He drove onwards, checking his horse lest gravity take their descent into its own hands, even as his heart seemed to reach through his rib cage towards the too small figure ahead of him.
Aelia finally slowed to a walk as she reached the hamlet. Only when he reached her side did his breathing return to normal, although his horse needed a little while longer.
He dismounted and tied the reins safely in a knot. Aelia slipped off and copied him.
“Watch yourself, we may not be alone,” he cautioned.
The smoke was acrid on his tongue, promising to linger at the back of his throat long after they had left this place.
He walked a few paces in front of Aelia, scanning for some clue as to what had happened, hoping they were wrong in their assumption. They weren’t.
In what used to be the centre square sat another pile of ash, smaller than the others and free of beams. Instead, the ash held an array of bones. Too many to count.
A post had been hammered into the ground in front of it, the poster at its tip whipped at by the sudden wind, folding the paper over on itself.
Aelia walked with heavy solemnity to expose the words the wind had tried to hide from them.
Demuto shall be cleansed.
Rid yourself of your Human pests or face their fate alongside them.
“Aelia…”He tried to reach over to where she stood staring at the words in her hand, to offer what comfort he could… but comfort was the last thing on her mind.
Before he could touch her, she was striding around the pile of ash, her eyes hard and dangerous as they searched the dirt. He watched her read the story it had to tell with an ominous sense of foreboding.
“Aelia, don’t be foolish.”
She ignored him, bent low as she followed the tracks until the plains opened up before them, uninterrupted by smouldering piles of ashes.
“They went this way,” she said, looking out to where the trail undeniably disappeared.
“Towards Llmera. That’s hardly surprising,” he grunted.
“Good, we won’t even need to make a detour.” She finally looked at him, not a hint of humour in her face.
“We need to wait. They could have joined a larger unit by now.” It was true, the tracks suggested only a small band of the Astraea were guilty of the massacre that smouldered behind them, but who knew what kind of force they could end up chasing down. Aelia turned back to the horses, not deigning to respond. He grabbed at her arm, holding her back.
“Aelia, think this through. This is foolish.”
He let her snatch her arm free, her anger momentarily focused on him.
“I’m not asking you to come. Be like everyone else and just walk past the problem that burns at your feet, but I won’t.” She glared at him, those green eyes boring into him with well-aimed accusation. She spun around and stormed back to the horses, each stride more determined than the last.
“Fuck,” he sighed before following.
She’d already leapt into the saddle by the time he reached her.
“Do you have your dagger?” he asked. She lifted her top to show him. “Good.”
He pulled his sword out from his saddle and slung it between his shoulders, fighting the urge to mutter under his breath at the lunacy of what they were about to do. She’d snapped at him once and he was in no rush to experience it again, so he gritted his teeth and swung himself onto his horse’s back wordlessly.
“See if you can keep up this time.” She flipped her braid over her shoulder and urged her horse onwards.
Safely out of earshot, he risked a few mumbled expletives.
They ate up the ground,the horses egging each other on as they hurtled towards the murderous pyromaniacs.
Stay in control, stay in control, stay in control,he chanted in time to the beat of the horse’s hooves. He was in no doubt that their little game of chase would end in violence, and he just prayed he could keep Aelia alive without showing too much of his other side.
