He gave her a sleepy wink and smiled. “Reputation to keep up,” he yawned. “You understand.” His eyes traveled back, and he met the gaze of the Venari King. “Morning King,” he said with an upwards nod. “What trouble did my bloodthirsty sister find for you on this morn?”
Aydra nudged his arm, and Dorian laughed softly at her. Draven simply shook his head and gestured toward the dead creature on the back of his horse. “Infi creature behind your mother’s pool,” Draven told him.
“He’s showing me proper disposal should we ever need it again,” Aydra informed Dorian.
“Can I come?” Dorian asked.
Aydra met Draven’s eyes. Draven shrugged, and Aydra turned back to her younger brother. “I suppose you are the next king…” she thought aloud. “Can’t imagine it would be up to Nyssa to behead criminals,” she mumbled under her breath. “Fine,” she finally agreed. “Change clothes. Quickly.”
Dorian beamed and ran up the steps into the castle again, nearly running over Rhaif on his way through the doors. Rhaif said something smart to Dorian, but he didn’t stop. Aydra stopped stroking her horse and turned toward him, his burnet cloak billowing behind him as he walked. He was still in his night clothes, and for a moment, he looked like the old Rhaif that she had once adored and played sticks with on the beach.
But the brief moment of bliss was short-lived, and his new character fell into his eyes upon his double-take at her figure.
“Why are you wet?” he asked as he came to a stop in front of her.
“Good morning, brother,” she smarted. “And you’re welcome.”
His jaw tightened. “Welcome for what?”
She pulled open the bag on the saddle and revealed the heart inside of it. “Finding the Infi creature,” she told him. Her eyes cut at her brother’s Second standing behind him. “No thanks to you, Bard,” Aydra smarted. She shook her head and turned again towards Rhaif. “Lex and I will accompany the Venari to Bedrani where he will show us proper disposal of the creature’s body.”
“I do not want you going alone,” Rhaif said. “You will take my company with you.”
“Your company is an embarrassment to this kingdom,” Aydra said haughtily. “They’d all night to find the creature and there he was, in the exact spot we threw him from.” Her jaw tightened at Rhaif’s displeased face. “My Second and I are leaving, and we are taking Dorian with us. We will return in a few days, finally rid of the filth in our streets.”
Rhaif’s jaw set. “And the Dreamer towns? Will you be traveling to those to dispose of those bodies?”
“I will accompany the Venari King to the Villages,” came Dorian’s voice as he joined them once more.
Rhaif’s stern stare flickered between the pair and then back to Draven. “Very well,” he finally agreed.
The first day and night were a blur. Not many words were spoken between the four as they traveled and then rested overnight on a hill. Aydra’s butt was numb from the horse, and she could feel the exhaustion of each one of the beasts pouring through her core, making her more tired than she should have been.
Aydra fell asleep in the grass curled next to her own horse before they ate supper.
She dreamt of running, of fire chasing her, and only when it caught up with her did she jolt awake. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead, but the soft coo of her raven and dewy fog around her calmed her heartbeat back to normal.
Draven was already awake, putting out the fire and checking the straps on his horse to make sure things were tightened. Aydra didn’t speak to him, but did the same, too sleepy still to get into any sort of argument with him so early in the morning. She woke Lex and Dorian, and within the hour, they were riding across the Hills once more.
The path they were on was beat of grass and full of mud. It had been a few years since Aydra had ridden so far south. After her predecessor, Zoria, died from sickness, she’d not ventured far from the castle except to the cliffside an hour out.
How she missed the fresh smells and wind through her hair.
It took them the rest of the day to reach Bedrani, having only stopped a few times during the day for water and food, and to give the horses a small break. Bedrani was a cluster of three great stones on a high hill, sat stark in the middle of the Haerland flats south of the Blackhand Mountains. It was the mark of the fork in the road from the south. If you took the path due north, you would find yourself the path of the Knotted Caves to the Blackhand Mountains. A treacherous journey, some would say, as the caves were not easy to navigate, and could easily consume you if you did not know the way.
The path northwest, the path they’d taken from Magnice, was the path most used as it was the path every Ambassador and Bedrani Council member took from their southern Dreamer towns to reach the kingdom of Magnice.
Aydra hadn’t seen the Bedrani boulders since she was a child, so when it rose in her sightline on the horizon, she had to pause. Her raven circled overhead, and she took a moment to take in the sight around her.
Dorian and his horse came up beside her, pausing for a minute as well. “We should do this more often,” he said.
“Yeah,” she agreed without taking her eyes off the horizon. “We should.”
They stopped and rested on the hill with the boulders. Because of the darkness, Draven insisted they start a fire and get some rest first, determined to not send the creature back to Duarb’s roots until the morning.
Once more, the tire of the horses filled Aydra’s core, and she hardly made it awake past dinner. Darkness consumed her body as
