Chapter 6 #2
Sawyer looked to the stars as if they held the answer. “Honestly, I have no clue. Kade said we should reach the portion of the River of Riesneim that borders Draemor by day two. But I have no idea where Lumosia even lies on a map, so that information isn’t super helpful.”
Our continent was fairly small all things considered.
Draemor was about a three day ride from Caelestis’ castle, though traveling to Mealioria from the palace pushed a week’s time.
If you were to look at a map, the Prilarean empire held a minuscule amount of land compared to the bordering continents.
“So basically, we're putting all our faith in Kade and Jensen?”
“Yep,” he answered dully, tossing his stick to the dirt.
“That's…scary.”
“Eh. I’m pretty confident that Seb and I could take them both if we had to.”
Now that was something I could put my faith in.
A few heartbeats of silence surrounded us, the only noise being the chirp of a nearby cricket.
“How are things with you and Seb?” Sawyer shot the words out so fast I could hardly understand him.
Air blew from my nostrils. “Shitty.”
“Have you guys talked at all?”
“Here and there. But not the kind of conversation he wants to have.”
The fire surged, reflecting in the green of Sawyer's eyes. “And what kind of conversation would that be?”
My thumbs found each other and twiddled. “The kind that discusses what this all means for us—if I still want to be with him.”
Sawyer shuffled forward, clearing his throat. “Well. Do you?”
My heavy breath poured into the night sky. “I don't think it matters what I want, because I don't know that I can be with him after this, anyway. At least not right away.”
That was the first time I truly said the words out loud. And they hurt. They fucking killed.
“I dunno.” I shrugged, pointing my stinging nose to the sky.
“You don’t have to decide anything right now.” Sawyer's hand found my shoulder. “But when you do, I’ll be here for you. If you need me.”
I forced a half smile.
Eyelids falling heavy, a deep yawn uncaged itself from my lungs. I turned my gaze back to the flames and sent a prayer up to the veil that Kade didn’t screw us over.
“Comfy?”
My eyes shot open to a blur of smoke from the extinguished fire—stomped out by Sebastian’s boot.
I wiped drool from the side of my mouth. My neck cracked as I bent it back to a normal angle. Glancing around, my eyes dilated.
Sleep had finally found me—on Sawyer's shoulder. He roused as well, running a hand down his stubbled face to try and wake himself up.
Sebastian tossed me my rucksack.
I was barely coherent, but enough so to catch the pack against my chest.
“I packed your tent up for you. We’re leaving,” he muttered flatly before stomping off.
He was completely silent for the first few hours of our travels, which was fine considering I’d been trying to avoid conversation with him, anyway. But in all honesty, I was starting to get bored. And bored Maeve trumped angry Maeve.
“Do you think Beaumont’s alive?” I breached the barriers of silence we had put in place.
“Dunno,” Sebastian grunted, pulling our mare’s reins to steer her through a sharp turn.
“There was nothing about that in your mother’s journal?”
“You read the journal. Did you see anything about that?”
“No, but for all I know you ripped a page out and are hiding it from everyone.”
Sebastian’s gaze soared over his shoulder, nostrils flaring. “Gods, Maeve. Are you going to pick a fight with me every time we talk?”
I didn’t want to fight with him—I still loved him. But I was also so unbelievably hurt by him, and the two feelings seemed to contradict each other.
I evicted a sympathetic sigh. “No. I’m sorry.”
“When we get back, we need to sit down and have a real conversation about everything. Because having your body pressed against mine and not being able to put my mouth all over you might quite literally kill me,” he groaned under his breath, putting his attention back on the trail.
My blood pooled in my chest. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t still want him in more ways than one. Just because I was hurt, didn’t mean that I had stopped craving his touch. But I had morals. And trusting the person I was sleeping with was one of them.
“And the fact that Sawyer got to sleep next to you last night and I didn’t, pisses me the fuck off,” he lowly grumbled, ensuring only I could hear.
“Is Sebastian Hawthorne…jealous?” I bit back a satisfied smirk.
“Fuck yes, I’m jealous.”
The blunt honesty made my smile crack wide open.
“Until you tell me otherwise, you're still mine,” he over-confidently added.
My smile shattered.
Around the halfway point of day two, everything inside of me regretted making this journey. My body felt like a wet towel being wrung out and I was beginning to go stir crazy.
“This sucks,” I mumbled a few times until Sebastian answered.
“I know. If my calculations are correct, that's the fifty-seventh time you've said that today.”
My lips parted to counter, but Kade’s loud, “Shh!” quieted me. His horse came to a sudden halt and he held a silencing finger in the air.
My heart assaulted the walls of my chest as Sebastian tugged back on the reins of our horse, bringing us to cessation in the middle of a rocky path.
“Did anyone hear that?” Kade whispered, his flaxen eyes darting in all directions of the endless forest surrounding us.
“It sounded like metal,” Jensen stated, swinging his legs over the side of his mustang and landing on the ground. He pulled his sword free from his thigh sheath.
“Maybe it was a bear,” I suggested, preferring that to pretty much any other alternative. Except for a bunny—a bunny would be nice right about now.
“Do you know of any bears that have metal claws?” Kade sneered as if my idea was completely implausible. “And there are things far worse than bears in these woods.”
“Yeah, like snakes.” Sawyer noticeably shuddered.
“Snakes?” Kade arched a thick brow. “You’re an experienced and professionally-trained soldier, and you're scared of…snakes?”
“Fuck yeah, I’m scared of snakes! Some of them are big enough to swallow you whole! And anything that eats dead mice is on my list of dislikes,” Sawyer riposted without stutter.
“How about cats?” I chirped, trying to disguise the teasing tone of my voice.
“Had one growing up. Never liked it much,” Sawyer answered.
“Owls?” Sebastian questioned.
“Creepy eyes,” Sawyer stated.
I hadn’t heard it the first time, but the clang of scraping metal bounded off the surrounding trees.
“Okay. Definitely not a bear,” I agreed under my breath, reaching to my thigh wrapping for my dagger.
“Maybe it's an iron python,” Kade quipped, wiggling his fingers in a dismissive taunt.
Using both hands, Sawyer flipped him off, then shot two harsh jets of water into Kade’s face.
Another ringing clatter filled the space, silencing Kade’s string of curse words.
“Stay here,” Sebastian instructed before sticking a landing off our horse’s back and ripping his sword free from the leather strap around his waist.
Before I got my argument out, he vanished into the trees, Jensen’s blond locks swaying closely behind him.
Sawyer maneuvered his horse beside mine and drew his own sword, letting it linger loosely by his side. “Take your dagger out.”
“Already did.” I flaunted a glimpse of the shining blade. “Worried a snake is gonna slither over here and I may have to kill it for you?”
“I should have never opened my godsdamn mouth,” Sawyer muttered, the words leaving his lips just as the sound of clashing steel filled our ears.
“She’s the marked one!” a harsh, raspy voice called from behind me.
My head jerked to the side so fast I think I gave myself whiplash.
A broad, armored man propelled towards Sawyer and I, his sword extended and angled perfectly at my skull. He bore no helmet, just a full head of orange hair that made him stand out amongst the neutral shades of the forest.
Sawyer jumped from his horse to attack, but Kade was faster, securing a blade against the man's throat before Sawyer had even steadied his footing.
The man stumbled backwards to avoid Kade's weapon, his spine and elbows colliding with the ground. It was then that I recognized the Draemornian symbol etched into his armor.
Oh…Oh fuckkk.
“Are you alone?” Kade snarled, saliva flying from his jaw as he inched his blade closer to the man's throat.
“Nope,” Sawyer answered for the Draemornian, swinging his sword to the side. With sheer muscle power he sliced the head off of another armored opponent who had been lurking behind us.
An open-mouthed skull tumbled through the dirt, stopping awfully close to the man Kade held immobile.
“How many more of you are there?” Kade snarled. His blade crept into our enemy's flesh, tearing a curse from the sliver of his lips.
I shuffled in the saddle as three more Draemornians revealed themselves from a clearing in the woods. “Uh, guys,” I called out, the alarm in my voice briskly grasping Sawyer and Kade’s attention.
A flame whizzed past my head as Kade discharged a ball of fire, aiming it at the Draemornian beyond me.
The burning heat missed its target, but sent my horse into a repetition of pitching jolts. The reins tore my palms open as I gripped them for dear life. One of my boots slipped from the stirrup and my body slid dangerously close to the edge of my saddle, though I narrowly managed to steady myself.
Using his gift from Zenith to retaliate, the Draemornian directly behind me conjured up a violent gust of wind. The current pushed into Kade’s chest, knocking him away from his comrade, the blast strong enough to put a few yards between the two.
I blinked, and multiple variations of magic were flying about along with the clambering shine of metal.
A different kind of weapon would be more useful in this situation, but I needed to think fast. Discretely, I tucked my dagger back into its sheath.
It was four against three, so our odds were good. But it seemed like an unnecessary risk to take when I could potentially solve the problem.
I could compel all of our opponents, but if they deflected my magic with their mental shields, I would just be wasting time.
My vision studied the clear blue sky. Think, Maeve. Think.
The sun shone so damn brightly that my eyes stung, forcing a tight squint.
The sun.
The sun was a star, so maybe…Just maybe.
My head fell down at the perfect moment. “Sawyer! Behind you!” I screamed.
A helmeted Draemornian held a dagger level with the bump in Sawyer’s throat. He pulled my friend back with his free arm, securing him against his armored chest.
My heart rate beelined towards tachycardic, my pulse threatening to burst the veins in my neck.
Kade charged to regain control of his lost target.
The sole of his boot collided with the man's chest, forcing him back to the ground.
Kade repositioned his blade to where it had been prior to the wind storm interruption.
“How many of you are there? Why are you out in the woods like this? What are you looking for?”
“Hell, Lyrise. Are you gonna interrogate the asshole or kill him?” Sawyer shouted, aimlessly grappling for the dagger tied at his hip.
The storm wielder stepped forward. “Give us the girl, and you can all go back to where you came from,” he snarled, his voice rough and nasally.
“Huh. I didn’t know Draemornians could have a sense of humor,” Sawyer spat back.
The blade against his carotid inched closer to impending death.
Sawyer really needed to learn when to shut up.
And where the hell were Seb and Jensen?
I foresaw this ending poorly if I didn't do something drastic. The task was incredibly gruesome, but I forced calmness into my vessel. When as relaxed as possible in such a situation, I welcomed sunlight into my bloodstream, praying my intuition did not fail me.
Scintillant, radiant light erupted from my palms. My markings sparkled, ignited with the extent of raw magic. I angled a palm at the two Draemornians standing behind Kade. Their screams were muffled by the sound of cosmic flame as their bodies burned to ash.
Success. Thank fuck.
Still trembling from the organic force flowing through me, I methodically attempted to redirect the starlight. With a hefty boom, the power claimed the best of me, and just like that, I had no control over it—I couldn’t turn it off.
Unrelenting sunlight streamed out of me, so dense and steady that it pulled me off of my mare. I landed on my back with a sharp jolt of pain to my spine. The starlight hooked a tree behind me in the process, the trunk splintering before splitting entirely.
Releasing whatever hold was left of my power, I rolled sideways just before the tree came crashing down, branches cracking and shooting up into the dusty air.
Kade, too, jumped out of the way just in time, though a severed branch fell on the Draemornian he had held his blade to, the man falling an indirect victim to my power. The one holding Sawyer dropped his blade and took off into the trees.
“Don’t let him get away!” Kade’s order thundered through the forest.
Sawyer had no intention of letting that happen. He darted after the Draemornian and stabbed his sword into the space between the buckles of his armor. The man dropped to his knees, gasping for air as Sawyer twisted the blade in his side, then ripped it upwards to shred his heart.
“Guess word travels fast,” Sawyer huffed, tousling his hair with a bloody hand.
“What the fuck happened?” Sebastian shouted as he and Jensen reappeared to the mess we’d created. Well, the mess I’d created, mostly.
“We just killed two Draemornians further back in the forest. Guessing you all had a similar encounter?” Jensen gasped as he slowed his pace to a walk. He approached his horse, unstrapping a saddlebag and taking out his canteen.
“Your assumption would be accurate." Sawyer snickered, wiping his bloodied sword on the forest floor.
“They saw Maeve,” Kade stated.
Sebastian stepped towards him. “Then please tell me they are all dead.”
Kade nodded, then began to gather the armor off a dead soldier; being awfully rough with the corpse, if you asked me.
My stomach lurched as I watched him tug at the man's limp arm. “What are you doing?”
“Playing dress up. And I suggest you all do the same.” Kade removed all the armor and secured the metal to the back of his saddle.
He shoved a toe into the stirrup and climbed on his horse.
“Hurry up. We should move. And we’re riding through the night tonight.
We are way too close to Draemor’s borders, and it's not safe to set up camp. And while we ride, Miss Liability has some explaining to do.”