“When you spied on me in my bedroom,” he said, “you liked it.”
She cocked her head at that, considering it for a moment before she shrugged. She drank a mouthful of scotch and passed the bottle back to him. “I loved your cock. The woman and the toys annoyed me.”
He burst out laughing, and a smile hovered at the corners of her mouth. “I’ll confess,” he said. “The woman and the toys annoyed me too.”
Aryal looked at him sideways. “Then why do it?”
He took a deep breath and straightened his back. It was a good question.
Why did he do it?
He could have said several things, and any one of them might have been true. He did it because he wasn’t quite the loner he wanted to be. Because he had a high sex drive, and he was looking for something. Whatever it was, he hadn’t found it yet.
Because the games weren’t right, but they were on the road to something, to a place where he needed to be. Because the games gave him a structure, a way to hold himself back so that he didn’t damage someone who was more vulnerable than he.
He drank then said, “It’s complicated.”
“No, it’s not,” she said. “You’re bent, like me.” He looked at her closely. She was not angling to get him angry. She was simply speaking the truth as she saw it.
“What are you talking about?”
“You can dress it up in those designer clothes you wear at the bar, and turn on the charm, but strip off all the clothes and the charm, and what lives underneath is raw and dark.” Her voice was flat and quiet. “You’re never going to really find yourself the way you’ve been going. You’re always going to feel restless and dissatisfied, until you realize that the games you’ve been playing don’t feed the animal that lives inside of you.”
“You’re full of bullshit,” he snapped. Her words bit him to the bone. He tried to push them away by scoffing at her, while the part of him that had torn loose and was running renegade ran harder than ever.
“Am I?” She stood and stretched with abandonment, as free and wild in her human skin as she was in her Wyr form. She looked down at him, and there was a strange expression in her gaze, something he’d never seen in her before. “There isn’t anything wrong with the darkness, you know,” she said, almost kindly. “It’s just as beautiful as anything else.”
He stared as she walked over to one of the tents, unzipped the flap and crawled inside. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He rubbed at his cheek to make it stop then finished off the scotch. There was no reason in the world not to.
Then, because there was no one to fight with, he crawled inside his own tent. He took off his boots, but kept the rest of his clothes on as he climbed into the sleeping bag. Within minutes, his own body heat had warmed up the bag and he was comfortable enough, at least physically.
Mentally was another matter. He stared at the shadowed ceiling of his tent until the fire outside died down. Then he closed his eyes and pretended to sleep while silence roared in his head.
Where it was so dark.
EIGHT 
Morning brought sunshine and warmer temperatures. Quentin had his tent broken down, tarps folded and the last embers of the campfire stamped out by the time Aryal climbed out of hers. She stood staring down at the empty fire ring, her face blurred from sleep. He contemplated the sight sourly. While he had been staring at the ceiling of his tent, she had been sleeping like a baby.
She said, “I was going to make coffee.”
“Too bad,” he snapped. “We need to get moving.”
“So that’s how today is going to be, is it?” She made an exasperated I-give-up gesture, glared at him and took down her tent.
While he waited for her to finish, he opened up two cans of sausage and beans and ate the food cold. Soon after, Aryal did the same, grimacing as she swallowed her breakfast. They each packed what they could carry, the lightweight camping gear tied below their backpacks.
“Let’s go,” he said as soon as Aryal shouldered her pack and tightened the straps.
She gave him a dirty look. “I’m not going to hike all day with you when you’re in this kind of mood.”
When Wyr shapeshifted, some magic inherent to the shift itself transformed whatever they wore along with them. The speculation was that it had something to do with how Wyr defined their own personal space, but the shapeshift didn’t work for special loads like the backpack.
She shrugged. “I can carry it. We’re headed southwest, right?”
“Yes,” he said, his tone short. He knew he was being an ass, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “See the ridge at the top of those foothills? Follow that as it curves along the range. The passageway to Numenlaur will be close to where that ridge ends.”
“Right.” She didn’t bother with more conversation. She shapeshifted, her wings flaring into existence on either side of the pack straps.
“Aryal,” he said.
She paused to look at him, one sleek, black eyebrow arched.
“Don’t go so far as to land at the passageway without me. The Elves that Ferion sent to the guard the passageway are stressed and isolated. They’ve lost friends and family, and they haven’t had any news for weeks about how things are going in Lirithriel. Wait for me to get there before you do anything.” He paused, gritted his teeth and added, “Please.”
“Understood.” She turned away from him and launched.
Quentin watched her gain altitude. She was in her element in the air, everything about her flight graceful and full of power. He couldn’t believe she had actually chosen to leave rather than argue with him. It seemed unlike her.
He rubbed his face, struggling with contradictory emotions. As abraded as he felt this morning, her presence could only be like salt in a wound. But he was still annoyed with her for being able to leave so effortlessly. He wanted to pick a fight with her. She had said some pretty goddamn presumptuous things last night, and he took exception.
The silence was pretty peaceful though.
If he had been human, the hike to the passageway would take a couple of days, and much longer if a snowstorm blew in. He couldn’t get there as fast as Aryal could by flying, but he could still make the journey quicker than humans could.
He took off jogging at an easy, ground-eating pace. Within a half an hour, he was so hot, he had to stop and strip off his jacket and sweater. He folded them up and used them as padding for the backpack, which he slipped back on. Once he was certain the shoulder straps wouldn’t chafe his skin, he resumed jogging.
The clouds that day were little more than filmy swathes of white, like transparent silk across the ice blue sky. The late winter sun was bright, pale gold on the muted greens and browns of the forest. The deciduous trees were leafless, allowing for him to see further in dense areas, but the evergreens were thick and vibrant.
He could pick up speed with more surety of his footing in the rolling meadows, but the uneven paths through the forest were slick with melted snow and damp moss. There he could only manage the steady, careful jog. Then he reached a point where the paths didn’t go, and he had to strike out on his own.
Throughout the morning, he brooded. Contrary to what Aryal had said the night before, he wasn’t anything like her. She had assumed that he wasn’t facing some kind of internal truth about himself, and that wasn’t the case.
He didn’t think that the darkness that lived at his core was wrong, or evil. He didn’t try to deny or hide from what was inside of him.
He tried to protect everybody else from it.
