Landing scary hold on, Ashd said, and Lynette supposed it was a short-hand way to tell her to brace herself, when giving her the full details of whatever they were about to do would be too difficult and take too long. Obediently, she leaned forward and gripped the handle on the saddle. “Hold on, we’re coming in to land,” she yelled back at Markon, and heard a muffled “Okay,” in reply.
A moment later, she was grateful she’d been given a warning. Ashd seemed to suddenly drop out of the sky, swooping low over a clearing where a large tree had fallen some months ago, leaving an opening in the canopy. Then he pulled up abruptly, his wings spread out like sails. Lynette’s eyes opened wide as they seemed to be heading straight for a huge tree, and at the speed they were going, she was convinced they were going to crash… until they suddenly slowed, gliding right up to the trunk so that Ashd could grab on with his long claws, pulling them to a graceful stop.
Climb down, he said, then nimbly slithered down the tree, a faint pattering of bark falling around them as his claws scraped it off the trunk. Once he was on the ground, Bel swooped in to repeat the move, and Lynette had the chance to see what the climb looked like from below. The vreki were unbelievably agile, a far cry from their cumbersome gait on land.
Once on the ground, Koradan undid his straps and hopped off Bel, striding quickly over to Ashd.
“How are you doing?” Koradan asked Markon first. Ashd lay down on his belly, letting Koradan check Markon over.
“No worse for wear,” Markon said. “That’s not something I ever thought I’d experience, but it’ll make a bloody good story to tell, so I suppose there’s that to be grateful for.”
Koradan grinned at him. “Sit tight. Let me get Lynette down, then we’ll unstrap you.”
He came over, undoing the buckles on the straps over Lynette’s legs. As he did so, his hands brushed against her thighs, and she felt an odd thrill of sensation rush up her spine. His black hair was tousled after the flight, making him look even more roguishly handsome than he already did.
It had been a hell of a shock, seeing him looking like a human that first time in her kitchen. Now, his expression was serious, his lower lip slightly fuller than his upper one, and his dark eyes were almost mesmerising in the faint light of the approaching dawn.
After that first transformation, she’d got used to the idea of him appearing like a human quite quickly, but one of the more nerve-wracking things about this expedition was knowing she was going to be spending an entire day – and possibly more – with him looking like the ultimate embodiment of the perfect warrior. Lynette had already married one warrior, and she was well aware that she had a type – tall and muscular with a protective streak a mile wide.
“Give me your hand and swing your leg over,” Koradan said, holding out his hand. Lynette let him help her to the ground, but just as her feet landed, Koradan turned to Ashd and said, “That is quite enough from you!”
“What’s he saying?” Lynette asked. She felt nothing unusual in her own mind, and assumed that Ashd must have cut off the connection after they’d landed.
“Nothing important,” Koradan said. “Just complaining about things already.”
Lynette suspected there was something he wasn’t telling her. Ashd had never seemed like the type to complain about much at all. But she let it go. If he didn’t want to tell her, she wouldn’t push.
Together, they unstrapped Markon’s stretcher and Lynette checked his pulse and breathing, then gave his leg another quick assessment. Thankfully, the splint had held well during the flight. It was no worse than it had been before.
“I should get going,” she told them both. “There’s a road a little way to the east. I can follow it to the city and hopefully bring a horse and cart back.” She looked them both over, then the two vreki. “You’ll be okay until I get back?”
“Don’t worry,” Koradan said. “Best case, no one will find us until you get back, and worst case… Well, it’s as good an opportunity as any to test out our cover story. You just worry about getting there safely. You’ve got a knife on you?”
“I do,” Lynette said, patting it where it was strapped to her leg. Big cities brought out both the best and the worst of humanity, and there was a risk – small but serious – that she could run into bandits or thieves along the forest road.
“Take care,” Koradan said, his voice sounding oddly strained. “We’ll be right here when you get back.”
◊ ◊ ◊
Finding the road was easier than Lynette had expected. She’d seen it from the air, snaking along through the trees, but it was hard to tell exactly how far away it was, once they’d dropped below the tree line. Fortunately, it was only about a hundred metres through undergrowth that was not too dense – not a difficult distance to carry Markon once she got a cart here.
Assuming anyone would listen to her, that was.
This road had once been familiar, a link between Minia and her parents’ house, half a day’s walk to the south, that she’d walked a dozen times or more before she’d moved to Minia permanently. And being back on her old stomping ground brought back a flood of memories, as she marched quickly along towards the city.
She’d seen her parents only a handful of times since she’d moved to Minia at the age of nineteen. They’d been disappointed about her marrying a warrior, and though they’d deigned to attend the wedding, they’d grumbled through the entire thing. Lynette had written them a letter when she’d found out she was pregnant, and another after Paul was born, but when they’d come to visit their new grandchild, all they’d done was complain that Kai wasn’t around enough, or that Lynette looked too tired, taking care of the baby by herself. Her house was too big, according to them; her neighbours were too close; the food she cooked was too rich. No matter what decision she’d made, they found a reason to disapprove of it.
After that, Lynette had stopped contacting them, either to visit in person or to write any more letters. She’d written one final one when she’d moved to Varismont, just to let her parents know where she was, but that had been the end of it. And since then, she’d never received anything from them, either, neither gifts for Paul or notes to say they still cared. For all Lynette knew, they didn’t.
But her parents weren’t the only memories being dragged up. She thought about the day she’d met Kai, his cheeky smile instantly captivating, his warrior’s body even more so. She remembered the shock and excitement the day he’d proposed. The cold longing she’d felt each time he returned to the gate to battle the demons. His joy the day she’d announced she was pregnant. He’d actually left the gate the day she’d gone to the hospital to give birth, though there had been a solid week left until the gate closed for the second half of the cycle. Such had been his devotion to her, despite his dedication to his job.
But that had been the only time she’d been considered more important than the task of slaughtering the creatures that dared to cross the gate. When Paul had fallen ill at six months old, she’d spent the night trembling and crying in the hospital alone, Kai nowhere to be seen. For twenty-three out of every forty-six days, while the Gate of Chalandros stood open, she’d struggled to keep a house, feed and clean a screaming baby, get Paul to sleep and get enough sleep herself. And when Kai had come home, he’d been delighted to see his son and each milestone as he’d grown up – learning to talk, to walk, each birthday and every time he needed new clothes because he’d outgrown the old ones – but that did nothing to ease the strain of all the days when hewasn’tthere.
Lynette had blamed herself for failing to understand what it meant to marry a warrior. The city had espoused the virtues of marrying one of its elite, had declared all manner of benefits to the role of warrior-wife, but it consistently failed to warn, or even acknowledge, that there might be hardships to be endured as a result of that choice.
Was Koradan any different? He’d been kind and polite, always eager to help the village, but it seemed his overarching purpose was to secure a safe place for his team to live, and to tackle the ongoing problem of Chalandrian-human relations. Would his quest override the needs of a relationship? Would he abandon quiet evenings and peaceful fishing trips in favour of political campaigns and visits to Minia?
Paul was another issue. Paul certainly liked Koradan, and Koradan had seemed to embrace spending time with Paul early on. He’d cooled off a little after that, but Lynette was fairly sure that had been a result of her own objections to their relationship, rather than any reluctance on Koradan’s part.
