"Mal!" I shout running to him and wrapping my arms around him.
I release him realizing there were other people around him who were now staring at the two of us.
"Go on, I'll catch up to you," Mal says, dismissing them.
"What are you doing here?"
"I had a report to make to your master," Mal says.
"My what? Oh!" I say realizing why he's here. "You're the ones who found Morozova's herd. Also, he's not my master."
"I should get going," Mal says coldly.
"Oh. Sorry. I didn't realize I was wasting your time," I say as I realized that he was ignoring my letters.
"I didn't say that."
"Well, you may have with your coldness and ignoring my letters. With you ignoring them, I decided the was no point in writing to you."
"Me, ignoring your letters." He laughs. "What about my letters? You ignored them. I never got any letters from you at all."
"Right. I've never gotten a single letter from you. Woo," I say waving my hands. "Someone has been intercepting our letters. No one would do that. You must have been ignoring me."
"We had to move constantly to track the herd. My unit barely had contact with the regiment."
I heard the weariness in his voice and for the first time, I looked at him, really looked, taking in the changes. There were shadows beneath his blue eyes, and a scar ran along his unshaven jaw.
"So you never got any of my letters because you were moving around." Mal nods. "Then how come I never got any of your letters?"
"As you said earlier, someone was probably intercepting our letters."
"Who would do that?"
"I don't know, maybe the Darkling."
"Well, could you stay a little longer? I can't really make friends because I'm worried they just want to be friends because of my power. You can't imagine what it's like here."
He laughs. "I think I can. I saw your demonstration. Very impressive."
"You saw me?"
"Yes," he says harshly. "Do you know how worried I've been about you? No one knew what happened to you, what they've done to you. There was no way to contact you. There were rumors that you were being tortured. When the captain needed men to report back to the Darkling, like an idiot, I volunteered just on the chance I'd find you."
"Really?"
"Yes," he hissed. "And here you are, safe and sound, dancing and flirting like some princess."
Mal scowled and stepped away from me.
Tears of frustration pricked my eyes. Why were we fighting? Desperately, I reached out to lay a hand on his arm. His muscles tensed, but he didn't pull away. "Mal, I can't help the way things are here. I didn't ask for any of this. That's why I hid my powers."
"You knew you were Grisha?"
"Yes, since the examiners came. I practice in private."
"But he owns you. Look at your clothes. You have him all over you."
"He doesn't own me."
"Yes, he does."
"No, he doesn't! Don't you have someplace to be?"
"Yes," he says walking away.
I let him go, not trying to keep up with him as I would when we were younger. If I had tried to keep up with him now, I would be going backward. Now, I'm further ahead.