“Lady Isolde,” the mage began as he got nearer. “I trust you slept well?”
He certainly did not look like he’d slept well, or at all. The lines of tension on his face were obvious, and there were dark grey circles under his eyes. The mercenaries at his sides were tense as drawn bowstrings, hands hovering near their weapons.
“Well enough, thank you,” Isolde replied coolly. “Shall we set off, then? I trust you will lead the way, since you have come from the Nexus. When do you expect we will reach it?”
Caelian cleared his throat. “Ah, yes. We left the Nexus three days ago, so it stands to reason it will take us as long to return.”
Felix felt her tense. Three days. Their journey was nearly at an end. An odd sense of loss crept up on him at the prospect.
“Very good,” Isolde said after a moment, her voice clipped. “Let’s get ready to depart, then.”
Their uneasy guides waited at a distance while they finished packing up. Felix stood near Isolde, tightening the straps of his pack, when Mia appeared.
“Felix, go do something useful and let us talk,” she said and waved her hand at him dismissively.
Felix scowled. “I am doing something useful.”
Mia rolled her eyes. “Go do it somewhere else. I want to talk to Isolde without you interrupting us with your unsolicited and frankly terrible advice, if you must know. Now go, shoo.”
Isolde pinched her lips together to stop herself from laughing, then raised her eyebrows at Felix. He sighed, then shrugged. “Fine. Have fun plotting my downfall.”
“Not everything is about you!” Mia called after him as he stalked off.
He grinned, looking back over his shoulder to see the two women already deep in discussion, heads bent close together.
Garren was standing nearby. The bruise on his jaw was an impressive blotch of purples and yellows. Felix hesitated, then glanced over to the ridge where the mage and his guards waited. He was painfully aware of the nine new pairs of eyes on them after so many days of relative safety in isolation, and did not like it one bit. So, he swallowed his pride and strode over to Garren.
“Mage says we’ll reach the Nexus in three days,” Felix said by way of greeting.
Garren grunted. “So I gathered. I am surprised to see you more than an arm’s length away from Lady Isolde.”
Felix clenched his jaw. There was a flash of temptation to make a crude or provocative comment. It would be easy –soeasy – to rile Garren up, to be the smug bastard he expected him to be. But that wasn’t what he wanted anymore.
He briefly glanced back at Isolde. It was special, what he had with her. It was something new, and it felt as vulnerable as spun glass. Something precious and rare and real. He was desperate to keep it safe, away from the influence and scrutiny of others. It was under no circumstances something he wanted to cheapen or ridicule, just to get a rise out of Garren. And there were more important things to think about.
He cleared his throat. “Look, Garren, we may not be friends, but I do respect you.”
Garren startled, but quickly collected himself and simply raised his eyebrows.
“Why should that matter to me?” he said with a scowl.
Felix didn’t back down. “You can think whatever you want of me; I don’t care. But, like it or not, we’re on the same side. We want the same thing – to keep her safe. Keep her alive. Can we agree on that at least?” He made a point of turning his head slightly toward the group of newcomers. “Since the situation is a little different now?”
Garren’s glare was stony. A long, silent moment passed before he finally gave a single nod.
“We can agree on that.”
Felix held his gaze for a heartbeat longer, then nodded back. “Good. That’s all.”
***
Morning light brightened the sky as they left the campsite behind. A faint breeze carried the smell of lightning and minerals. In the distance, the jagged peaks of the Veilcrag Mountains loomed. There was still that haze of blue and purple in the air, distorting the view of distant objects.
Mia chatted with Caelian, coaxing him into timid half-smiles, but even her most heaping doses of charm could not get the mage to stop throwing fearful looks at Isolde or exchanging nervous glances with his guards. Luella did not scout but stayed close, scanning the mercenaries ahead of them as much as she did the surrounding terrain. Leif trudged in the centre of the group, Biscuit trotting around his ankles, sometimes veering off to sniff the strange, twisted shrubs.
The mercenaries were good, Felix concluded after observing them for a while. Disciplined, experienced. Their leader was a wiry-looking, bearded man; his second a middle-aged woman with short-cropped hair, built like a brick wall. They did not bother introducing themselves, but their behaviour was convincingly casual. To anyone who had not spent their entire life amongst people like them, that was. Felix saw the little tells; the looks they shared with each other, the hands never far from weapon hilts. The way they positioned themselves, never all infront or behind. Spread out, ready for a fight at all times. He hadn’t been this on edge since their time in the Crovan village.
Halfway through the second morning, they passed through a steep gully filled with loose scree. It was slow going; they had to pick their way across carefully so as not to slip and fall. Isolde was quiet, a small frown creasing her forehead. Up ahead, the mage slipped and cursed. Felix looked up just in time to see Caelian raise his hands to cast.
