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I nodded mutely and did the only thing I could—hope that he was right.
3
Kai
Timmon shook his head sadly, seeming to despair at Tessa's concern for the others. "Lady Murray, please take these two to the suite we have prepared for them. I'm afraid until we receive news from Agartha, I ask you to remain in your rooms, especially you, Tessa. Kai, you may leave your rooms if you wish. However, given your status, you may wish to remain with your friend. Lady Murray, if you wouldn't mind?"
I looked over at Tessa and saw nothing except defeat lining her face. Her expression only changed when she looked at me, resentment darkening her eyes along with grief. Leader Timmon, clearly unhappy that we weren't jumping to obey his every whim, turned and walked away, waiting for us to follow at the edge of the forest clearing. "Come on, Tessa. You need to rest," I said gently.
Tears started falling, cascading down her cheeks one after the other, and it took everything I had not to reach out to her. "If they die, that means I die," she said quietly. "How soon would that affect me if they're in a different realm?"
"I don't know." It was the truth, even though I hated admitting it. "But try to have a little faith. They'll do anything to get back to you."
She glanced at me with disbelief lining her face before she began following Lady Murray. We had both seen the odds they were up against, and though they were at a bottleneck with the portal room at their back, that also meant that they were at a dead end. Something I was trying not to think about.
The woman led us through the trees and along one of the forest paths toward the center of the city. It was hard to tell that we were even anywhere important for a long time, but then buildings started popping up. Their walls and roofs were lined with grasses, leaves, and plants, which mostly hid them from view.
Rope ladders hung from the occasional tree, and I looked above me and saw the second layer of the city we were walking through. Those were the richer members of society. Their houses literally sat above the poor, each one spanning between the trees like an entire neighborhood, while ten or twenty families might be squished in, making their homes on the same amount of land below.
Finally, the woman came to a stop in front of a big domed building that was created from big lumps of rock. A couple of small windows poked out between the smaller pieces of shale and a door, but that was it.
"Here are your rooms," she said, her voice stilting as though she was biting her tongue to stop herself from saying something else. It was clear that the woman didn't want us there, that our arrival on the night of a blood moon was about the worst possible time we could have picked to arrive.
"Thank you, Lady Murray," I said as we walked past her into the small building.
Lights flickered on as we entered and a few different screens lit up. My people had somehow perfected the integration of technology and nature. It was so seamless that it almost looked like it belonged there a lot of the time.
Something Tessa didn't notice as she began poking around listlessly. A quick inspection told me there were three bedrooms, one big bathroom, and a large living room area. The rooms were quite spacious, considering this wasn't the best Agartha had to offer.
"Food will be sent up at meal times," Lady Murray said before closing the door without waiting for a response. If I was honest, I thought she'd gone already, but she'd waited for some reason. Maybe she was going to try and convince us to leave again? Not that she'd have to try hard with Tessa, all she wanted was a portal, and she'd be long gone.
The light in the room dimmed for a second as the door sealed before returning to its more natural setting.
"I'm going to lie down," Tessa mumbled quietly before disappearing through the door into the furthest bedroom.
There weren't any windows in there. It would be completely dark. Part of me wanted to stop her, but instead, I just said, "Okay."
I had essentially just kidnapped her against her will. Who was I to stop her from going and lying down in a bedroom? She looked over her shoulder at me once, tears still rolling down her cheeks. Her eyes were starting to get puffy, which was somehow more heartbreaking than anything else. She'd always been so strong but now? Now she just looked lost.
When she shut the door in my face, I had to fight the temptation to go over and open it again just so I could keep an eye on her. I knew that my battle brothers wouldn't be easily defeated, but seeing Tessa's grief at their assumed deaths planted the seed of doubt in my mind that I was having trouble not letting grow like a weed in a garden. It sucked out all of my energy, and as I sat down heavily on the couch, it was the only thing I could think about.
The only other thought that made its way into my head was whether or not leaving Tessa alone and letting her wallow in her grief was the right thing to do? I wasn't exactly setting a good example though, as I was doing the same thing in the living room area.
I pushed back to my feet and began to pace backward and forward, needing to keep myself busy while the sound of Tessa quietly crying in the other room echoed in my mind. Each sob was a knife to my heart, and each time I got close to the door to the room, it took everything I had not to wrench it open and try to comfort her.
Eventually, after what had to have been hours, her sobs quieted, and on that round, I didn't resist the urge to open the door to her room as silently as possible. When no movement came from the bed, I realized that she must have cried herself to sleep, so I returned and closed the door again.
Food arrived a little while later, and I can't deny the relief that they're giving us decent food, not just bread and cheese. Being an outcast usually meant getting nothing at formal gatherings. I moved into Tessa's room like a ghost, intending to let her know about the food, but for a second, I hesitated.
The last thing I wanted to do was disturb her when she was finally asleep, but she needed to eat if she was going to heal. Her body still looked traumatized from everything that happened in Hyperborea and then in El Dorado. If I looked closely, I could still see the marks on her back as well, something that I wasn't sure I'd ever forget even when they faded from her skin itself.
I eased the lights in the room up and padded over to the bed, gently touching her shoulder. My heart broke as she startled, and the fear was naked in her eyes for a moment before it was replaced by the flicker of recognition.
"What's wrong?" she snapped.
"There's food here. You need to eat something." I couldn't blame her for her reaction. She probably thought I'd come to tell her that the others were officially dead or something.
The tension left her body and she slumped back down. "I'm not hungry." She rolled over, facing away from me.
