20
“This place we’re going,” I said as I trailed my fingers along the bark of the trees, “what sort of place is it?”
“What do you mean?” There was a hint of a smile in Liam’s voice.
I wanted to dash in front of him to see if the smile had actually made it all the way to his face. Instead, I tipped my head back to stare at the treetops. We’d left the scrublands behind, and trees had taken over the mountainside again.
The forest we’d spent the afternoon trudging through wasn’t made of the harsh sort of trees that had clung to the other slopes we’d traveled. These trunks were thick and healthy, with hordes of bright green buds waiting to burst through. The soil beneath our boots held a strong scent of fertility, as though the mountain herself bade the plants to grow.
“Are we going to a v
