15
I had fled from camp often enough to know the mountainside well. My feet carried me to the mushrooms Neil always asked me to gather and to the tiny clearing where the roots I wanted to grind into tea grew.
My path had become so familiar to me, I began untying my bodice before I even heard the faint rumble of the waterfall.
The trees changed as I drew near the river’s narrow banks. The moisture allowed the trunks to grow thicker and the leaves broader. The scent of damp earth hung heavy in the air, and the ground gave gently under my feet.
The waterfall itself wasn’t massive, only twenty feet high. But time had created a deep basin at the bottom. I’d found my secret swimming place a month before when I’d dodged out of camp after Emmet had a fit about my coming back from a sorci run w
