She was thankful the meeting was a short one.
They spoke of the Infi being banished in the streets, the expected crop of the wool for the winter— one of the Ambassadors had brought a sample of it for them to approve of. Rhaif declared the wool scratchy, not as soft as in previous years. Aydra rolled her eyes and insisted the wool was perfect, not wanting the Ambassador to feel as though his hard work had been for nothing.
But it was the way that Draven’s eyes kept flickering to her that made her chest red, her face heated. The confusion in his gaze made her heart constrict. She wanted to tell him what was going on, why she was avoiding him…
The moment the meeting was adjourned, she slipped from the Chamber through the servants tunnels.
She watched from her window when he left the castle on horseback around midnight and rode into the darkness back to his realm.
And she cursed herself for avoiding him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE LETTER CAME the week after the next dead moons cycle.
Willow delivered it to Aydra at the breakfast she shared with her siblings on that morn. Aydra nearly ripped it open sitting at her seat, and it fell from her hands into her egg scramble.
The boats are here.
—was all it said.
Her heart skipped. The boats.Draven…
She hadn’t expected him to fulfill his promise to inform her after she’d treated him so terribly after the last meeting. But her chest constricted at the thought of him, and she could hardly contain herself.
Aydra wiped her mouth and stood from the table with such haste that she nearly knocked her food onto the ground.
“Everything all right?” Dorian asked from across the table.
Aydra nodded quickly. “Yes. Yes, everything is fine. I have to…fucking Infi… I have to go.”
She exited the Great Hall without a second look back at her siblings, and immediately went to her room to pack. Lex fell in behind her the moment she caught up with her.
“Where are we going?” Lex asked.
Aydra handed the letter back to her. “We leave in an hour.”
“Boats… oh, the boats!Fucking Infi— And we’re going where?”
“The Forest.”
Aydra didn’t need to see Lex’s face to know she was smirking at her.
“Shut up,” Aydra cut before Lex could coo at her. “Diplomatic mission. Nothing more.”
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that,” Lex mumbled.
Dorian and Nyssa bid them goodbye from the gates. Aydra didn’t go into detail about where they were going, only telling them she would send word in a few days of what she’d found and whether she needed help from the Village.
It was on the morning of the fifth day on their journey that they finally ventured inside the Forest of Darkness. Aydra could feel the morning creatures stirring through the wood, waking rabbits and deer stretching and welcoming the day as it wrapped around them.
They traveled an hour inside the wood before Aydra’s raven suddenly flapped in front of them and called out,Archers!
Aydra pulled on the reigns of her horse and looked into the trees. Lex’s horse stamped impatiently.
“Why have we stopped?” Lex asked.
Aydra didn’t have a chance to respond. From within the darkness, she saw a figure appear, hood pulled over their head.
