She scoffs. “All too well. I was in your shoes once, you know. Got selected about twenty-three years ago to be a Huntress. Would’ve ended up dead like the rest of ’em if it weren’t for Irene’s birds.”
My pulse picks up as I recall Demi’s tale of the golden birds guiding her aunt to safety. “Who’s Irene?”
The woman’s pole begins to bend, and she turns back around to tug it towards her, twisting the gear near its base until a writhing speckled fish emerges from the water’s rippling surface. Her brown-and-gold eyes crinkle at the sides, and I presume she’s forgotten all thoughts of our conversation until she calls over to me once more. “Ask him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
An hour later,I’m scooping up the last of the rice from my bowl as Gem admits to Kalden, “I see why you thought the food they gave us before the Hunt was barely edible.”
After several days of us snacking, Kalden organized an entire feast for us beneath an open pavilion nestled along the village’s western edge. The late afternoon sunlight beams across the horizon, casting an amber glow across the array of now-empty porcelain dishes and two empty chairs—Aruna and Demi opted to stay behind in the shared bungalow that Kalden escorted us to prior to the meal. Thanks to the nightstone in our lungs offering us temporary immunity from the sun’s effects, Gem and Twilynn agreed to let Kalden disarm the sensors in their helmets so they wouldn’t have to wait until sunset to eat.
“That’s because the food they feed you down there is grown with an artificial photosynthesis,” Niles comments while leaning back in his chair, “making it deficient in both natural vitamins and flavor.”
I wipe away the tangy sauce from the corners of my lips. “Howdo you two know so much about Caligo?”
Kalden and Niles share a look.
“Our mothers were born there,” Kalden answers after taking a long swig of wine.
When he doesn’t expand, Niles chuckles. “Damn, Kalden. You can’t just drop that on them without expanding on the details.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what I expect from him,” I say, sipping the deep berry liquid from my own crystal glass and ignoring the heated sensation of Kalden’s eyes on my face.
“You two are that familiar already, huh?” Niles glances between us with a lopsided smirk. “What else have you come to expect from him?”
I sense there’s more to Niles’s question beyond the flirty little game he’s presenting it to be, but I play along anyway. “He’s calculated, yet selectively considerate. Quick to make decisions. Led more by his own moral compass than by duty. Obsessed with control, to the point where he pretends to be unaffected by trivial things like emotions, but he has his tells.”
“I do?” This time, the question comes directly from Kalden.
I finally lift my gaze to his, struck by the intensity of his molten irises, even without the sun’s luster.
“Your eyes,” I breathe. “They’re the only place you can’t hide what you’re feeling. Like right now, your pupils are dilating. Maybe in surprise, but your hooded lids tell me it’s mostly satisfaction.”
Kalden rewards me with a rare lift of his full lips. “Good to know you’ve been studying me so closely.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t so insistent on acting like a personified puzzle.”
“I think you like the challenge.” One corner of his mouth lifts higher than the other, and it’s truly ridiculous how much that simple movement awakens every nerve in my body.
Gem clanks her fork onto her plate, and I shoot her an apologetic glance, but she takes a sudden interest in ridding the tablecloth ofinvisible dirt.
“So, your mothers were from Caligo?” I ask, attempting to bring us back to Kalden’s blunt confession.
Niles answers first. “They were both selected for the Hunt about forty years ago. Their group left them for dead after a Pyre ambush about seven miles south of here. Kalden’s father was returning from a trip to our southern capital when he found them, pulses faint, but still beating.”
“He healed them?” I ask.
Kalden nods.
“I guess your hero complex is hereditary, then.”
Niles huffs in amusement, but Kalden’s smirk falls. “I’m no hero.”
“Not this again,” Niles groans. “That wasn’t your fault.”
“What happened?”
Niles shakes his head. “It isn’t my story to tell.”
