30
"What do you mean 'go'?" I asked.
"Let's walk back," he said, not answering my question.
"Thorbjorn," I said warningly.
"We should walk back," he insisted. "I'll just have time enough to tell you before I have to go."
"Go where?"
"On patrol," he said. But I could tell that, as familiar as those words were coming from him, this time he meant something very different.
"Why are you saying that like you're never coming back?" I asked.
"This arm ring your grandmother took from Geiri, it's the second thing of ancient power to show up in Villmark in a matter of months," he said.
"Since I got here, you mean," I said.
He gave me a wounded look. "I didn't say that. None of this is because of you."
"Maybe not," I said. But it didn't feel that way. Still, I pushed my feelings aside to fo
