but the mage’s jade eyes focus on the cat you hold in your arms. “I just think she likes being petted, that’s all.” The cat purrs, showing how right you are. “You don’t give care enough to your animals,” you point out.
“Perhaps,” she concedes, joining you on the deck and extending her fingers for the cat to lick. The little beast gives them a lick and then accepts Sandora’s touch, purring just as hard as when you were the one doing that.
Willow would probably call her a showoff.
“This is not the first time Ansàrra has taken care of my wounds,” she sighs, and you take a moment to take in her look. Her skin is as unblemished as it used to be two days ago. She moves without pain.
“Soralisa is our resident Sanctioner, but Rubida can be good as well. Looks like their voices did reach the Sun-Birther.”
“Now I feel in debt,” Sandora chuckles. “During these few days I have learned much more about you than you about me.”
“Perhaps you should reconsider your role as a teacher,” you say, mostly joking. But again, mostly.
“I will,” she replies, surprising you. “Truth for truth, there is something I will have to deal with, when all this is over. But it’s a long story, and not one that shall be told today.” She turns to regard the horizon, with the black line of the coast appearing off the sea.
In the light of dawn, the ocean appears as thick and as dark as wine.
“We shall anchor down further to the south, close to Spiana di Castelvetro. That’s the Marque where the Temple of Flame is. Then another barge will carry us there — the seafloor is too shallow for the ship.”
“I see,” and you cover your eyes, trying to peek past the thin clouds and the morning haze, for signs of the Temple.
“You won’t see it from here. It’s past the Glass Heath, anyway.”
“The what?”
[cont.]
