With a sigh that tore into her frightened heart, Gandrett climbed into the saddle.
Chapter Eight
The sun had long climbed to its pinnacle and Nehelon hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t given her a glance but held the reins of her gelding safely in his hands as he led the horse alongside his black mare. They had made it through the gate by Nehelon handing each guard positioned at the watchtowers a small note, which the Meister had personally signed in his study. Gandrett had no idea what the notes said, but judging by the way the guards had waved them through after they had read them, wishing them, “May Vala guide you,” Gandrett was certain they wouldn’t spend another thought once they were out of sight.
Then they rode through the ghost town beyond the walls of the priory. Everrun—the real one. The ancient city of which its abandoned ruins spoke of war and decay.
Gandrett knew the first couple of rows of houses from her afternoon runs, but never in her ten years had she meandered further from the priory than that. Not safe, was what the priests and priestesses said. Shaelak himself took the city and may still be wandering the streets.
Shaelak, the god of darkness.
Gandrett hadn’t dared stray further, for fear of what she may find or what may find her in those dead and empty streets and alleys. With Nehelon at her side, no matter how afraid she was of him, there was an advantage to his deadly power and strength. If stories were to be believed, even the gods feared the Fae—
Nehelon sat straight like a needle, his chin high, one hand on his sword, the other one leading both horses. He hadn’t looked at her once since they had left the safety of the priory, and he hadn’t told her his plans for the travels—not that Gandrett would be able to make anything from the plans. She hadn’t traveled since she had left Sives. Her stomach growled audibly—probably sounding like an avalanche to Nehelon’s Fae ears—but Gandrett didn’t speak. She didn’t complain about her empty stomach or her thirst or that her legs were sore from her linen pants, which weren’t made for riding, or the fact that her head was beginning to ache in the baking sun. She didn’t add the wind to the list, for the wind was what she had grown accustomed to over the years, training in the priory of Everrun.
And as the sun climbed further along the sky, shifting to the west, tinting the mountains in the north-west in orange and gold, exhaustion took over fear, and Gandrett no longer pondered the stories she had heard about the Fae’s bloodlust, about their cruel nature, about why they were still called the fair folk—
Her eyes cautiously peered at Nehelon’s profile to study his features in the warm light of the sunset. It was like that moment when she had noticed his pointed ears: his face was different, not human as much as it had seemed in the Meister’s office or when they had gotten onto the horses and headed out of the walls. He was radiant even with the dust of riding on his cheeks, lips full and sensual, and his hair, black and smooth, falling to his shoulders, hiding those treacherous ears. And eyes—
Gandrett froze as she found Nehelon glaring sideways.
Fear flooded her system yet again, silencing all of her needs until darkness fell.
They only reawakened as Nehelon finally halted both horses without indication of where to find shelter for the night or if that was even his intention. And as he watched Gandrett scan their surroundings—still the mostly flat land that they had been following all day long, without a tree or even a boulder to find shelter from the biting wind—he shrugged and slid off his horse in a graceful swing. “This is as good as anywhere,” he announced and dropped his mare’s reins to the ground before gesturing for Gandrett to get off her horse, wearing a look impatient as a vulture circling a carcass. Gandrett shuddered at his stare.
If it only were as easy as he’d made it look. Her body was well trained for sword fights, for running, for climbing… but for riding? Her legs almost didn’t obey her will when she lifted them—heavy as the boulders she’d desired as shelter—and slithered down the side of her horse, fingers holding on to its neck for fear her knees would buckle under her weight.
Nehelon laughed coldly, probably enjoying seeing her in pain—it wouldn’t surprise her; he was Fae after all—and Gandrett faced him with bared teeth, prepared to throw a nasty comment at him, when the Fae male reached behind him for the waterskin dangling from the saddle of his horse and handed it to her.
“I keep forgetting how high-maintenance humans are,” he mocked, eyes glimmering in the silver light of the rising moon.
Gandrett wanted to spit at him, but her mouth was dry as the cracked soil beneath her unstable feet, and so she silently took the waterskin from his hand and led it to her mouth, about to drink greedily. But she halted—
Nehelon hadn’t drunk from it. What if it was poisoned? What if his intention was to drug her?
“You think I would use poison if I wanted to get rid of you?” he asked, face stone-cold as he watched her hold the waterskin hovering above her mouth.
His tone was enough to make it clear that if he wanted her dead, he would find other, more creative ways of making that happen. Gandrett swallowed once then put the waterskin to her lips and drank.
“Not so bad, is it?” Nehelon didn’t take his eyes off of her the entire time she was drinking, as if he was studying something curious, a creature he had never seen before and found fascinating.
Gandrett didn’t reply but handed him the half-drained waterskin, her eyes squinting in a gesture she was hoping said, it’s the least I expect that you’ll water and feed me when you drag me through the desert. The look in his eyes, the tiniest bit of amusement glimmering in the silver light, told her he’d understood.
Without a word, he dropped the waterskin to the ground between them then pulled his pack off the horse, dumping it on top.
Gandrett watched him in disbelief. “You are really planning to stay here for the night,” she said, coming to a realization. As he didn’t deny it, Gandrett’s eyes anxiously darted around, hoping she had missed something earlier, a small boulder to hover behind while she relieved her bladder. He couldn’t be serious. Then there was the wind… it was still whipping through the air, unbroken by trees or bushes. With the sun gone, the temperature would drop to a point too low to sleep unprotected—
Nehelon eyed her, face tight, as if he was realizing just how high maintenance humans were.
“You are aware that if you don’t poison me, I might freeze to death overnight,” Gandrett pointed out. There wasn’t any wood for a fire, either. Even if there was, it would be like a beacon for the predators of the desert—not that she wasn’t already in the presence of the worst predator of all.
The Fae male simply shrugged and unsaddled the horses, letting Gandrett sway on her aching legs. Then, he took a step back and lifted both hands.
At first, there was a slight shudder beneath Gandrett’s feet, and the horses whinnied as they trampled closer together. Then the ground began shaking.
Gandrett hadn’t heard of earthquakes in this region, but as a child in Sives, she had experienced a mild one, and this… It was more than triple what she remembered. She waited for Nehelon to notice it, too, for the horses to panic—
Yet, while the animals stood close to each other, eyes darting to the sides as if they were waiting for something, Nehelon closed his eyes, and as he turned over his palms so they faced upward, the dust-dry soil rose in a circle around them as if a giant insect was digging underground. It rose one foot, two… until eventually, the wall reached Gandrett’s waist, enclosing them like a miniature of the wall they’d left behind at the priory.