Chapter 14 - Cammon
Cammon
XIV
I forced my jaw to relax and my hands to unclench. Glory’s question had taken me by surprise, and my body’s reaction had given away more of my tension than I would have liked.
I knew the stories that circulated about me and was surprised, given the circles she ran in and the king’s demand that I accompany her, that she didn’t.
As my unintended fame as a treasure hunter had grown, so had the stories behind my presence in a foreign country.
While not everyone knew I was King Rudael’s son, they’d heard about my supposed crime, and the gossip had added an extra veneer to my public image.
I turned to Glory and found her gaping at me.
“You didn’t know?” I asked, once more jerking my hands away from my neck. Because of the itch, I told myself, not because of any emotional discomfort.
“No.” She swallowed hard. “That’s—how—wow. I’m amazed you’re still breathing. Makes sense that you’ve stayed away, though. I don’t imagine you’d find a warm reception if you went back.”
My teeth ground together, and once more, I worked my jaw to unlock them. “No, I wouldn’t.”
With most people, I would have ended the conversation there and let them form their own opinions about what had happened.
I didn’t care what they thought, and the stories they came up with were usually more exciting than the truth, which worked well for my reputation.
But if this woman believed the worst about me, I worried the stick up her ass might grow even more rigid and the weeks stretching ahead of us would be that much more unpleasant.
Confident in my reasoning, I adjusted my pack, stretched out my neck to release the stiffness, and said, “It’s all bullshit, of course.”
A low breath escaped her. “You didn’t try to kill your father?”
I scowled. “Of course not. What kind of demon do you take me for? My kind might encourage humans to indulge in their baser pleasures, but we don’t tend to engage in patricide as a weekend hobby. And believe me, I had no desire to rush into my place on the throne.”
A furrow formed between her brows, and I caught myself before I could call that crease adorable. Nothing about this mage was adorable, and I would do well to remember it.
“Then why do people think you did?” she asked.
“Because my siblings made it look like I did. They attempted a coup, and it failed. But they were smart, and they’d arranged everything in advance to come back on me if things went sideways.
My father suspected I had nothing to do with it, but there was no evidence to prove my innocence, so he exiled me. Now I’m here.”
Such an abridged version of the worst experience of my life.
As if it meant nothing. As if it hadn’t changed the course of my future and left me scrambling to pick up the pieces in a country where I had little in common with most of the people I interacted with.
The meals were slightly more substantial—feeding from other demons was never filling, and our prisoners always came with an underlying bitterness of fear that tainted the rest—but the connection with my neighbours ended there.
That was what had sent me travelling in the first place.
Anything was better than trying to fit in and failing at every turn.
“I’m sorry.”
Glory’s voice was so soft, I might have missed it if the breeze hadn’t picked up at just the right moment to carry her words to my ear.
“It’s in the past. After we finish here, I’ll have the evidence I need to clear my name, and then I can leave this place and return home the victorious son.”
She tilted her head to watch me. “You’ve been here for ten years. That’s not long enough for Golthwaine to be your home now?”
I snorted a laugh. “You wouldn’t understand, mage. These are your people. You move among them and know what to expect. They know what to expect from you. You can relax around them. No one trusts a demon.”
Her cheeks flushed, and an emotion I couldn’t name floated around her. Embarrassment at being called out? I ignored it. Her opinion of me meant as much as that of the hundreds of other people I passed on any given day. It was the situation that rankled me, not her specific reaction to what I was.
We fell silent, the conversation at a blessed end.
But then she asked, “Is that why you accepted this mission?”
“What do you mean?”
“Helping King Evaniel. Did he offer to help you clear your name?”
The woman was quick, I’d give her that.
“He did. If we can save this princess, I’ll get the chance to grind my siblings beneath my heel. It was a fair deal.”
Glory dropped her chin in a nod. “Good.”
Curiosity bade me inquire. “Good?”
“You have a strong motivation to get us to the final landmark. That’s good to know.”
I grinned. “Does it make you trust me a little more?”
A faint smile played at the corner of her mouth.
The first one I’d earned from her. “I won’t go that far, but up until now, I’ve assumed this was a regular job for you.
The adventure was the point, win or lose.
Maybe I won’t argue with you so much over your interpretation of Tersey’s poems now that I know you’re as driven to reach the goal as I am. ”
We stopped for our late midday meal next to a narrow creek, but after letting the cool water soothe what was left of my rash, I didn’t let us linger.
We were making good progress, so I wasn’t concerned about getting past the halfway mark to the next signpost, but a faint whiff of something in the air nagged me to move faster.
Glory grew increasingly out of temper at the quickened pace, her feet slipping and sliding over the rocks as we made our way back to the road. I tuned her out and focused on our surroundings.
I had no proof that we were being followed, but I kept catching the scent of something that hadn’t been with us when we’d entered shifter territory, and I suspected our journey hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Though if someone was tracking us, they didn’t make themselves known for the rest of the day, and by the time we reached a good place to set up camp, I was ready to relax and put my concerns behind us. We meant no harm to this place, so the shifters had no reason to bother us.
Glory huffed and muttered under her breath as she put up her tent. Her bun was an unmitigated disaster, her shirt had become untucked on her right side, and I couldn’t help but notice the way she limped as she passed back and forth to get the rods in place.
“You all right, Buttons?” I asked from my bedroll by the fire.
She shot me a look that could have frozen the hells. “I don’t see why we had to run all the way here. I checked the map. We’re barely farther than we would have been at the pace we were going this morning.”
The rod she was working on flexed and flew back, smacking her in the head. “Olodin’s cock!” she shouted, rubbing her crown.
I pressed my lips together to hide my smile, and a touch of guilt over being the cause of her bad mood and aching heels compelled me to show some compassion.
“Let me help.” I rolled to my feet and took the rod out of her hands.
That she let me do it without argument was proof of how finished she was with today, so I said nothing as she staggered across camp, kicked off her boots, stripped off her waistcoat, and dropped onto a log I’d dragged close to the fire.
“I wouldn’t have taken you as the religious sort,” I said over my shoulder as I worked, doing my best to distract myself from my body’s reaction to her.
Though the tent did a good enough job on its own.
It really was the worst design I’d ever seen and reinforced my opinion that I was smarter to travel without, even if I had to suffer the occasional water-logged morning.
“Hm? Oh, you mean Olodin?” Glory shrugged. “I’m not the praying sort, it’s true, but he and I have enough in common that I feel a sort of kinship with him.”
I glanced at her to watch her lean back on her hands to look at the stars that were only just peeking through the dusk.
After craning her neck in one direction, then another, she pointed to a cluster.
“There he is. Olodin with his book. The protector of scholars. The demigod who strove to create the most comprehensive library the gods had ever seen—until his wife, Cloya, grew jealous of all the time he spent with his books and burned the entire collection. The knowledge of the gods. The answers to every one of life’s mysteries. ”
A low laugh rumbled from her chest, and the sound made my cock twitch. I ordered it to settle down and refocused on the tent.
“For the best, probably,” she continued. “I can’t think of a single person who could handle such knowledge without corrupting themselves and using it for their own purposes.”
I raised an eyebrow before setting to work on the next tent rod. Seriously, how the hell did this thing go up? I was about to toss the entire contraption into the woods and drape Glory’s blanket over a tree branch. “You don’t think very much of your fellow humans, do you?”
I tasted her discomfort again—a flash of embarrassment and… fear? Interesting. I shot her a closer look, but she’d returned her gaze to the stars, and the angle of her face kept her expression draped in shadow.
“I think humans can do incredible things. I watch my fellow mages work wondrous magic and make such a positive difference to this country. But I also believe it’s in our nature to crush everything we view as different, because different means dangerous.
It’s in our nature to hoard, to create divides and salvage everything for the us, leaving them to fend for themselves.
Maybe it’s a pessimistic view, but I spend a lot of time researching the past. There are only so many times you can read about similar events without noticing the patterns. ”
I wrestled the final tent rod into place—realizing as I did that I’d missed a piece and hoping she wouldn’t notice—then returned to my bedroll and dropped onto it. “I’d love to disagree with you, but my personal history supports your belief.”
She looked my way and tilted her head as though to see me better. The fire caught her brown hair and added a golden sparkle to the loose tendrils. “There is one benefit of having such a low bar about people.”
“Oh? And what might that be?”
“It’s always a nice surprise when someone goes out of their way to prove you wrong.” She nodded her chin towards the tent. “Thank you.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, careful not to scratch. “No problem. It’s the least I can do to make up for—”
A menacing roar cut me off before a massive grizzly bear charged out of the woods.
I barely had time to stand before the beast shifted into human form, grabbed Glory by the throat, and pinned her to a tree. I hadn’t smelled him coming, hadn’t tasted his emotions in his animal form. Rage sparked within me and ran through my veins, filling my muscles and sharpening my senses.
The large hand around Glory’s neck flexed as he squeezed, while the man’s free hand grabbed both her wrists, preventing her from fighting him off.
Red and black crept around the edges of my vision, and pain lanced through my forehead as the points of my horns sliced through skin, my transformation into my demonic form immediate and instinctive at the sight of the mage’s distress.
Even as my skin thickened and my nails extended into talons, I wondered how Glory would respond.
Would her panic push her to use her magic, levelling everything in this clearing?
Part of me hoped she would. This fucker deserved whatever he got. He’d made a mistake coming after us.
And an even greater mistake targeting my charge.