He shook his head slowly. “You’ve… you’re different. You’ve changed since…”
“Aye,” Sonah said.
They were silent once more while Sonah thought about how to gather the supplies they’d need for their journey. They’d need coin as well, which would be more difficult for her to figure out.
“Could we perhaps send word to Terena? We could have her meet us somewhere.”
Sonah was about to rebuke him for interrupting her thoughts when she caught his hopeful expression. An unwanted thought snuck its way into her head and she blanched.
While Sonah was certain Terena would be glad of Lerek’s… resurrection, she wasn’t sure how much to tell Lerek about what had happened since Isher’s death.
So she said nothing.
“We can send word to her when we get out of here,” she demurred, fidgeting.
“Fine,” Lerek said with a nod. “But if Ovenno is to leave in two days, we need to be gone by tomorrow. Do you think you can get what we’ll need?”
“Wait, you’re not going to help?”
“I can’t, Sonah! They barely let me out of my rooms except for meals and to walk around a private courtyard. I’m kept away from everyone. The only reason I found out you were even here is because one of the guards gossips. That’s how I knew you and Terena were here months ago.”
“Why are they still holding you? Have they said?”
“Not entirely, no. King Altos said it was for my protection, since there are traitors in the White Palace, obviously. Whoeverit was meant to have both me and my brother killed. The king has tried more than once to convince me to agree publicly I am with Sparta. He thinks it will convince the rest of the provinces to secede from Heylisia if I challenge my father for his throne.”
“Why don’t you?”
Lerek gaped at her. “I may have disagreed with my father on many things, especially his strange obsession with conquering Sparta, but that doesn’t mean I would depose him! He is the rightful sovereign of a mighty empire. He is my father! I will not go against him, now more than ever. He’s lost one son already. And there are traitors in his court. He needs me.”
Sonah sighed and closed her eyes. “Then why would you agree to go with me to Terena?”
“Because I love her,” he said vehemently, with a fire in his eyes she’d not seen before. “I love her and this time, nothing will stop me from being with her.”
I can think of one thing, Sonah thought with a sigh.
Chapter 6
NEAR VESALA, OVENNO
Rydon’s gaze swiveled between Terena and the strange woman. Croak shuffled at his side and Rydon tightened his hold on the boy to stay his movements.
“You know who I am?” Terena asked, putting her swords away. The woman they’d been tracking, a tracker herself, lowered her arm to her belt, tucking her thumb beneath the leather.
She seemed relaxed for someone a hair’s breadth away from being gutted by a god for threatening her brother.
“I do,” the woman said, but did not elaborate.
“Then you know why we?—”
“Hermes too afraid to do his own dirty work?”
Rydon scowled. He opened his mouth to give her a good dressing down when Terena laughed.
“So you know him?”
The tracker woman chuckled. With a shrug of her shoulders as she spread out her arms, she took a step closer to Terena. Rydon tensed.
“I haven’t had the pleasure, no. But if the last two mercenaries he sent were to be believed, he’s, and I quote, ‘an all-powerful god who would not demean himself to come after scum trackers himself’. After I sent the last one back to him with one less hand, I thought he’d get the hint I do not wish to be bothered.”
