She clutched the crutches in her fists and glared at Draven. She knew she couldn’t. And she didn’t need more mocking from the entire of the Venari race when she would inevitably fall.
A slow twist rose on Draven’s lips. He crossed his arms over his chest, hair falling out of its ponytail and over his eyes. “You’ll leave when we say you can leave,” he told her.
“This is kidnapping,” she hissed.
“No,” he snapped, crossing the space between them. “This is saving my ass and yours. If you were to go back right now, your brother would send an army of Belwarks into my home, attack all the Noctuans, and he would do it without bothering to hear your or my side of what really happened. He would think I hurt you, and he and your little minis would start a war we do not need.” He paused to tower over her, and she could hear her pulse beating in her ears.
“Do not think for a moment that I want you here any more than you want to be here,” he hissed. “Do you think I relish argument at every waking moment? Hearing your voice doubting and making me question everything I do? We were building at peace before you got here. And now—” His hands made like they would grasp the sides of her head, and he instead gripped the roots of his hair. “The faster you heal and get out of here, the better.”
He turned and walked away from her then, leaving her words stuck in her throat. She inhaled a deep breath, hating that he was right.
“Then I must send word to my sister and Second. Let them know I am okay,” she called to him. “It would have been Lex’s responsibility to make sure I came home. And my sister… She is likely terrified. I do not know where she is.”
“We do,” came Balandria’s voice. “She’s in the Village of Dreams.”
Aydra eyed Balandria’s smirk, and if she could have crossed her arms over her chest, she would have.
“What’s wrong, Sun Queen? Didn’t think women Hunters would speak such to you?” came Draven’s voice as he started helping again with bags of food. “Balandria is my Second, and also our fiercest fighter. Be glad it was Dunthorne who was with me on patrol the other night and not her. Your princess would now be Queen.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“WHAT EXACTLY IS it you trade with?” Aydra asked Draven later when he brought her dinner.
Draven shrugged. “Why? Planning on telling your brother our secrets?” he asked, his fingers strumming on the cup.
“Despite what you think, Venari King, I do not tell my brother everything.”
A smirk rose on his face, and he sat up, elbows sitting on the table. “Do I sense a feud between Haerland’s most loved brother and sister? Squabbles between the perfect pair?”
Aydra gripped the cup in her hands.
“Do tell, Sun. I’d love to hear it,” he said with a smug wink.
A flash of blue flames poured through her memory, and she blinked to push it from mind. “It’s not your concern,” she managed.
His smirk widened. “I knew there was something not perfect about those banquets. Not everything can be that grand all the time.”
“And here?” she mocked. “Is everything always so ‘family first’ as you like to put it?”
Draven took a long swig of his drink, his eyebrows raising. “Generally yes,” he said. “We usually settle arguments with challenges. Duels. But, if you must know, those that have problems with our ways are usually of the Infi. And we do not let them walk among us.”
“Are the Infi not your brethren?”
Draven’s cup slammed into the table.
A wild look of anger flashed in his green eyes. “They are not my brothers,” he snarled.
She felt a brow raise on her face and she slowly sipped her wine. “And here I thought Venari King meant leader of all Duarb’s cursed.”
He avoided her eyes, jaw clenching at her statement. “The Infi are nothing more than savages, only living for themselves—”
“And that is different from Hunters how?” she interjected.
His gaze met hers and he stared at her for a long enough moment that she felt her weight shift.
“You know nothing of my people, Sun Queen,” he said in a hauntingly quiet voice. “Nothing of the sacrifices we have made defending your own kingdom. Did you even know about the ship that arrived on Lovi’s shores almost three weeks past?”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“Exactly.”
“What kind of ship?”
“The enemy kind,” he replied shortly. “The kind carrying strangers and disease. With men not of our own, not of Haerland, suited up in armor and carrying weapons made from minerals not of our land. Men who were not created or sprung from the land, but rather of each other. The kind of ship that only means there will be more, and if we are not vigilant, the kind that will take over our land without question.”
Aydra swallowed hard. “What happened?” she asked.
“We took care of it. With the Honest,” he answered. “Fighting alongside those not of our own is something we do here in the southern realms.”
“Do you speak ill of your beloved mountain friends?” she asked, referring to the Blackhands.
“The Blackhands have nothing to fear, no reason to fret any such war coming to their homes. They stay to themselves and secure their own. I cannot fault them for that.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “We would have sent aid,” she told him. “Had you asked for it.”
A laugh emitted from Draven’s lips, one that mocked and told her nearly all she needed to know about what exactly had been wrong with her brother before her leaving.
“Oh, you poor thing,” he scoffed. “You really knew nothing of it, did you?”
She eyed him from across the table, and he shook his head.
“Your brother knew all about the ship,” he informed her. “He knew everything. We asked for a Belwark patrol to be sent,
