Page 101 of Ignite
“Are you two always like this?” Adrian mumbles.
The corners of Graylen’s mouth twitch up into an almost-smile. My chest squeezes at the sight of it. I miss his smile—miss his cocky attitude and teasing quips. The curve of his lips sends my pulse into a frenzy, and I’m suddenly trapped within his gaze.
Insects’ chirps fall away into a muffled quiet. The breeze against my skin is warmer than it was a few moments ago, sending a rush of heat to my cheeks. I settle down beside Graylen, my eyes growing heavy as I watch him look out at the trees.
I miss him. Even having him this close, I miss how we used to be. It’s hard to not mourn who we were—the ease with which we simply existed around each other. Silently, I vow to myself to find that again.
Forty-Two
Celestite
The next day,we follow the same narrow path through the decaying woods. My back is stiff from sleeping on the ground, and my stomach aches with the rations we’ve portioned to keep from spending all of our money too soon.
The deeper into Crea’s countryside we get, the more a sense of unease begins to slither into my stomach. Dodder vines seem to wrap around every other tree, cutting across the path and infesting the ground so that no grass has been able to sprout.
Runnswick had its infestations of the horrible vines, but not like this. Even the birds barely chirp, and the creatures of night don’t seem to have a place to land. Has it been like this, or has it gotten worse since I was last here?
We’ve hardly passed any travelers—thanks to either the colder season rolling in or the sparse population—but we likely won’t be so lucky the closer we get to the castle.
“How much further?” Adrian asks the next morning, my muscles aching from two nights in a row on the hard ground.
“We passed a marker before we camped last night,” I remind him, my voice clipped. “We should reach the next marker by midday.”
Adrian sighs, his hair sticking in all directions and hands dirty as he tears pieces of bread from a loaf we’re all sharing. “My uncle is going to be furious when he learns of the journey we took to get here,” he mumbles.
Annoyance prickles at my neck, but the mention of his uncle grabs my attention. We still don’t know how the duke decided to convince Adrian to leave the castle to pursue me. If it was because he knew who I was, or simply a good excuse to get rid of Adrian.
“What does Duke Wyman think of us?” I press, my voice light, trying to sound relaxed. “He didn’t seem to know the extent of our…connection before I left.”
I feel Graylen’s attention slide to me, but he remains quiet. We need to learn all we can aboutDuke Wyman. Adrian doesn’t need to know it’s because he’s the last human king from whom we’re currently trying to steal a magical dagger.
“I shut down after the night you escaped.” Adrian looks sheepishly up at me. “Locked myself in my chambers and didn’t talk to anyone for a week. My uncle tried to get the story out of me, but I was so hurt, I couldn’t?—”
He takes a deep breath. “I didn’t tell anyone what happened. I was prepared to let you go. But he guessed that I was in love with you and when I refused to wed every prospect he proposed, confirming his suspicion, that’s when he concocted the plan for me to go get you.
“Him and the soldiers present knew how you all fled through the tree using magic, so he was worried what state I would find you in. That’s when he told me he had something to dampen your magic long enough for me to talk to you. And from there…you know the rest.”
I swallow my surprise that Adrian didn’t run straight to his uncle to fix the problem for him. That he kept it to himself how he felt about me—and wasnearlyprepared to let me go.
“I didn’t tell your father,” he adds quickly. “I told my uncle to keep Reichardt out of it. I hated the way he treated you—it wasn’t in the plan for him to come, but…my uncle said he had to go.”
Blessed Divine, Adrian actually managed to keep his mouth shut for once.
We fall into silence, a conflicted feeling rolling through me. Even though Adrian keptsomesemblance of respect for me, he still bent to Wyman’s will.
Though it’s hard to blame him for not standing up to someone with hundreds of years of experience in manipulating people.
Come night, I take first watch, the soft snores of both of the men mixing with the whoosh of the wind around us. It’s a cold evening, brisk temperatures rolling in the moment the sun sets.
Even when my eyes begin to get heavy and my body begs for sleep, I don’t wake Graylen. We’ll be in a new town soon, and I haven’t been able to quiet my mind long enough to rest the last few nights anyway.
Instead, I peer down at the fire Graylen made crackling in front of me. It dances differently than a normal flame, the movements slow and even like Graylen. The tendrils bend toward him, licking alongside the edge of our makeshift pit as if reaching for him.
I smile, thinking about how the grass in Penyth does the same thing. My grin fades almost as quickly as it appears. Nothing in Crea does that. Not unless it comes from a fae, like this fire.
Everything here is tainted with darkness, choked by Vidaris’s hold over it. We have to find a way to break the curse between the realms—to save Crea before it falls completely into Moros and Vidaris’s hands.
I rubmy eyes, the list of things we have against us piling up each day. I wish I knew what Leda was doing—what my mother was planning with the council to prepare for this brewing war with Crea.
