Page 44 of Power of Five
27
Leralynn
We stop for the night at an outpost lodge at the edge of Slait Court. River dismounts first, coming over to help me down from Sprite’s back. His hands grip my waist, lowering me slowly to the ground as his gray eyes drink in mine, emotions I’m having trouble reading racing through his gaze. I remember our embrace this morning, every inch of our bodies pressed together, how his wall came down for just a moment, and I wish we could get back there. Now he’s the impenetrable leader again.
“Is everything all right?” I ask.
River nods quickly, stepping away. “The outpost isn’t much,” he says, gesturing to what looks like a hunting lodge that’s worth more than what even the wealthiest of human nobles could afford. “But it’s our last place to sleep with a real roof for a while.”
“Who is going to cook?” Shade asks, already walking toward the forest. “I’ll hunt.”
No servants here, then. I’d volunteer but I’ve never had enough food to learn to cook anything but the stew-of-everything. Coal catches my eyes and nods subtly, as if he’s read my thoughts. Understood them without exchanging a single word.
“I’ll cook,” River calls over his shoulder.
“I’ll take care of the horses,” I offer tentatively, and I grin as Coal wordlessly drops Czar’s reins into my hand.
“I’ll take guard duty,” says Tye. “What are we doing with the stray who invited himself along?”
Pyker flinches but raises his chin. He is a handsome male, with muscles as sculpted as the quint’s, but I feel none of the tingling that the others evoke in me. What I do feel is the loneliness that comes from watching others talk and laugh and eat while you are kicked out to the stable. To the street.
A memory I’ve not seen in years burrows into my head. A flash of standing cold and lost and alone while families walked by, parents holding their kids tightly by the hand. No hand held mine, though. Not one. And I don’t remember why.
“Klarissa’s dog can sleep outside,” says River, giving me his horse and walking to the lodge door. “There might be an empty stall in the stable too.”
My spine straightens. “No.” My voice rings loud enough to turn the males toward me. “No one is sleeping in the stable. Not to mention that Pyker may be a part of this quint once you are free of me, so maybe treat him with a straw of decency.”
Silence reigns, five sets of eyes boring into me. The stable girl who thinks she can give orders to princes and immortal warriors. I brace for the coming cold shock of reality, raising my chin to meet it head on. I’ll lose, of course, but I’ll lose with dignity. Sometimes it is all one can do.
River shifts his weight, but it’s Pyker who speaks first. “I’ll be comfortable in the stable,” he says quietly. “I enjoy the company of horses and can keep watch while I’m there.”
“You will stay in the lodge, as Leralynn requests,” River snaps, then twists back on his heels to continue inside. “Dinner should be ready in an hour.”
We startout early the following morning, the males quieter than they were yesterday. The weather is bright but chilly, leaves falling from the trees and fluttering in the wind. I’d expected the neutral lands to resemble the Gloom, but they look much as Slait did. Stunningly vivid and colorful trees, birdsong ringing from every cluster of branches, the breeze carrying the faint but constant aroma of wildflowers. After a swift run through a cluster of maple trees, their leaves dressed brightly for fall, we now trot along the base of a mountain range with a forest of evergreens spreading on our other flank, the occasional bit of river shimmering between the trees. Maybe the difference is visible in the Gloom, but I am not anxious to find that out.
The sun is just reaching its zenith when Pyker kicks his horse into a slow, controlled canter to come up beside River. “Sir,” Pyker bows in his saddle, “I only bring this up because I rode this way recently, but it’s too quiet.”
“I like quiet,” says Tye, grinning as he casually grabs my dropped reins and hands them back to me. His green eyes almost seem to glow under the high sun, and the crinkles around his smiling mouth make my chest squeeze.
River holds up a hand, stopping the group. “Quiet?” he asks Pyker.
The male nods cautiously. “It’s likely nothing, sir. Just... It just feels different than it did a few days ago, when Klarissa and I passed through.”
River sighs. “Something in the Gloom may have shifted. Coal, Shade, step over to the other side and check that we aren’t about to have visitors. The barrier is feeling thinner here than I’d like.”
The two males nod once and dismount, drawing their weapons and stepping into invisibility.
I shiver. “Shouldn’t we go with them?” I ask, Klarissa’s recounting of Kai’s death all too clear in my mind. “Isn’t your magic stronger if everyone is together?”
“Shade and Coal can handle themselves,” River says, his back straight and his seat easy on the horse, but Pyker makes a sound in the back of his throat, his strained face betraying the truth of my words. They split up to keep me safely out of the Gloom, putting themselves in danger for it—exactly as Klarissa warned.
“River is right,” says Tye, trotting forward to catch the loose horses. “Plus, I little want to step there today if I can help it.”
I taste the words for the lie they are. Of course he wants to be with his quint brothers, fighting back to back instead of playing nursemaid to me. I reach into my pocket, where the stone Klarissa gave me burns my mind. The quint is taking care of me. Do I not owe them the same courtesy in return?
“Run!” River bellows, the cold, hard command making Sprite and me jump.
I grip my saddle, barely keeping my seat as I spin frantically to find what has the male on alert. I see it a heartbeat later, my mouth opening in a wordless scream as the air not ten paces behind me ripples and stretches to birth slithering brown worms. Slimy, ridged bodies thick as maple trees fall to the earth. Maws of needle-sharp teeth, absurdly white and large enough to gnaw off a leg in a single chomp, open and close blindly. Rhythmically. Hungrily. The soft, dragging sound of their movements makes bile rise up my gullet.
