Although Zhira couldn’t help but feel that she was underfoot, putting the saddles and bags back on to the horses had become a familiar and oddly reassuring process. She’d pulled her dress on again, grateful that it had dried. Unfortunately her cloak still dripped so it was bundled up with the others and Rhyode passed her a dry hood.
Once she had ducked out of the cave she was thankful for the warm black wool. It kept her head and the back of her neck warm in the chill night air and the petrichor sweeping through the hillside. Although the horses were glad to be out of the cave, they both stood reluctantly at the top of the steep muddy slope that dropped away into blackness. It took Rhyode a long time to coax Embry down. Zhira slid down to one side of him both while Vesta and Daisy waited
