Maxi shook her head. “I-I was…merely trying to scratch my back. Is that…dinner?”
“It is soup with dry meat and some bread.”
He crawled into the tent and lowered the tray onto the floor. The tent suddenly felt too cramped to accommodate someone so large. Maxi picked up the bowl of soup absentmindedly as Riftan stretched out his long legs and began removing his armor one piece at a time.
When he caught her watching him, he cocked an eyebrow. “I know it’s not much, but it’s the best we can manage. Try to eat it even if it does not suit your palate.”
“I had no intention of complaining a-about the food,” Maxi replied in annoyance, then quietly began to eat. The stale bread and bland soup were practically a feast after her breakfast of apple and jerky. She gulped it down in the blink of an eye.
“You must have been famished.” Riftan looked serious as she wolfed down the meal.
Maxi blushed, wondering if she had devoured it too hungrily. “A-A little.”
“Our journey will continue like this. Are you sure you can handle it?”
Maxi stubbornly nodded her head. Riftan’s expression remained doubtful, but he eventually turned his attention to his own meal.
They finished eating in silence, then lay side by side in a futile attempt to sleep. Even though Maxi was close to fainting from exhaustion, sleep strangely eluded her. Sighing, she tossed about and accidentally brushed her hand against Riftan’s leg.
Riftan pulled his arm out from under his head and turned away from her as though he had been burned. Maxi’s breath stilled in her chest. Since when had he loathed her touch? Before this journey, he had always fallen asleep with his armswrapped around her. Yet here he was, pretending to sleep and staying as far from her as the tent would allow. Fear coiled around her heart. Had this all been a mistake? Was he completely disillusioned with her?
Maxi tried to search her husband’s face, but it was masked in shadow. When she placed a hand on his forearm, Riftan stiffened and drew in a sharp breath.
Bolting upright, he grabbed his sword and crawled to the tent opening. “I will stay outside. Go ahead and sleep.”
Before Maxi could stop him, he exited the tent, letting the flap close behind him. She blinked, utterly shocked. Completely drained, body and soul, Maxi lay back down and pulled the blanket over her head as if it could block out the world.
She could still hear beasts howling in the distance. For some reason, the thought that drifted across Maxi’s mind as she finally fell asleep was that they sounded sad.
—
Riftan remained indifferent towardher for the next leg of the journey. During the day, he led the knights in silence. At night, he would bring her food and make her bed, but that was the extent of their interaction. He had even stopped sleeping in the tent with her since the night after the drake attack.
When she quietly asked Hebaron where her husband had been sleeping if not with her, he told her that Riftan either spent the night wrapped in a blanket near her tent or did not sleep at all.
Maxi was furious. No matter how angry he was, how could he be so foolish as to let his body suffer? When shestormed up to him and demanded that he explain himself, Riftan merely gave her an irritable reply.
“Trust me. I can rest better outside.”
One good thing about the campaign being so arduous was that she was so dizzy from exhaustion, she did not have the strength to torture herself over Riftan’s brooding.
“We will be making for that mountain pass.” Gabel pointed toward the distant peak as he rode beside her through a dense forest. “The path will be rough, so please follow carefully.”
Wiping the beads of sweat from her forehead, Maxi nodded. The day was unusually hot and humid, with barely a hint of breeze. Rem snorted continuously as though she were just as tired as her mistress. Maxi coaxed her along as she resentfully looked up through the leaves at the blazing sun. A frivolous worry about getting more freckles crossed her mind. Perhaps it had been a mistake leaving the veil that the dressmaker couple had offered her.
“There will be a small village once we pass this mountain,” Ulyseon said encouragingly, as if he could read her mind. “We may be able to sleep on a bed tonight if we’re lucky, so please persevere a little longer, my lady.”
Maxi scraped together all the energy she had left by imagining bathing in cool water, scrubbing her body, washing her hair with soap, and sleeping on a clean bed.
They were halfway up the mountain when the horses grew noticeably slower. The party eventually dismounted and continued the climb on foot. It turned out that scrambling up a steep switchback with twisting roots was no easy feat. Feeling her calf muscles burning, Maxi tossed her head back and tried to steady her breathing.
Blinding sunlight streamed in through the leaves. Each time she inhaled deeply, it felt as though her lungs were being stabbed, and her feet felt like they were on fire. A plea to stop for a short rest was stuck in her throat, but she desperately pushed it back down. Not wanting to be a nuisance, she stubbornly put one foot in front of the other until the hellish march finally paused.
Maxi nearly sank to the ground on the spot, but a harsh bellow rang out from above her on the switchback before she could even catch her breath. “Cast your barrier, now!”
It was Riftan, calling to the troops on the lower trail from on top of a steep rock face. In a daze, Maxi watched as the knights drew their swords. Before she could grasp what was happening, the ground shook violently, and a horde of creatures came swooping at them from all sides.
“Goblins!”
