“Not stuck in the past?” I shook my head.
“Not stuck in the past,” he repeated.
It was the small tug on his lips that had me bloating with pride.
“Good,” I said, lifting on my toes to give him a kiss.
We continued until we reached Radhak’s delegates, already gathered.
“Dante, Miss Mira,” Ravinder greeted. “We were just discussing the execution of tasks for the day. My team will communicate with the local leadership in this town. We’ll gather all the intel needed for resources and supplies, who provides what and how much they intend to share. With that information, you can instruct your people on how best to begin self-sustaining operations. Our goal is to place as few burdens on the locals as possible during the transition as a precaution. Tomorrow, my crew and I will head back to Rahana.”
“Once Mira and I check to see if everyone adjusted well through the night, I’ll join you. Honestly, from the looks of this place, I doubt we’ll even need to build anything for shelter. There are more vacant buildings than I thought. Repairs should probably be our first priority so we can beat the winter. When Jasper gets back to me with numbers for the next group, we can reassess,” Dante said.
Ravinder nodded, his crew of men and women joining in agreement. “I’ll send leadership your way once I’m done?”
Dante dipped his head in confirmation, ushering me forward, his hand still rested against my lower back. “Hopefully by the end of today, we can have everyone assigned to their own living quarters. The few with harvesting magic can get started on the gardens with the offerings the town’s committee donates. Maybe even get a few to share their tricks for a good harvest. The king and queen were wise to choose a town already acquainted with wielders.”
He was the one who brought up the subject, but irritation tightened the muscles in his jaw.
“Are you ever going to let go of your resentment towards Nicholas?”
I didn’t get more than a growl of reluctance before a chicken raced across our path, stray feathers floating into the air as it clucked and sped past. The woman from yesterday, Claudya, came dashing into view, a string of colorful curses flowing from her mouth. We watched her race after the tiny fowl with a murderous look in her eyes, arms extended.
The sight drew a giggle out of me and Dante’s tense posture finally softened. We continued along the street until we met up with a group of our travelers. We only had time to discuss how restful their sleep had been when Claudya returned, chicken pinned beneath her arm.
“Sorry about that. Like I said, this one lays a decent amount of eggs, but I’d highly recommendchicken soup.” Her curly gray hair remained frazzled from the capture.
“No! We can’t kill her!” one of the Argora Vale children said, eyes already welling for the creature.
Claudya sighed. “I don’t care what you do, but just take her.” She handed the wily bird over to the girl, who cradled the fowl like a baby.
“I’m going to name her Cluckina,” the girl said with resolve before shuffling into the building they’d been given to stay.
I hugged Dante’s arm, resting my cheek against it. “Look at that. Their little family is already expanding with a pet chicken. They’re going to settle just fine here.”
I just hoped I would, too.
22
Ro
For three days Taja’s soldiers had, as they put it, ‘escorted us north’. More like kept us under surveillance until we were too far to find a way to bail. With mountains barricading us from all directions besides south, there’d be nowhere for us to go but north to our expected destination, or run into the certain wall of soldiers Taja placed at our backs. He assured me I wouldn’t make it out of his kingdom again.
Braxius hadn’t been discovered yet. He’d been unusually silent during our journey, even ignoring me when I tried speaking through our minds. Maybe he didn’t even want to risk that.
Besides stopping to eat fresh miraja fruit, which had been nice to have again, and dried meats, our days were long and boring on horseback. But I wouldn’t risk sending him away when we were surrounded. At least we’d have the seclusion of the forest once the soldiers cleared out. Then Braxius could flee and warn the others, and I’d be left to my task.
Taja wanted me to get behind enemy lines and figure out their motives and plans. Then, I was to report back within a timeline of one month, or my camp would suffer the consequences.
Alba had been forced to accompany me, though I’d tried negotiating her freedom. But Taja didn’t want our camp finding out any of his business, so either she joined me, or died.
Sadistic fucker.
This trip was wearing on me already. Despite running low on provisions, having consumed all the fruit they’d packed for us, we pressed just as hard. I listened to the horses chatter, and smiled to myself as they huffed back and forth, communicating their grievances. Only I could hear their specific internal complaints, but they seemed to understand each other well enough.
It’d taken them a couple days to loosen their metaphorical lips. They’d ignored my attempts at questions during the first leg of our journey, which had me considering Windguard somehow also trained their horses to hate magic wielders.
Maybe they’d finally reached the same level of boredom with this trip as I had.
