Chapter Seventeen Shielding #2
She reminded herself what they were to each other.
Caelan Halcyon wanted to use her as a shield for his people the same way Lennox Raulin wanted to use her against all those who might defy him—no matter the cost to her body, her soul.
She was alone, the way she’d always been alone. And she was done.
Reya scooped her clothes and armor into her arms, climbed out of the basin, and didn’t speak to anyone for the rest of the day.
Reya was tired of forest. Tired of sleeping on rocks and roots and smelling like campfire.
Tired of eating things she’d had to kill with her bare hands.
The lemon-and-eucalyptus oil she’d brought to keep the midges at bay had long since run out, and her arms and legs were covered in red spots that itched all over.
Soon they would reach the shores of the Heart Sea. She would return to civilization at last and could get back to doing what she was best at.
Reya and Caelan hadn’t spoken more than two words to each other since she’d left him in the plunge pool, but she’d felt him hovering nearby, watching her.
Until this morning. At dawn, Caelan had packed up in silence and hadn’t looked at or spoken to his friends or even given Ciz so much as a cursory glance.
He was a shell of himself, and yet his every muscle remained taut, eyes near black as if ready to strike some unseen enemy at any moment.
Reya wondered if it was the curse taking its toll.
Omira rode beside him in quiet vigil while Reya and Thance took up the rear.
Reya wasn’t naive enough to think Caelan’s friends were going to just let her go when all this was over.
They were members of an organization she knew frighteningly little about, and they’d shown up under instructions to put Caelan in chains.
Reya had no idea where their loyalties lay, but she knew people, and knew they would eventually get tired of asking for her cooperation.
Lennox would’ve told her to keep them at ease, to ask questions and look for leverage so that when the moment came to make her move, she would be ready. But she needed to keep all those thoughts at bay now because even her mind wasn’t safe from the male who sat next to her.
Thance looked so at ease one might have guessed they were all going on holiday.
“I haven’t been to Port Talluah in two decades at least,” he said, a painfully kind expression on his face.
“Perhaps, once the Kraken blood is obtained, we could all spare one night to do a bit of gambling if you’re not opposed, Reya? Get to know one another.”
If she wasn’t opposed—to gambling? Did he realize who she was?
Omira turned around to glare at her brother.
What? his eyes seemed to say.
“No one likes gambling with you,” Omira said. “You’re a cheat.”
Thance was the picture of outrage. “I am not.”
Omira deadpanned, “Since when is reading our thoughts not cheating?”
“I don’t read your thoughts during cards,” Thance said with a wink in Reya’s direction. “Often.”
Reya wondered if Thance’s unnatural warmth was part of his gift, if somehow he could put people at ease with perception. It was unlikely, given that she had the same gift and did exactly the opposite with most everyone. Either way, she wasn’t buying it.
“It’s your turn, Thance,” Omira said sharply, pulling her horse around to her brother’s other side. “He’s content to be a brooding bastard.”
Reya’s eyes fell to the salmon-colored medallion that hung from Omira’s neck.
On its face was an image of Talise, the All-Goddess of fertility.
She recognized it because her mother had owned one just like it, and had planned to give it to Reya when she was ready to start a family.
What did an Alethian warrior want with such a talisman?
Omira caught her staring and slid the medallion into her armor with a look that could have frozen over the sun.
“I tried, he’s Misting,” Thance said with a sigh. “Just let him be.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Reya asked.
“Aside from the fact that he’s dying?” Omira snapped, and Thance gave her a disapproving look.
Yes, aside from that.
“It’s nothing any of us did,” Thance answered. “Today is just… hard. Especially for Caelan.”
Reya lifted a brow, waiting for an explanation.
Meanwhile, Omira took a leg of meat from her saddlebag that Reya recognized from their meal the night before and started gnawing on it.
These three were no strangers to being on the road.
The first thing Reya was going to do when they reached Port Talluah was head to the nearest tavern and order something that didn’t have legs.
Thance asked, “How many Sages do you think are trapped inside Bladestone Prison, Reya?”
Reya lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know.”
“Our estimate was at least two thousand at one point.” She didn’t react, but her mind was reeling. She’d long suspected the Sages of Rhiterra weren’t quite so close to extinction as King Rothmire so frequently boasted. “A year ago today, we attempted to take the prison and find out.”
Why hadn’t she heard about this? It would have been difficult to keep something like that secret, and not even Lennox had mentioned anything. Or at least he hadn’t mentioned it to her.
“We knew it was a risk, leading a force into a place designed to contain us,” Thance continued, “but we believed the reward would be worth it. We made it past the outer garrisons, across the bridge, and over the walls. But we had an incomplete layout of the prison. By the time we finally found where they were keeping the Sages, we’d been there too long, and the alarm had sounded. ”
“What about the other magic-born in the prison?” Reya asked.
Thance scrubbed the back of his neck. “Drelids, Pix, Cogors, Bone Eaters… they’re not exactly fighters. We didn’t want to risk them getting hurt. Our thinking was that if we could free the strongest first, we could increase our numbers enough to overrun the prison.”
These Sages and their damn egos. Did they think they were the only creatures on the continent who could wield a sword? Clearly, they’d never run into Lennox Raulin and the Bluehoods. Their crew could start and end wars.
Even Thance seemed to hear the fault in his logic because he looked a bit chagrined. “When the Rhiterrans’ reinforcements arrived, Caelan had to make a choice. Even though it was the right one, it killed him to call the retreat. Our losses were heavy, and we saved no one.”
Reya’s eyes snapped shut, and she kneaded her forehead, remembering her words to Caelan.
How many of your people could you save? How many magic-born are suffering in Bladestone Prison while you’re here with me?
She wanted to feel remorse, knew that she should, but her anger still simmered beneath her skin, too close to the surface to feel anything else for him.
At the same time, she wanted to tell Thance where they went wrong—they needed someone on the inside. Thance’s lips twitched, and Reya was reminded that her thoughts were no longer secret. She glowered in warning, but that only seemed to amuse him.
“Do you have a better plan?” he asked with raised brows.
Reya gripped Ash’s saddle horn as they ascended a particularly steep knoll. “Give me five good fighters and a pin.”