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Wyn didn't hesitate on the food and grabbed a drumstick the size of her head off the animal that had been roasting over the fire, biting into it and letting the juices drip down her chin as she almost inhaled the meat from the bone and sucked it clean. We'd starved before and she knew better than most that sometimes the next meal wasn't guaranteed so she'd fill up as much as she could on the food that was given.
For some reason I wasn't hungry so I just backed up against the tree, shaking one of the blankets out and laying it down over my legs. Wyn joined me shortly thereafter, the two of us leaning against each other and the tree. Relying on one another for support, even as we both drifted into the unconsciousness of sleep as we had so many times before.
I half expected my dreams to be filled with moths and moon goddesses and the teal of the veil. Yet, the only thing I was aware of when I awoke the next morning. Was that I had dreamed of the sky. The night sky specifically. I had dreamed of all the different stars I had seen from different places, and how they were all connected, even if it didn't seem like it at the time.
Flickers of my life had played before me as though I was watching actors on a stage. My mother and father cooing over me as a baby. Me as an infant, wandering around the streets clueless as to how to survive. Meeting Wyn. Being found by the church. Wyn and I running from the city guard huddling together on a cold street, trying to survive the winter. All of the memories were of the two of us from that point on. Always touching, somehow holding hands, linking arms, hugging, leaning against one another. Bumping each other's shoulders. Laughing together.
It was as though my brain or my heart was reminding me who was the most important person in my life. Even in this new place, surrounded by people I didn't trust, I knew I could count on Wyn. She was my family more so than if we were related by blood, and I wouldn't let that change just because we were on the fae side of the veil now. And if Thorn and Ronan thought they could use us then they had another thing coming. I'd fight harder than ever before for Wyn's freedom, even if it meant sacrificing my own.
Chapter
Five
Senara
Thorn slapped his hands on his knees as though he needed something to indicate that he was done eating his breakfast before he announced, "We'll head to Sanctuary first and then on to the capital." He turned his head toward Ronan and Trevor before he said, "If you pack up your stuff and we'll get moving." They both nodded at him, not questioning his orders at all, not that I expected them to. When he shuffled backward toward his pack and began gathering his things I thought he might have forgotten about us but he glanced over his shoulder and said, "There are supplies at Sanctuary, so at least we won't have to hunt and camp the entire way."
I didn't move a muscle. I didn't know what they were talking about or where they were going, and I wasn't about to just blindly trust him again.
That hadn't exactly led to good things in the past.
I could feel Wyn watching me out of the corner of her eye, copying me. She was taking her cues from me, just like she had when we were kids. If I moved, she moved. If I didn't move, she didn't move. If I fought, she stayed out of the way.
Ronan and Thorn both shot us quizzical looks, eyebrows raised. "Are you not coming?" Ronan asked as he shouldered his pack.
"Of course they're coming," Thorn said, giving me a dismissive look as he pushed to his feet.
"Of coursewe are," I repeated, letting the sarcasm ring heavily in my voice. "And if I say no. If I say that when and I want to find our own way?"
"Then I'd say you're crazy." Thorn was on his feet now and as he looped the strap of his pack over his head he said, "You don't know this land. You've never been to these lands before. You don't even know what you look like. You've barely got clothes on your back. What are you going to do? Sell yourself? You've got no money, no place to go."
I wanted to sneer at him, tell him that I grew up with nothing, and somehow I found those words leaving my mouth instead of keeping them tucked away within me like I usually did when people made assumptions about me. "I grew up as an orphan. I grew up with nothing and I found a way to survive, as did Wyn. Don't underestimate us. You don't know us." The words snapped out of me as sharp as a whip.
"I know you better than you may think," Thorn countered.
"Physically? Potentially."
A snort erupted from Thorn. "We're too similar. I know that you're just putting up this fight because you don't trust me anymore, and that's fine. You don't have to trust me. All you have to do is come with me. You're moon marked. I'm sun kissed. Once we get to the capital, you'll never have to see me again."
"It's not just you I don't trust," I countered. "I don't trust Ronan either. And I certainly don't trust this man who just showed up randomly and watched you execute other guards."
"You don't need to trust any of us, and Trevor's just traveling with us. Consider him a bodyguard of sorts."
I clenched my jaw trying to keep myself from screaming out of frustration. "Why do I need a bodyguard? Iama bodyguard. I'm a soldier. I know how to fight!"
Thorn spun on his heel. "No. You know how to fight humans. We're in fae lands now. You don't know how to fight them."
"So what, you're saying I'm outmatched?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. You could barely hold your own against me when we fought, and that was with me holding back. You couldn't hold your own against other fae, especially ones that are corrupted. And doubly so for the feral. You're net even big enough to handle a fight against a regular fae, let alone anyone else."
These terms were new to me. I had no idea what he was talking about with feral and corrupted. I barely knew about sun kissed and moon marked. Everything about the fae had been outlawed in our kingdom. It was practically treason just to talk of them.
Thorn looked annoyingly smug as he said, "I can tell just by looking at your face. You don't know what I'm talking about. If you don't know those basic things, then how on earth do you expect to survive within these lands?"
"You're being a little hard on her, don't you think?" Ronan said as he slapped his friend on the shoulder. "We pushed her into the veil, after all. She has every right not to trust us or want to come with us."
Thorn practically exploded. "Did I not just say that?" When he realized how he'd reacted he took a deep breath and seemed to try and calm himself. Even I knew enough to keep my mouth shut until he had his temper under control. "She doesn't have to trust us, but she does have to come with us. She has to go to the capital and she has to meet the council. Look at the size of hermark." He pointed at me without even looking in my direction. "Anybody else sees that and she's going to be kidnapped and held for ransom or extorted to use her magic, which she doesn't even know she has."
