“Oh, I think I’ve heard enough, Keeran.” She must have been pissed, because there wasn’t even a hint of fear in her eyes, despite the unnatural black that had overtaken his. “You were an informant for the Astraea. Youtoldthem when to attack Callodosis.”
He flinched at the venom in her voice, and she seized the opportunity to try and mount her horse again. He grabbed her arm and forced her to face him, knowing that if she left, she left for good. Something inside him cracked at the thought, fractures appearing in places he hadn’t even known existed until he’d met her. If she left now, he knew they’d shatter into agonising shards that no amount of time would ever be able to piece back together again.
“I didn’t know.” He drew her closer to him, desperate to make her see. “You heard that too. I didn’t know who he was or what he was going to do.”
“You think that matters?” Aelia spat, leaning so close to him he could see her bloodshot eyes, the skin around them puffy from tears he hadn’t been there to wipe away. That she hadn’t wanted him to see. “Because of you, they knew exactly when to attack. If it wasn’t for you, Mirra and Otis might not have been around when they arrived, and Fenrir might not be headed to Ideolanthea for gods only knows what.”
“You can’t hold me responsible for something I had no way of knowing,” Keeran protested, the excuse ringing hollow even in his own ears. But he had to try, he couldn’t just let her walk away. He’d been such a fool to think he could ever leave her, a delusional fool. He was hers from the moment he first laid eyes on her, undeniably and irrevocably.
“No? Remind me, why was it you had to help them?” Aelia shouted, with a sarcastic tilt of her head. Red was starting to creep up her neck as her anger boiled over. She wrenched her arm free from his grip. “Don’t touch me, you fucking murderer. Forty-eight people, Keeran. And you have the audacity to try and convince me of your innocence?”
Her words stole the air from his lungs like a punch to the gut. He could do nothing but stare at her, chest heaving. He was everything she accused him of being: a murderer, a monster, a liar. He had no defence, not when it was a truth that had haunted him every day of his life.
She turned to put a hand on either end of her saddle, the leather creaking beneath her grip. She twisted her neck to look at him, and the loathing burning in her eyes crumpled any lingering hope he had. “As if the gods thought I’d accept a pair bond with someone like you.”
A silver ring flashed in her eyes, very faintly, and only for a fraction of a second, but it was enough to stun Keeran into leaning back. It was all the space she needed to swing into the saddle, kick her horse into a canter, and disappear without a backwards glance.
Keeran didn’t know how long he looked out after her for; any concept of time was lost on him as the consequences of the night picked at his sanity. The grasslands began to wake up around him in anticipation of the imminent arrival of the sun, the light turning from black to grey.
And still Keeran stood staring after her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Aelia’s first glimpse of Llmera should have been one of the most exciting moments of her life, and yet she couldn’t muster the enthusiasm she knew the massive mountain that housed their capital city deserved.
The few days since she’d left Keeran had been torture, leaving her with too much time alone with her thoughts. Her masochistic subconscious had plagued her. It made her relive the horror of that night in Callodosis every time she closed her eyes, before replaying Keeran’s conversation with Beserkir over and over again, all day long. And just to really piss her off, it hounded her with the memory of how Keeran had looked when she’d screamed at him, the way she’d seen something in him crumple.
So Llmera, if nothing else, presented her with the distraction she had been so desperately waiting for. The mountain stood in the otherwise uninterrupted horizon, a lone sentinel guarding Demuto, marking where the waves of grass gave way to the endless undulations of the sea.
It was a masterpiece of engineering, but the real wonder of the city could not be credited to any mortal power; Mother Nature was the true architect. As a tidal island, the mountain onwhich the Dragons had built their capital city protruded from the ocean, commanding the attention of everyone Aelia shared the road with.
Initially, she’d been uneasy when it had started to become steadily busier, the tracks webbing across Demuto merging to form the wide stone road to the capital, but none of the merchants or tradesmen around her so much as looked her way. They were all too preoccupied with making it safely to the city, a note of apprehension hanging over them as they shuffled forwards, aware that their time to cross to the mountain was limited.
As the tide had withdrawn, it had exposed the stone road embedded in the soft sand of the seabed, linking the shoreline to the city. If they didn’t cross in time, at best, they’d arrive in Llmera with wet boots. At worst, they would be swept away by the rising tide. Despite being unimpressed with the potential consequences for her, Aelia had to concede that it made for a stronghold which must have been unrivalled in its defensive abilities.
The ocean floor stretched indefinitely on either side, a strip of wet sand hugging the shoreline as far as the eye could see. The traffic into the city was slow-moving, which gave her ample opportunity to appreciate the world usually hidden beneath the sea. Aelia had no idea how many times she’d heard people marvel at the fresh air of the coast, waxing lyrical about the smell of the sea, but now she was here, she wondered what the hell they’d been talking about. The ocean was undoubtedly breathtaking, humbling her with its vast magnificence, but the cloying smell of fish and marine decay was not something she thought belonged amongst the many wonders it was credited with.
As she drew closer, the mountain loomed above her imposingly. She’d grown up on stories of the Dragons of Llmera.Of how they had excavated it to create a multitude of tunnels, branching in a complex system from base to peak to form the Inner City, home to the wealthiest of the wealthy.
The rock that had been removed during the excavation of the Inner City had been used to build the enormous sea wall that ran the perimeter of the mountain’s base. It seemed poetic that the sea defended them from assailants, and the wall defended them from the sea, like a guard dog kept safely outside the home.
The same stone had been used to build the Outer City, a crowded network of houses, temples, stables, and warehouses that sprawled up the mountainside. Aelia craned her head back to take in the buildings that seemed to have been thrown against one another with disorderly charm.
The density of the Outer City faded as it crept higher, the terrain becoming too rocky and sheer to support buildings past a certain point. Aelia ignored her protesting muscles for as long as she could, but eventually she had to right her neck before it got stuck that way.
The crowd on the road slowly shuffled around her as she rode forwards amongst the trading trains, carts, and people. Hundreds and hundreds of people. With rest tantalisingly close, she climbed up the winding road to the sea wall, finally coming to the main gates. The guards on either side of it were leagues apart from the one they’d seen in Drias. Their gleaming plated armour was immaculate and well-fitting, their expression was stern and alert, surveying every face that passed with unnerving severity.
Aelia guided her horse towards them, troubling them for recommendations for an inn. They supplied her with directions, which she repeated in her head a few times as she passed through the gate.
A flicker of pride stirred in her chest as she looked around the chaotic streets of Llmera. She had made it.
They stood in the lowest ring of houses and shops at the base of the mountain. The streets of the Outer City, the part of the city that covered the outside of the mountain, were heaving with people. She walked aimlessly for a while, listening to the cacophony, breathing in the city. Life surrounded her and after her few days in isolation, she relished it. The houses were simple but cherished; not a speck of dirt covered the walls. Nor did she see any beggars, not a single one.
Aelia examined the people as they walked. Most were simply dressed, much like those in her village, but occasional flashes of expensively coloured fabric caught her eye amidst the browns and greys. It seemed popular to walk around once Shifted, so Animals of all shapes and sizes crawled, loped, and flew down the streets.
Guards were everywhere, monitoring the crowds tirelessly. Massive Dogs roamed the streets, the Llmeran flag wrapped tidily around their neck. They were soldiers in the King's army, artemians in their second form with an unparalleled sense of smell, for which they were renowned across Demuto. They sniffed the air as they walked, detecting everything from which animal a person Shifted into, to what they had for lunch.
Aelia’s stomach lurched. What would they make of her scent? She wouldn’t have the scent of a human, she was sure, but how could she smell of an artemian if she didn’t have a second form? Unsure, she decided to give them a wide berth.
