Chapter 6 #2
It wasn’t entirely a lie. Lasseran had given him orders—retrieve the female from the stone circle and bring her to Kel’Vara unharmed—but not explanations.
Lasseran didn’t explain himself to anyone, and especially not to his Beast Warriors, but he suspected that she was a tool Lasseran intended to use to increase his power.
But he couldn’t tell her that. He wouldn’t tell her that even if she had the vocabulary to understand.
She was quiet after that, but he could feel her thinking, analyzing everything with the relentless curiosity that seemed to define her.
She’s dangerous, he realized. Not dangerous in the way of warriors or mages, but dangerous nonetheless.
She had the kind of mind that took things apart to understand them, that wouldn’t stop asking questions until she’d uncovered every secret—the kind of mind that could get her killed in Lasseran’s court.
The thought sent a chill through him that had nothing to do with the wind.
That night, she helped set up camp.
He hadn’t asked her to, but as he unpacked supplies and hobbled the horses, she set to work—gathering kindling, clearing stones from the sleeping area, filling the water skins at the nearby stream—tasks she had picked up simply from observing.
“Durash,” she said, handing him the filled water skins. Water.
“Grathos.” Thank you.
Her smile widened. “Gra… grathos?”
“Grathos,” he corrected.
“Grathos,” she repeated, getting it right this time. Then she smiled again and pointed at him. “You grathos. For…” She gestured vaguely, searching for words she didn’t have yet, but he could guess.
Thanking him for protecting her, for teaching her—and for not being the monster she should be afraid of.
This is a problem, he thought, watching her eat with a single-minded focus that spoke of genuine hunger. She is becoming a problem.
Not because she was difficult, not because she slowed them down or caused trouble, but because he cared whether she was comfortable and whether she had enough to eat and whether she was warm enough at night.
It was far more than just his Beast’s protective urges.
And that was dangerous for both of them.
The pattern repeated over the following days.
Hard riding from dawn until the horses couldn’t continue. Brief rest stops where she would disappear to wash in whatever water source they found—though now he made sure to stand guard, his presence a clear warning to the other two males.
When they camped for the evening, she would help set up and then they would have lessons by the fire as they ate. She soaked up vocabulary and grammar with frightening speed, stringing together complex sentences and asking about word order and verb conjugation with the enthusiasm of a scholar.
Because that’s what she was, he realized. The way she spoke, the questions she asked, the casual intelligence in everything she did—she was someone educated. Was that why Lasseran wanted her?
Another question he couldn’t answer. Another mystery surrounding the small human who had already become far too important to him.
And every night, she slept beside him. She would arrange herself on her own bedroll, maintaining a careful distance between them, but sometime in the dark hours before dawn, she would migrate towards him.
Unconsciously seeking warmth and safety, her sleeping mind turning to him like a lodestone finding north.
He would wake to find her pressed against his side.
Sometimes her hand would be fisted in his tunic or her face tucked against his shoulder.
But she was always sleeping against him with a trust that shouldn’t have been possible, a trust that made something in his chest ache with an emotion he didn’t have a name for.
He told himself she was just a mission. He told himself to push her away and maintain a proper distance between them.
But he never did.
Instead, he would lie still in the predawn darkness, listening to her breathe, and feeling her warmth against his side. He would tell himself it meant nothing and that the satisfaction he felt when she sighed in her sleep and burrowed against him was purely professional.
Lies. All lies.
By the fourth morning, his arm was around her waist before he even woke fully. By the fifth, she fit against him like she’d been shaped for that exact space.
This has to stop, he told himself, but he made no move to change it. And when she woke that fifth morning, blinking sleepily up at him with those frost-colored eyes soft and unguarded, he didn’t look away.
“Morning,” she murmured, her voice still heavily accented.
“Vel’korah,” he corrected automatically.
“Vel’ko… rah.” She yawned, showing small white teeth. “Your language is hard.”
“Yours is soft,” he said automatically, and she laughed.
“Soft,” she repeated, still smiling. “I’ve never heard English called soft before.”
He sat up, gently dislodging her. The other males were already stirring, eager to reach the city.
“Where are we?” she asked in his language.
“Close.”
“Close to Kel’Vara?”
He nodded, and something flickered across her face he couldn’t decipher. It wasn’t quite fear, or even resignation, but something too complex for him to read.
“Then what happens to me?” she asked quietly, still in his language, her voice small and careful.
Then I deliver you to Lasseran. Then you lose whatever protection I can offer. Then you become whatever the High King wants you to be, and I go back to my duties and try to forget—
“Tharak koreth nash,” he said again. I don’t know.
But this time it was definitely a lie.
They crested the final ridge as the sun began its descent toward the horizon.
And there, glowing in the last rays of sunlight, was Kel’Vara.
The city clung to a rocky promontory jutting into the Southern Sea, its architecture an oddly harmonious mix of elegant palazzos and brutal fortifications.
From this distance, it looked beautiful—dark stone and elegant spires that caught the golden light, with ships in the harbor below and the Obsidian Keep rising like a dark finger pointing at the sky.
He knew better.
Up close, those elegant buildings housed courtiers who traded in secrets and assassinations. Those ships with the colorful sails carried slaves and weapons and the spoils of conquest. The Obsidian Tower was where Lasseran held court, dispensing judgment and death with equal caprice.
Kel’Vara was beautiful and terrible in equal measure, like the High King himself.
“Vorath,” she breathed. Sky. Then, catching herself: “No. Bahkar. Kel’Vara.”
She twisted in the saddle to look up at Khorrek. “It’s… big.”
That was one word for it.
“Many people,” he said. “Dangerous.”
He expected the usual questions. He expected her to ask about the danger, about what awaited her, and about what she should expect, but instead she simply looked at him.
Really looked, in the way she had that made him feel like she was reading something written on his face in a language only she understood.
“You’re worried,” she said softly in his language.
Yes. I’m worried that you’ll say something you shouldn’t. I’m worried that you’ll draw the wrong attention. I’m worried that Lasseran will see in you what I see—that quick mind, that stubborn courage—and decide to break it.
I’m worried that I won’t be able to stop him.
But he couldn’t say any of that. He couldn’t acknowledge that the thought of handing her over to Lasseran made him want to turn the horse around and ride until they hit the edge of the world.
“Stay close to me,” he said instead. “In the city. Don’t wander. Don’t speak to anyone unless I say.”
“Why?”
“Because Kel’Vara eats the unwary,” he said bluntly. “And you are very unwary.”
Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses. “I’m not stupid.”
“No,” he agreed. “You’re smart. But that’s the problem—smart people ask questions, and questions get you killed in Lasseran’s court.”
“Then why is he bringing me here?”
“Tharak koreth nash,” he said once more.
Based on her expression she didn’t believe him, but she didn’t push. Instead she turned back to face the city, her hands tightening on the saddle.
They rode down the ridge in silence and with each step, he felt the weight settling back over his shoulders. The careful control, and the constant awareness that in Lasseran’s court, survival meant reading every interaction, every glance, and every word for hidden threats.
He’d been good at it. But that was before she had looked at him like he was something more than a weapon, before she’d pressed against him in sleep as if she trusted him completely, and before she’d made him remember what it felt like to be something other than the High King’s instrument.
The city gates loomed ahead. Massive wooden doors reinforced with iron, flanked by guards in the black and silver of Lasseran’s personal army. They recognized him immediately and the gates opened without challenge.
He rode through them, carrying Thea towards whatever fate awaited her in Lasseran’s court, knowing he should feel nothing but satisfaction at a mission accomplished.
Instead, all he felt was dread.