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Chapter Ten

Ena slowly opened her eyes. Her entire body was stiff from sleeping on the ground and her eyes felt dry and irritated from the campfire smoke. She had rolled over at some point during the night so she was facing the fire, probably seeking its warmth, but she was paying the price this morning.

Pushing herself up into a sitting position with an audible groan, she caught Ty watching her from across a newly stoked fire, an enigmatic expression on his face.

She would have said it was hatred, given its intensity, but underneath was something…

softer—something almost like longing—but that couldn’t be right.

Not for the first time, she wished she could read his signs better.

How was it possible that she hadn’t noticed that her Knowing didn’t work on him all those years ago?

She guessed that was just another indicator of how willfully blind she’d been.

Blinded by his good looks. Blinded by her na?veté.

It was just another reminder of how wrong she’d been about him and everything that had happened between them.

Looking away from her, he stood up. “It’s time to go,” he said. “We’re heading out to a nearby village to get your supplies.”

Slowly lifting herself to stand, she looked down at her dirt-covered dress.

Leaves and twigs stuck to the wool, and she was pretty sure the horse smell would never come out.

It was a party dress, not suited for everyday wearing, and certainly not backwoods camping, but she guessed she should count her blessings that her breasts hadn’t spilled out of it overnight.

She groaned, wondering what the chances were of finding a spare pair of clothes for her at the village too.

After dusting herself off as best as she could, she picked up the waterskin she’d been given last night and took a long, cold drink. From behind her, she heard footsteps crunching through the downed leaves. She turned to find Steig and Turner returning to the campsite from deeper in the woods.

“Trap’s all set,” Turner said, looking at Ty and then at her with a cautious smile. “Should have a rabbit or two ensnared by the time we get back tonight.”

Ena cocked her brow at finally being addressed by one of them other than Ty. Clearly, the moratorium on speaking to her had been lifted after their agreement last night.

“Are you finally planning to feed me something other than these dried bricks of meat?” Ena asked sullenly, ripping off a piece of one of said bricks that she’d saved from last night with her teeth.

“Well, that depends,” Steig said, crossing his arms and keeping his distance as if she were poisonous.

“On?” Ena asked.

“On how many we catch and how many we need to sacrifice for your little spell.”

“Oh,” Ena replied, pleased that they’d already been considering how to get the ingredients she’d need, but annoyed that they hadn’t included her. “You should have brought me with you. I can sense rabbit burrows with my eyes closed.”

Well, not literally with her eyes closed, but pretty damn close, given how often she’d used her Knowing to find them in the past.

“I think we managed just fine on our own. And besides, we don’t need you using your witchy senses any more than you already are,” Steig replied gruffly.

She bristled at his tone. Witches had always been revered by everyone she knew, especially mortals. Their magic was seen as a blessing and an asset. But these men, Steig especially, treated her like a trickster and a pariah.

“Come on,” Ty said, untethering his horse from the tree. “We’ve got to get a move on if we want to make it back before dark.”

Since Ena was cooperating—for now—she walked over to the horse and used the stirrup to lift herself up on its back.

In the daylight, she could appreciate what a beautiful brown mare it was.

It looked well-cared for and was sufficiently large to carry both her and Ty without much trouble.

She read its signs and Knew it was a gentle and well-tempered horse, and she had to stop herself from leaning forward and scratching behind its ears in thanks.

Ty climbed up behind her and reached around to grab the reins.

She would never admit it, but she was relieved to be tucked so close to his body heat.

It was a chilly fall morning, and, once again, she bemoaned the fact that she had no cloak to keep out the chill.

But still, she resisted the urge to lean further back against him. She had far too much pride for that.

They rode silently for about an hour until her curiosity got the better of her. Since she had agreed to their demands, she figured she was owed at least some inkling of where they were going and what to expect.

“How far away is the village we’re heading to?” she asked, trying for a casual and innocent tone.

“About half a day’s ride,” Ty replied shortly.

“What are you planning to trade for the belladonna? It can be quite costly in my experience.”

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that,” Ty replied condescendingly.

Ena bristled, turning slightly in the saddle to look at him. “Why can’t you just tell me? I’ll find out soon enough anyway.”

“We’ll tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it,” he said with finality.

Ena huffed but fell silent. They clearly still didn’t trust her any further than they could throw her, despite her having agreed to do the locator spell. But that was just fine for now. She could be patient. They’d let something slip eventually about their plans, she was sure of it.

They continued to ride in silence for much of the morning, weaving through the dense oak and pine forest. Despite being without her sister or her Coven, Ena felt at home in the forest. The birds shuffled in the leaves on the ground, looking for bugs, and squirrels scurried up and down the trees, collecting and storing acorns for winter.

The trees swayed in the occasional breeze, more of their leaves dropping gracefully with every gust. The everyday signs of life and death were a comfort to her, and she knew that she was never alone.

Gaia’s presence was everywhere, guiding her.

Losing herself in the signs all around her, she almost forgot about her human company.

The three men didn’t speak much, only occasionally exchanging a few words.

It made her wonder what their relationships were to each other.

They didn’t look much alike, so they were likely not closely related.

But Ty was obviously the leader. The other two deferred to him and followed his decisions, but whether that was just because of his personality or any sort of formal leadership position he held among the daemons, she wasn’t sure.

Come to think of it, she didn’t know much at all about the organization of daemonic society.

Beyond that, though, they also felt like…

friends. The way they spoke to one another, and the way they seemed to operate with a certain level of unspoken understanding between them, it was clear they’d known each other for a while.

She definitely felt like an intruder into their tight-knit dynamic, but that was their own doing, not hers.

Around mid-morning, Turner reached into one of his saddlebags and pulled out two apples. Wordlessly, he directed his horse a bit closer to Ty’s and handed one to him before offering one to her.

“Thanks,” she said, slightly surprised at the gesture, since Ty had been the only one to offer her food so far.

Turner simply nodded in reply and kept riding. Steig, on the other hand, clearly had a stick up his ass about something. He’d barely looked her way all morning, and when he did, it was just to scowl in her general direction.

She ignored him and ate the apple gladly, wiping the juices off her chin when she finished.

Towards the afternoon, they arrived at a road.

They’d likely been keeping to the backwoods since they fled her village so they’d be harder to track and follow, but arriving at the road meant they were getting closer to civilization.

There were only so many established roads this side of the Chasm Mountains, the main ones being the Chasm Road, which ran parallel to the mountain range and connected the Auster and Aquilo Covens, and the Western Road, which led to the Occidens Coven and the Endless Ocean.

There were other smaller roads which branched off from those as well, connecting various villages to one another.

But this road, if it could even be called that, was clearly not a main road.

It was barely large enough to pull a single horse-drawn cart down and could only tightly fit two of them abreast on horseback.

It was the least significant road Ena had ever been on.

Not for the first time, Ena wondered where exactly they were.

While she had regularly traveled north along the Chasm Road to visit the Aquilo Coven and assist the villages that ran along it, she’d only been west exactly once in her life.

When she was fourteen, Heran had taken her and Greya to visit a Sacred Pool that was about halfway between her Coven’s village and the coast of the Endless Ocean.

Even though members of her Coven were forbidden from traveling west, Heran had made an exception because the sacred waters of the pool were necessary for certain potions, so they’d made the trip expressly for the purpose of collecting the water, and they had not lingered.

They hadn’t stopped at any villages along the way, and they had kept to the backwoods.

So her current unfamiliarity with her surroundings made her, again, think that they had traveled west.