No one seemed to have seen us, yet I had this feeling of being observed, watched.
Once at the edge of camp, we found a fallen tree and shared our scavenged finds with each other.
“Thank the Gods, it’s fresher than canned food,” Ashley muttered, taking a bite out of an apple.
Some of it could’ve been a lot tastier if we cooked it as we should’ve, but Ashley wasn’t comfortable enough to go back to the group yet. She hadn’t said it herself, but I saw how she still battled herself for control over her emotions. She couldn’t keep from doing things I had never noticed her doing before, like fidgeting her fingers, blowing away strands of hair from her face and how irritable she was.
“Tell me about the mission,” I said, as I fished up an apple from the bag.
“It really was nothing, Jaden just showed off his magic and—”
“Not the argument,” I interrupted with a half-chuckle. “The actual mission?”
“Oh,” she smiled apologetic. “There were a few demons wandering around. We took out five along the way. They seemed scattered, but… it was intentional?”
“What do you mean?” I furrowed my brows, sinking my teeth into the fruit. It was sweet, and soft, exactly as I preferred.
Lucky me.
“As if they had enough distance between them to alert one another, but no room to sneak around them and if you took one out, another soon showed up.”
A warning system… They would be able to alert each other from whatever direction we came from.
It felt way too unrealistic for demons to have the capability for strategizing.
Most of the demons we had encountered were simply hungry, wanting to devour and lure us in for themselves, not caring if a fellow creature died or not. The ones we had seen across the border didn’t look much different than those we fought before…
But maybe these organized demons, were able to take orders? Perhaps they’d been promised something in return for their cooperation?
I had half-expected to see more humanoid demons, like Malakai. After all, Nicron had been a mixture of demon and mage as well and had managed to hide himself for a long time within the Aetherion village, Runora.
These new organized demons seemed capable of acting like us, looking like us and sounding precisely like us, but they were aligned with the Demon King, secretly taking overmore territory in his name, devouring magic and killing humans.
How many of them were there? Was it common for demons to use humans like that, creating offspring for their own purpose? The thought that perhaps they were doing it forcefully made my stomach turn.
“You look like the Gods gave you a prophecy, but forgot to include the instructions…” Ashley tilted her head, watching me. I burst into laughter at her sudden words.
“Who needs instructions when I’ve got people like you around me?” I chirped at her and a smug smile spread on her lips.
She laughed, leaned her head against my shoulder, and seemed to relax.
“Okay, now tell me about the stupid boys,” I muttered with a smile on my lips and she groaned loudly.
Once the sun began to set, we made our way back. It didn’t take long to find the others, gathered around one of the campfires. Nate’s head shot up as soon as he heard our movements.
“Ash,” he blurted, sounding relieved.
“We’re good,” she waved him off. “Sorry… you know, for yelling and all.”
He opened his mouth, but slowly closed it again, as if he had more to say but didn’t dare risk breaking the peace once more.
“Look—” Ashley began, before Nate raised a hand to stop her. She looked bewildered at him for a moment, before he rummaged through a bag and pulled something out.
“Ethalyn, a little help?” he asked, eyes darting to me.
“Uhm… yeah?” I stumbled over to him and he held out a weird looking stick with… Oh my Gods is that a grenade!? “Nate!”
“Just light the fuse and shut up,” he hissed.
