The stench of ammonia follows me around the thick trunk, back to the warrior, right where I left him.
Only, he doesn’t stand like the soulless statue he is, waiting for me.
He’s dropped to one knee, his satchel open on the forest floor, and beside him, there is a small pile that lures a frown to my face.
At first, it looks nothing more than a smear of black disturbing the pale greys of the winter earth. But as my steps, slow and limping, draw me closer to the warrior, I realise the mound is actually a flattened, folded pile of clothes. Not the sort of leathers that sheath every dark fae warrior in the unit, not the fine chain-link armour that drapes over his shoulders and reaches midway down his chest.
These are just regular clothes.
The toes of my boots stop just an inch from the pile. Crimson torchlight dances over the dark hues, and I can make out the long sleeves of a top and the soft wool of a grey sweater.
There’s more.
Out from his satchel, he lifts folded clothes, then carefully places them down on the pile, organised.
I stand, silent.
He doesn’t speak a word, so I don’t either.
I just watch as he sets out a bar of soap next to his discarded waterskin, then a small phial of powder.
Through the glass of the phial, the powder looks coarse, sort of chalky, and as black as the leader’s diadem. It brings crumbled coal to mind.
Next, the warrior lures out two cloths from the bag, rolled tightly.
This fae is a neat freak.
It’s a startling recognition.
Ahumanisingone.
I steel myself against it, throw it from my mind with enough violence to twist my face and spur something ugly through my chest.
The warrior flicks his cold, hollow gaze up at me.
My insides constrict.
His leathers glisten, faint, as he pushes up from the satchel—then I’m lobbed on the face with the rolled cloths.
Instinct flings through me too late, and I swat at the rolled cloths after they’ve hit me on the face and already fallen to the earth.
I blink down at them, unfurled on the dead leaves and broken twigs, two soft cloths, plain and ordinary, no poison in sight.
I lift my frown to the warrior.
I swallow, thick, at the reminder of his height, his tall and looming build, the glisten of leather running down his powerful build like black rivers.
His stare is glacier. “Wash yourself.”
‘Kill yourself.’
My answer comes too easily, too quickly, too smoothly—but thank fuck it came to my mind and not my tongue.
Still, as if he heard me, the pale pink of his upper lip twitches, like it’s tugged by a thread.
The snarl doesn’t take root.
He jerks his chin to the pile—clothes, a waterskin, and a bar of soap. “You have an odour. It offends me.”
