By the time Aelia got back to the inn, her body was aching again. The uneven cobbles were torture on her struggling joints, but it wasn’t the pain that had her heading back to the inn before she had everything she needed; it was the town.
She’d never seen such poverty before, had never seen anyone sleeping rough before. Sure, people struggled in Callodosis, especially the humans, but they all had work, they all had roofs over their heads. The worst thing was how everyone just walked past them, indifferent or unseeing, as if it were the most commonplace occurrence. Aelia supposed that here, it must be.
She wanted to get out of this place as quickly as possible. She’d asked around the few shops she’d stopped in, and learnt that the Astraea hadn’t passed through here, which she could have guessed with all the humans still on the streets. One artemian had spotted them leaving the forest and heading north-west, so north-west it was, unless Keeran had heard differently.
Keeran. There was another problem she wished she didn’t have to deal with. She’d be an absolute idiot to pursue the Astraea without him. He’d proven to be more than capable at handling himself in the woods, as if any proof was necessarywhen he looked like death incarnate…. if death had a jawline you could cut yourself on.
And therein lay the problem. Every moment she wasn’t thinking of Otis, or Fenrir, or Mirra, she was thinking of that night in the woods, of how things could have gone so differently between them if the Astraea hadn’t shown up. It was indecent, unacceptable. She should be grieving, should be far too distraught for such thoughts, and yet every time he opened his mouth, her heart started thumping in her chest like she was an infatuated teenager.
She made it to the inn and headed straight to her room, throwing what she’d bought into her already bursting pack, and carrying it back down to the bar. The same girl from the night before was behind it, looking less dishevelled but just as exhausted.
“You’re working again this morning?” Aelia asked, dropping her pack onto the floor with a thump.
“We’re short-staffed,” the girl said, not looking up from wiping down the worktop with a cloth too filthy to be doing anything other than smearing grime more evenly across the bar. “We had to let the humans go and there aren’t enough artemians in the town to fill all the vacant positions.”
“Well, there’s an enormous hole in the Astraea’s philosophy,” Aelia snipped, too wound up from exploring the town to mind her tongue.
“You’ve only spotted the one?” The girl smiled, wryly.
Aelia huffed through her nose but said no more. The inn seemed quiet, seeing as it was still empty, but who knew who could be listening.
“I need to settle up.” Aelia dug into her pocket, but the girl shook her head.
“Your brother paid last night,” the girl said. Aelia must have visibly bristled because she stopped wiping and asked, “Is that a problem?”
“No,” Aelia ground out, knowing full well why she was prying. “And he’s not my brother.”
“Oh, my mistake.” The girl looked her over before finally asking, “Are you two headed back this way anytime soon?”
“I can’t speak for him, but I’m certainly not.”
“Oh.” The barmaid brightened, a smile lighting up her face at the knowledge they wouldn’t be returning together. Not for the first time, Aelia noticed how pretty she was. “Well, safe travels then.”
Aelia stared back, trying to ignore the jealousy that was snaking its way through her, more furious than she had any right to be. She’d known the girl was into him when they’d got the keys last night, and much as she tried not to care, she couldn’t help but wonder what else he’d been doing when he was down here paying for the rooms.
“Thanks,” was all she could muster as she stooped to pick up her pack and made her way out.
Aelia was struggling to process the layers of anger that had stacked up on top of each other over the last couple of days and, as she sank down onto the step outside the inn door, she felt a sudden overwhelming exhaustion that went far deeper than just two sleepless nights.
She’d never felt so alone as she did in this unfamiliar town, with the societal pillars she’d come to rely on crashing down around her. Everyone was gone— a thought she was trying so hard not to dwell on— and she was left to deal with it on her own. Who knew if Fenrir was even alive? And if he was, where the hell were they taking him? Just as she began to spiral, her breathing starting to come in short, sharp gasps, something tugged ather attention. Her head snapped up, just in time to see Keeran rounding the corner.
He was leading a horse on either side, looking for all the world like he belonged on the battlefield, not the bleak streets of Drias. His black clothes did nothing to hide the sheer bulk of the man, the muscles of his arms filling his sleeves in a way that Aelia found hard to look away from. He’d rolled them up, exposing the defined muscle of his forearms, veins popping where he held the leather reins in each hand. Aelia had to look away before her thoughts went to places they had no right to be.
By the time he reached the inn, she was in no better control of herself than she had been. She didn’t want this, didn’t want to feel this way about him, so when she finally realised he was leading two horses, not one, she latched onto the anger that reared its head instead. First, he’d paid for the room; now he was buying her horses. Why did he think she needed his help?
When he saw her expression, his own darkened.
“Don’t bite my head off,” he said when he was close enough. “The horse is not a gift, it’s so you don’t slow me down. I’ll sell it after we’ve found Beserkir, so don’t go getting yourself all worked up about it, okay?”
Aelia’s eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth to argue, but Keeran cut her off.
“Oh, stop being a pain in my arse and just take the bloody horse.” He thrust the reins towards her, and something in his tone made her listen. There was something different underlying it, something sinister she hadn’t heard before, and she couldn’t help but wonder what had put it there.
“What happened?” she asked, but she stood and took the reins from him.
“Nothing happened, I’m just keen to get out of here.” He tied his horse to a hitching post, knotting the leather straps with practised ease. That horse wasn’t going anywhere, she noticed,her throat bobbing as she swallowed. “I need to grab my pack, I won't be long.”
And he wasn’t. In a matter of moments, he was back, fixing his pack behind his saddle and about to spring up into it when suddenly, he paused.
