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Lily’s next inhale sent her into a coughing fit. “Zander’s here too?”
“Did I say Zander? I meant the Tomans,” he teased. “Lighten up. Didn’t I just tell you about doing this in stages? But that look on your face was enough to ease my torture for a few hours.”
How could I forget about Zander? Minerva Maina’s younger brother—the third person she regretted leaving. He and Lily were the same age and grew close during her first visit to Zaitrerin. She wouldn’t have been able to escape without him.
Sterling knocked her in the shoulder. “Feel like explaining how”—he tilted his head toward Luka—“this happened.”
She rubbed her arm, the simplest explanation slipping out with her next breath. “It was a mistake.”
“Mistake?” His face grew stern as he waited for her to elaborate, which she didn’t. At the crux of everything, that’s what it was. “This isn’t that. Reatia’s been breathing down our necks in search of their heir because of what you did. You fucked up. Extremely.”
Lily nearly crumpled with shame until her attention snagged on part of Sterling’s scolding. “They’re looking for him?”
Sterling stopped short at the sudden change in her demeanor. “Should they not be?”
No, she thought. Brialis let him go. Why would she smuggle him out of Reatia only to then turn around and demand his return? Was it because she learned he ended up with Lily?
But from what she could tell, Lily was the only one who knew that. And like Sterling said, she wanted to save it for Kyer.
Sterling was sucking down an inhale, preparing to interrogate her, but Lily rearranged the question, snuffing out the urgency. “What I mean is—they think he’s in Tyrsia? Because I’m… from there?”
“They don’t think he’s in Tyrsia, let’s just say that,” Sterling said, still looking at her inquisitively. He soon caught his breath, turning his eyes forward. “All in due time.”
“Sterling—”
“Make good choices from here on in, Lils. Know that if you were anyone else, the Argents would snap your neck and throw your corpse to the bottom of the gorge the moment you step foot back in their city.”
A knot formed in her throat. “I know.”
“Okay. Then get your shit together and keep it that way. No one’s happy with you, but none of us want to see you dead.”
She couldn’t say she blamed them. Deserting the people who rescued and cared for her to hide amongst their enemy while earning a living using souls, a valued, respected, and precious resource to Tyrsia, as batteries… it looked as bad as Lily thought it was. Not to mention the consequences of Luka’s kidnapping undoubtedly had on Rimore and Tyrsia’s other major city, Zaitrerin.
Sterling’s mood lightened back to jeering and jesting, and Lily sucked it up while her insides twisted every way imaginable. He led them off the main trail into the woods on an unused but clear cut path through the tight overgrowth. Sterling handed her a map of the southern half of Eocera and pointed out their location in the middle of the Hills and Hollow Weald. To the northeast, at the edge of where the land opened completely, was Markoth.
Indistinct voices carried between the trees, and Lily wished more than anything she had a hood to pull over her head. She compensated by instructing Luka to pull his tight. Still deep in the woods, the overgrowth cleared, and she spotted a tent in the thicket, then another, and another. Sterling led them through the camp, past a few people carrying blue and orange shades of the Allay and the Gnaw.
Terin and Rogian men and women. Zaitrerin and Rimore’s people.
Some took notice while others didn’t, conversing over their small fire pits or striking weapons. The air was thick with the balsam sweets of spruce and charred wood.
“Ah, Croll. It’s been too long.” Sterling stopped in front of a wooden post, and tied to it were two other horses in addition to the three Croll brought. Sterling gestured for Luka to dismount. “Get their things to the lodge after you’re finished here.”
Croll grumbled something that seemed to satisfy Sterling, and the three continued on foot. The lodge was exactly that. A log stacked, two story home at the edge of the clearing. The main floor was unkempt—dusty and gray. The windows were boarded up; only slivers of sunlight made it between the cracks, though it wasn’t dark. Candlelight filled where the sunlight didn’t reach, and despite the wide-open size, it was almost empty.
“Oh, Dabria. Look at that.” A mousy haired woman stood in a doorway with a hand clutched to her chest. Her thin lips fell apart below her rosy cheeks, and she stepped forward almost flustered, the red skirt of her dress kicking up the loose dirt along the floor. She dropped her head and pressed her hands together in a greeting Lily didn’t recognize.
The woman blew out a noisy rush of air. “Where are my manners? I’m Mia.”
“Our lovely host of this fine establishment,” Sterling said, gently shutting the door. “She’s done a fine job keeping up with it after all this time.”
Something crumbled and clattered to the floor above.
Everyone glanced up, except Mia who brazenly placed gentle hands on Lily’s arms then ran them down her skin. The mannerism sent her back to a time when her mother looked her over after she’d fallen into a bramble patch. When Mia reached for her face, Lily registered enough to pull away. The woman took little offense, instead scrutinizing what she could see.
“Just look at these scratches, and the dirt…” Mia tutted. “I’ll make sure she gets cleaned. What about clothes? Does she—”
The woman’s eyes fell to Luka. Where there was admiration for the natural born Imordial, the Guardian’s youngest incarnation received a look like a mutt filthier than the floor had wandered in. Lily pushed him behind her, and Sterling made himself known again.
