Anger, hot and heavy, reared up inside her again. Mainly at herself for not having a good enough answer, for not having an answer at all, but some of it was directed at him for putting her in a situation where she looked foolish.
Was that fair? No.
Did she care? Also no.
“Not yet.” She side-eyed him, daring him to say something patronising.
“That’s fair. It’s hard to plan until you know what you’re up against,” he said, without looking at her. “If they followed this road, I suspect they passed through Drias last night. We should be able to get a better understanding of where they’re headed there.”
“We?” she spluttered, nearly choking on the word.
It was his turn to side-eye her. “You want to go up against them on your own?” His expression emphasised the silent ‘How well did that work out for you last time?’ tagged on the end.
She didn’t answer, turning to look straight ahead, leaning forward against the weight of her pack. Sanctimonious prick.
It didn’t help that he had a point.
“You’re no good to your friend dead. Which is what you’ll probably end up being if you try this alone.”
“You’re trying it alone,” she bit back, eyes flashing.
“I’m trying not to, but for some reason, you’re being bloody difficult about it. Something you appear to be particularly good at.” His eyes flashed too, the anger in his trouncing hers in a heartbeat. Whatever it was she kept seeing there, it wasn’t good. It sent shivers down her spine every time she caught sight of it.
“You don’t need to be scared,” he said, surprising her. She had always found it hard to hide her thoughts, her traitorous face an open book for all to read. When she looked back at him, he was himself once more, and she caught just a glimpse of sadness in his eyes before he squashed that too.
“I’m not,” she lied. He snorted.
“You’re a terrible liar.” He smiled at her, his eyes back to a dark brown, the sunlight catching the amber flecks in them. “But I mean it, I won’t hurt you.”
“That sounds like something someone who was going to hurt me might say,” she said, wryly.
“It is a conundrum.” He skirted round a puddle that had formed in the middle of the path. “Don’t say it, and you’re scared. Say it, and you’re still scared but at least I feel better for trying.”
“Maybe stop breaking into people’s houses?—”
“I did not break into your house,” he insisted, square jaw set firm.
“Alright, alright,” she said, holding back a smile. It might not be wise to bait him, but the road was straight and boring; what else was she going to do to pass the time?
Aelia certainly didn’t remember agreeingto travel together, but Keeran took it upon himself to assume that he’d convinced her and, to be honest, it would have been foolish to turn him down. Unless of course, her initial wariness proved to be correct, and he ended up murdering her in her sleep.
The forest thinned, the shade beneath the trees that she’d spent her life in giving way to bold rays of sunlight, until thewoods disappeared altogether to become the vast plains that stretched all the way to Llmera, the capital.
The long grass seemed to be endless, disappearing into the heat haze that kissed the horizon. Aelia turned and looked back at her forest, the trees in front of her enormous in their proximity. The forest spanned for miles behind them until it met the mountain range that jutted from it with unforgiving severity. The cold ridges sent a shiver down her spine. She had known that the Jaws of Rach-Mah existed, but they hadn’t been visible from beneath the canopy at Callodosis. Now they broke free from the horizon, their jagged peaks rearing into the sky to form the impenetrable wall that was the southern border.
The wind rushed over the long grasses, tugging strands of hair loose from her braid. She closed her eyes and savoured the feeling, a familiar caress in the new world she was venturing into.
CHAPTER NINE
Aelia was seriously unimpressed with Drias, and Keeran couldn’t say he blamed her. As he guided them to the only inn in town, she looked about her with thinly veiled disappointment, and Keeran was struck with the realisation that this was almost certainly the first time she’d left her forest.
If she was used to the quaint little village of Callodosis, the dull efficiency of Drias was undoubtedly underwhelming. The houses were dark and square, erected in a grid-like structure, crisscrossed by uneven cobbled streets that made Aelia’s limp ten times worse.
Keeran had tried to set a slow pace on the way here. Seeing as he’d dressed her wounds after the Astraea attack, he was all too aware of how much pain she must be in, but Aelia had stomped towards Drias with no interest in whether he kept up or not. So in the end, he’d just matched her.
And that had generally been the tone of the day, with her making no attempt to hide her obvious resentment of his presence. Every time he’d opened his mouth, she’d shut him down, her answers curt and cutting, and that was if she deigned to reply at all.
He tried not to let it get to him, to bite his tongue rather than snapping back at her. She’d been through a lot, lost almost everything in a few short hours. She was entitled to more than a little leeway. Besides, her being so bloody surly made it that much easier to ignore the connection he felt between them, the connection that very clearly only went one way.
