Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Where are Hellena and the children?” I descended the stairs from the second story of the tavern. They had been sleeping there, safe with Selene. Now the space was empty except for bedrolls folded and stacked. Not even a scrap to suggest they’d been there at all.
Fraya and Minha were already settled on a horse. Ranis and Jina were mounted beside them, waiting.
“They left early this morning, before the sun broke,” Theron said, swinging up onto his stallion and gathering the reins.
I stomped toward him harder than necessary. “You should have told me.”
“Why make the goodbye harder for the kids?”
“I told them I would be back.” My jaw tightened. “Now they think I just left without a word.”
“You’ll see them again.” Theron patted the saddle. “Get on. We ride.”
“You should have told me they were leaving earlier than us.” I turned and walked toward Ranis, reaching for the stirrup.
“Wrong horse, Little Star.”
I crossed my arms and turned back around. Theron sat straighter in the saddle, expression unreadable, like he hadn’t just spent half the night making it impossible for me to think clearly.
“I’m not riding with you.”
One brow lifted. “The horse can’t carry three.” He looked past me. “Fraya, you lead. I’ll be right behind you.”
Fraya blinked like she’d been handed a problem. Minha pressed her lips together, shoulders shaking. Jina didn’t even try to hide her snickering. Ranis glanced to me then at Theron.
“Now,” Theron said. “All of you.”
That was enough for Fraya. She clicked her tongue and her horse moved. Ranis followed, Minha and Jina still giggling like it was the funniest thing they’d seen.
Fine. If I couldn’t get my way, then… I started walking. Faster. I didn’t have a plan. I just needed to move, needed the distance, needed to not look at him for one more second.
The galloping came fast behind me.
Before I could run, an arm hooked around my waist and the ground dropped away. Theron pulled me up and settled me in front of him in one clean motion, like I weighed nothing. I didn’t have time to scream.
“What’s wrong Little Star, afraid to touch me?”
Gods alive. What the hell was wrong with him?
I sat rigid, staring straight ahead, refusing to play his game, his chest warm at my back. His arm stayed loose at my side, not quite holding me, but just enough to grab me if I slipped.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have known better.”
I turned to face him, surprised by his apology. His eyes were the blue of open sky just before a storm broke—bright, but restless underneath. And that mouth—the one that had kissed me last night—I wanted to taste him again.
Warmth rushed to my face. I could still feel his hands on my body, the way they’d moved like they knew exactly where to make me feel good. How was I supposed to ride with him and keep any of those thoughts at bay? He’d become an addiction I didn’t want to get rid of.
“How far is our destination?” I rested my hands on the horse’s mane, fingers curling into the coarse, thick strands. Anything that wasn’t him.
“We’ll spend the night outdoors, then reach the forest by the following midday.” His arms tightened around my waist as the horse stumbled into a rut in the road, dipping sideways before righting itself. “As long as we aren’t stopped by the Seelie queen’s soldiers. Or bounty hunters.”
“How likely is that?”
“Likely enough that you should keep that dagger close.”
He hadn’t asked for the dagger yet. Maybe he never would. Perhaps, knowing what such a weapon could do to a god, he wanted nothing to do with it.
We rode through the morning with urgency, Theron taking the lead, the land opening to fields stretching on either side of the road, rolling into soft hills that caught the light. We pushed through miles of wildflowers— yellow, white, violet—the kind I’d never seen before.
We crested a hill and a village appeared below. Children chased each other between the cottages, barefoot, shrieking with laughter. A woman hung washing on a line. An old man sat outside his door, face tipped toward the sun, watching the birds fly by.
Farmers worked the fields beyond, some digging, and others picking up vegetables. Farther along, where the land dipped toward a narrow river, fishermen stood knee-deep in the current, lines cast to catch their meal.
I’d never seen such peace. Such beauty in simplicity.
In Jeju and Caelum the homes were packed close, walls nearly touching, everything crowded and loud. Here the land stretched between them. People had room to exist.
Then I saw the animals Nam used to draw on the dirt.
Pigs rooting along a fence line. Cows standing in the shade of a broad tree, tails swinging slow. Chickens pecking at their meal in circles. Nam had taught us much, but she never prepared us for the darkness and hardship we had endured.
Surprisingly, Theron kept quiet during the ride.
No taunting, no low remarks designed to get under my skin.
Just the sound of hooves on the road and the occasional press of his chest against my back when we rode faster, and an arm tightening around my waist when we went down the hill to prevent me from vaulting over.
I tried very hard not to notice and failed.
We stopped occasionally to rest, watering the horses at a shallow stream. Fraya passed around a canteen. I turned it over in my hands before drinking, unfamiliar with the shape—the flat metal sides, the small stopper, the way it sloshed.
In the cavern we’d drunk from buckets or cupped our hands under a trickle in the rock wall. I’d never held water like this before, carried, sealed, and ready.
I drank and passed it on to Ranis. When I turned back, Theron was watching me.
He’d leaned against the tree trunk away from the others but faced directly at me.
Without a word, those blue eyes held mine the same way they had last night as he reached over and, with one gentle finger, wiped a drop of water from my chin.
Then his thumb dragged slowly along my mouth and slipped in between my lips before letting go.
I forgot how to breathe.
“I hope your dream was as amazing as mine,” he said, breath warm against my ear, and hefted me onto his stallion.
That cocky asshole. He knew exactly how to undo me. He was lucky none of my friends saw our interaction. They were too busy mounting their horses.
The sun stayed gentle, filtered through a thin layer of cloud, and a soft breeze moved steadily from the west, cool enough to keep the ride from becoming miserable. By late afternoon the sky above the hills went pink, then deep red at the edges, clouds catching the last of the sun like embers.
“We’ll rest here.” Theron tugged his horse off the road toward a cluster of fallen trees on a hill that dipped into a natural hollow.
The trunks angled together forming a rough shelter, open on one side, the ground beneath dry and carpeted with old leaves.
Theron and Ranis disappeared into the tree line without a word, returning a while later with a pair of rabbits and a handful of fish strung on a line. Fraya already had the fire going by then, small and controlled, the smoke rising thin and straight in the still air.
We sat back against the fallen trunk—Minha, Jina, and I—watching the flames. The smell of roasting meat settled around our shelter.
Fraya moved around the fire like she’d done this a hundred times, turning the fish, checking the rabbits, unbothered by the smoke. When it was ready she pulled pieces off and handed them to us, along with thick chunks of bread from her pack.
We ate simple food. But after a full day on horseback with the wind in my face and the land spreading out in all direction, it tasted like something I hadn’t known I needed.
After dinner, Fraya pulled thin blankets from the saddlebags and passed them around. Minha, Jina, and I huddled together under ours sitting upright, shoulders touching, sharing warmth the way we always had.
Ranis settled by the fire, back against a log, arms crossed. Theron leaned against the trunk beside us, legs stretched out, unbothered by the cold.
The sky had deepened from gray to black, the last of the light swallowed by the trees. Only the crescent moon remained, casting just enough silver through the branches to make out shapes and shadows. The fire did the rest.
“Tomorrow we’ll reach a village in the deepest part of the forest,” Theron said.
“Is that where the alchemists are?” Ranis asked.
Theron nodded. “Their head alchemist, they call her The Priestess may be able to sense whether the gods actually live within the stones.”
The fire crackled.
I closed my fingers around the stone in my pocket, warm against my palm, like something sleeping. If I took it out, it would hum, so I left it alone.
“My grandmother told me about The Priestess when I was small.” Fraya stared into the flame as she spoke.
“She said there was a time when mortals had no way to speak to the divine. So one of the seven looked down and chose an ordinary woman.” She picked up a stick and turned it in her hands.
“Someone with no royal blood, no special birth. Just a woman who listened well and kept her word. And they breathed their energy into her. She became aware of the presence and gained the ability to feel other people’s emotions. ”
Ranis tossed a stick into the fire. “Some believe she could even look into one’s soul.”
Fraya looked at him across the smoke rising. “And others believe she can see the future.”
A beat of silence.
“How do you know this?” Jina asked.
“My mother told me.” Ranis tossed another stick. “Like how Fraya’s grandmother did the same for her.”
“My grandmother. She was a merchant in Auris.” Fraya shook her head, wonder crossing her face. “We learned the same story, but different ends of the world. Our world is so vast and yet so small.”
“Though no one agrees on which god gave her the gift.” Ranis peered up at the branches when an owl hooted somewhere above.
“Has anyone actually met The Priestess?” Jina shifted closer to the fire. “Or are we riding on the assumption of a legend?”