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Together, we retreat to our room. The instant the door clicks shut, I start gathering our possessions.
“They’re looking for us,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Did you manage to get everything?”
Only silence answers. I pause, turning to look at him.
He stands frozen, his gaze fixed on the closed door and his entire body taut, like he’s bracing for it to burst open at any second.
“Lyxander,” I hiss.
He blinks, his focus shifting to me. “Yes,” he says, and gestures to the bag slung over his shoulder. “A horse and enough supplies to see us through.”
“A horse?” My hands still on the straps of my pack. “You expect me to travel on the back of a horse with you across the kingdom?”
“Isn’t that the least of our concerns right now?”
For him, perhaps.
I exhale slowly, refusing to let irritation take hold.
Hefting my pack, I cross the room and drop it at his feet with a dull thud. “We’re still heading north?”
“Yes. We could lose them in the Agria.”
The Agria’s dense expanse will offer countless paths to vanish into, and if I’m recalling it correctly from the maps, the forest stretches across much of eastern Arkhadia. Nothing we’ve done here would raise suspicion, even if Lyxander’s entrance captured too much focus. The mercenaries most likely traveled by way of Intana, so they must be heading east to search the smaller towns.
“All right.” I cross to the cracked window, pushing it open. The street below is quiet, but it won’t stay that way for long. “I’m making a detour first.”
“Aella.” His voice is a low growl of warning, but I don’t turn to face him.
“If I’m not back in half an hour”—I swing a leg over the sill, gritting my teeth as the wound in my side throbs—“meet me at the forest’s edge.”
“Aella, wait—”
Before he can argue, I let myself fall, the wind rushing past me as I drop into the street below.
Chapter 11
Aella
The ancient trees tower around us, their branches weaving into a dense canopy that fractures the fading sunlight into shifting patterns. Shadows stretch longer with each passing moment, and the endless expanse of trunks and tangled undergrowth blurs together, until each turn is indistinguishable from the last. It’s as though the Agria itself is working to keep us lost.
The only sign we’re heading north is the deepening chill, the cold seeping through my layers and biting sharper with every hour.
Lyxander forges ahead, guiding his gelding over roots and through patches of underbrush with confidence, as if he’s walked this path a hundred times before. But, not for the first time today, he glances back, a furrow creasing his brow as his gaze shifts from me to my mount.
Finally, I can’t take it anymore.
“Go ahead and ask. I know it’s eating at you.”
He slows his gelding, eyes narrowing as he studies me.
“Where—” He shakes his head like he’s trying to physically dislodge the thought. “No. I don’t want to know.”
The mule beneath me makes a curious sound—half bray, half whinny—and tosses her head, her long ears flicking back and forth.
“Easy now, Klem,” I say, patting her neck.
“Klem?” he echoes.
