“Impatient,” Theo tutted, yet continued on when I rose my eyebrow. “It’s as simple as I said, Wren. You sit at outpost five, you protect the palace, kill whatever you see. Eventually I might have a little project for you. Don’t run, don’t try to leave, and trust that I’ll come back for you when I need you. Both of you.”
“And what will the rest of the country be doing?” I asked with a tilt of my head.
“Weeding out the Unseelie, keeping it all quiet, and doing what they’ve done for the past ten years—making sure that the war that everyone whispers about never sees the light of day. Let’s keep it a rumor and don’t tell them that it’s actually happening, or about people like you.” He eyed me in particular, even though Adam and Lindy stood nearby. “You’ll be trusted to keep quiet, otherwise there will be consequences. I’ve found that news of things like this inspires rebellion, and I’d rather not fight a war on three sides. I have faith that you, along with a few others, will mean the end of all of this nonsense.”
“The end of the war?” I asked,
“The Unseelie,” Theo clarified. “Rest assured, I have a plan.”
I thought he would let us go then, but he didn’t. We were about to leave before Camden leaned over to Theo and whispered in his ear.
“Oh yes,” Theo said, and if he could look more self-indulgent, I think he would have. “I nearly forgot, I have news for you, Luka.” He gave a dangerous smile, “perhaps we could speak alone.”
Chapter Seven
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked for the fourth time, struggling to keep my eyes on both Luka and the road as our group began the trek downwards to the outpost we would be staying at. Luka had been off since he returned from his conversation with Theo. His eyes had stayed away from mine.
I didn’t trust it.
“As I have said before, Wren,” Luka said with a swallow. “I am fine. There’s no need for concern.”
Easy for him to say. The space between us was wide, far wider than the girth we’d given each other when we hated each other, and though we walked far behind all of the others, Luka did not make any moves to fix that.
You’d think he would want to, with the sun hanging so close to the edge of the skyline. But if it wasn’t for me, he might have walked alone.
“The Unseelie wouldn’t take me anyway,” he said, somehow reading my concern off the side of my face. “They don’t hurt their own kind.”
“You’re not an Unseelie.”
“I’m half.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It is enough to count in every other situation,” he dismissed, his jaw tightening. “You should walk further ahead, beside Nikolas or Adam. Lindy might be a good option too.”
“I want to walk beside you,” I insisted.
“You have other, far more important things to be concerned about,” Luka said, eying the trees.
I knew what he saw. I was trying to ignore them, slowly moving past them. Every so often I saw a hint of a scale or the glint of an eye as I moved by.
“You were mad when I tried to keep secrets from you at the camp,” I said, looking away from him.
“Those were choices that you made that affected the both of us.”
“And what is this?” I asked, turning to look at him in the dimming light. He only held my gaze for a few seconds before looking away. “You can’t keep secrets from me, Kinsley.”
“Go ahead, Wren,” he ignored my question. “I’m of no use to you right now.”
“I can protect myself,” I spat. “Or have you forgotten?”
He sighed, and for a moment I thought that he was giving in. His body edged closer to mine, after all, and for the briefest of moments, he made contact with my waist. I turned to give him a look—
And then changed it to a glare as he shoved me ahead, sending me stumbling a few feet forward and into Nikolas’s back.
Nikolas turned around with astonishing speed as I shot an expression of loathing behind me, bristling at what Luka had done. Immediately, Nikolas’s hand was on my elbow to steady me. “Whoa there, Wren, be careful where you’re walking; I wouldn’t want you to fall.”
“Really?” I asked, turning to face him. “Because it seems like some people do,” I spat, hoping that Luka heard. I swore to myself that I would get back at him before the night’s end.
Nikolas raised an eyebrow.
I huffed, in far worse of a mood than I had been. But if Luka wanted to be alone, that was fine, I just wrapped my hand around Nikolas’s arm in full view. If he was going to push me away, I was going to be petty.
Nikolas straightened at my touch, his other eyebrow raising, but his feet still moving forward. It wasn’t a trail you should stop on, not when it wove as deeply into the forest as it did. “Wren,” he said my name, sounding far too pleased considering that just a few hours ago I was hoping he would fall down the mountain.
“It looks like I’m joining you for a while,” I said.
“I’m not complaining,” he replied with a smile.
Of course he wasn’t. I held back a snort, looking back to the trees and hoping that he would at least do me the favor of not talking.
But it was Nikolas, so no such luck. “I am sorry about earlier, Wren. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
He could have left it at that.
“It’s just that all of this, you and him, it gets my blood boiling,” he started again, somehow ignoring how my hand tightened around his arm. “It feels like some kind of trick, like he’s conned you somehow.”
“It sometimes feels like that to me too,” I said.
“You deserve better,” he continued, but that’s not really what he meant. You’d have to be an idiot to believe that that’s what a man means when he says something like that to you.
No, what he meant was, ‘in my opinion, I deserve you.’ Which was twice as irritating as saying that I deserved better.
“It’s just—Look at him and look at you!” He said it as if it were some great wonder. He shook his head to himself, “it doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m sure a lot of things don’t make sense to you, Nikolas,” I muttered. I was almost anxious to see something in the trees, if only to have the distraction. Now would have been a great time for something to try to kill me.
“They don’t,” he admitted, not fully understanding me. “But you…”
Oh my god. I had to fight my natural instinct to roll my eyes back into my head. Me? I made sense? Right, because Nikolas had such a deep understanding of me, far more than anyone else.
“I mean, you’re beautiful and funny, sometimes. And he…” Nikolas grimaced. “There’s nothing good about him, that’s for sure.”
“He’s a lot more charming than you think.”
“How?”
I could make a list. I hated that I could make a list, but I could. It’d be way too long and full of things he’d never realize, like the way that Luka always seemed to catch me when I fell or the fact that he seemed so confident that I was capable of understanding nearly everything he told me and only pretended to be annoyed when he had to explain himself—But Nikolas wouldn’t listen to that list.
“You’d just be surprised,” I said. “There’s something about him.”
“Unseelie magic,” Nikolas summarized, like how some people might say the word witchcraft.
“Unseelie magic,” I agreed, biting back a smile.
Nikolas’s face fell as I said the word, as if it reminded him of something. I didn’t have to guess what that was. “They’ve been watching the whole way,” he noted, pulling his arm in closer to himself so that I was forced to his side. “But they haven’t done anything. It’s unnerving.”
“It’s not night yet,” I said. “The Unseelie aren’t fond of the sunlight.”
“It’s damn close.” He eyed the front of the group, where Adam walked beside Lindy a few feet ahead of us, the young woman’s owlish eyes moving in every direction as she walked down the hill. “He
y, can we get some light?” He asked.
Adam chuckled, accepting his request. He raised one hand, swirling it in the air as a small flame began, soon becoming a ball that hovered just above his hand. Nikolas not so subtly edged closer to him, but I didn’t hear Luka draw in.
Maybe he really did believe that the Unseelie wouldn’t touch him.
More than likely, however, he was just being petty.
“These things are freaky,” Nikolas explained. “Adam said you saw a troll,” never mind the fact that I actually defeated one, “but you don’t know the half of it.”
“You said you’d only seen one Unseelie,” I said, ignoring the irritation I felt.
“I did,” Nikolas confirmed, “and it was big.” Bigger than a troll, I almost asked, because I doubted that. “Girls like you don’t need to get involved in this sort of stuff. It’s not right.”
I could have laughed. Really, I should have. “Then what am I here for?” Pressing him, I asked, “what is Lindy here for?” She was half his size with twice his ability for sure. Being away from water rendered Nikolas useless, but Lindy seemed to fair just fine with the water that clung to the air.
“The King doesn’t know what he’s doing this time,” Nikolas summarized.
At least we could agree on something. Though I guessed that if I were to tell him the depths of my sentiments, he wouldn’t agree with me.
Up ahead, Adam slowed, Lindy almost moved past him as his steps faltered, his head turned up towards the sky. We didn’t realize at first, but then Nikolas’s hand pressed into my stomach, stopping me along with him as Adam continued to look, the flames in his hand flickering in the breeze. Behind us, Luka’s footsteps did not slow.
“The trees are shifting, we need to pick up the pace,” Adam announced, beginning to move once more.
“What do you mean the trees are shifting?” I asked, attempting to walk towards him but still being held back by Nikolas’s grasp.
“Just what I said,” Adam replied, not so much as looking back. “They’re moving, we need to pick up the pace before the path vanishes. By tomorrow, this won’t be here anymore.”
I blinked, immediately leaping to a conclusion, “dryads?”
“Some,” Adam said, not offering any further clarity.
“Adam thinks the whole forest is alive,” Nikolas said conspiratorially.
“It is alive,” I was surprised to hear Luka’s voice cut in behind us. “Just because something does not talk back to you doesn’t mean it isn’t living. You should know that better than anyone, Nikolas.”
Nikolas snorted, ignoring the dig. “Right, and so the trees choose to be here, and they make friends with each other and move when no one is watching.”
“They do,” Luka said, and I was surprised to see him right behind us, his face painted with annoyance. “Do you really know so little? Even outside of Whynne, trees communicate with each other via their roots and fungi, alongside various other methods. And they’re prone to slowly leaning towards and sprouting saplings from their roots to grow in areas with more favorable conditions.”
“You know quite a bit about trees, Luka,” I noted.
“Of course he does, he’s an Unseelie,” Nikolas bristled, his hand wrapping around my arm. “The forest is where they’re meant to live, in case you forgot.”
I shot him a glare.
“My father actually educated me instead of indulging me in the fantasy of war,” Luka said. “So, I’d say it’s more a fault of your family for not teaching you such things when you live in Whynne of all places.”
Nikolas veered around with a venomous look, spitting at him, “You’re not even worth half of me, mutt.” I thought he would hit Luka.
My eyes widened, I was ready to lay into Nikolas before Adam popped his head in, grimacing. “Now, now, let’s not fight, gentlemen, you wouldn’t want to embarrass yourselves in front of the ladies.”
“I don’t know, I think it might be entertaining,” Lindy said just out of view. She definitely wanted to see it.
“As if I’d lower myself to that,” Nikolas scoffed. “I’m going to be a war hero; I don’t have the time to lower myself to scum like him.”
Scum.
I didn’t even realize that I’d raised my fist when he said it, not until Adam stepped in the way, grabbing my wrist and ignoring the electricity that flickered across my skin. Oh, how I wanted to get a punch in.
“Hey,” Adam said in a strained voice, “let’s not do that here.” He looked over his shoulder, as if waiting for something to happen. “This isn’t exactly the best place to have a fist fight, Wren.”
I scoffed.
“He’s a monster,” Nikolas said in response, outraged. “You know that, Wren? You’re wasting your time on a monster. I’m just trying to help you.”
Adam moved to defuse the situation. “I don’t care what Luka is, he’s on the King’s payroll, and under my supervision. If you want to fight him, you do that when you go home. If you don’t want to fight him, great, Nikolas, keep your comments to yourself, because I’m not going to leave you people out in the woods and come back to find out you’ve murdered each other. That goes for you too, Wren,” he turned to me, like I would do anything to Luka. “I believe in love and all, but I’m not stupid enough to think that after the way you told me you hated him months ago, you two are going to be buddy buddy every day of the week. Try not to kill him.”
My eyes narrowed as I tore my wrist back from Adam. He didn’t pay much attention to it.
“You,” he said, pointing to Luka, “try not to make anyone want to kill you, Kinsley. And Lindy…” He sighed because he could not leave her out of it. “I want you to know that I don’t trust you either, and I wholly believe that you don’t care about this country, but rather the money you’ll make.”
Lindy shrugged.
“Now,” Adam sounded exasperated, looking at all of us. “We’ve settled this, let’s not revisit it, and if we do, let’s not do it in the middle of the forest just before nightfall, because I’m not overly fond of fighting off wandering Unseelie.”
I think he expected us to hang onto every word, but, unfortunately, I didn’t. I charged after Adam, leaving Lindy, Nikolas, and Luka behind as I struggled to keep up with him. It was a miracle I caught him, he set an almost grueling pace to make up for the delay our little distraction caused.
“Wait. You are going to leave us?” I asked, the words finally processing.
“Of all the things I’ve said, that’s what you’ve chosen to hang onto?” Adam marveled, continuing his march. In the distance I saw another light, likely the outpost. “I am,” he admitted. “Believe it or not, I have more important things to do than sit around watching you lot tear out each other’s throats.”
I looked at him incredulously. “But it’s the forest!”
“Yes, and I have tea and parties to attend in the capital,” Adam said with a tone that made it sound like an annoyance to him. “I have an image to keep up, and that image will surely fade if I’m gone for months on end meandering about in the forest. Believe it or not, people notice me, and they’ll surely talk if I’m gone,” He shook his head. “But no worries, I set up a chaperone.”
“A chaperone?”
He turned to me, giving me a grin. “Do you think I’m the only loyalist to the King in the capital? I found someone. It was actually easy, for once, which was remarkable because dealing with you guys feels like pulling teeth.”
“Someone?”
“A nice girl, real pleasant. She’s from around Audon. Mylene Winters,” he said, “she came highly recommended by the King.”
Behind me, I heard someone stumble. “Do you need to look at the ground when you walk, tall one?” Lindy hissed, and I had no doubt that she was talking to Luka, since he was the tallest. Nikolas had other, far more defining features—his gills, for instance, which were flared out wide in irritation from having to walk anywhere near Luka.
“Mylene Winters,” I repeated
her name as I looked back to make sure Luka was okay. Luka’s face was strained. “From near Audon?”
“Just below Lynn,” Adam replied smugly. “You’re welcome.”
“I’ll thank you when I see her,” I replied, my eyebrows narrowed as I tossed another look back at Luka.
Chapter Eight
A small, mismatched cabin cobbled together out of various types of wood and repaired with whatever could be found, stood only a few feet in front of us. Every light was on in it, forming a halo of brightness around it. It was a good thing to see, a sight I should have been glad for, all around us night had already begun to fall. The others seemed glad, almost reverent upon seeing it, but I was not.
I was still watching Luka.
He was standing in the shadows, on the cusp between light and dark. His body was tense, his eyes on the cabin before him. I didn’t know what to think of it as the others began to enter the cabin. Luka remained unmoving as they vanished behind the open door.
“Luka,” I said, walking towards him, my hand reaching out into the darkness.
He looked at me, a sort of guilt coating his features. He didn’t take my hand. No, instead he chose to move on his own, stepping around me to approach the door, lingering on the threshold rather than stepping in.
I quirked a brow at him, tilting my head.
He gave a brief nod, gesturing to the door. There was no other explanation. I could only sigh.
“Thank you,” I said as I passed by, because I knew that if it were anyone else out there, he would have already left.
Normally, he would have a snarky response. “You’re welcome, Wren.”
The group was already engaged in loud conversation once I entered the cabin. They were squeezed into a tight common space and sitting upon nearly every surface as they addressed the cabin’s occupant, a young woman. One with blonde hair and green eyes, lanky legs and freckles covering every part of her I could see. A woman that was surprisingly human.
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