Page 52 of What Lies Within Masks & Shadows

Jade had traded her normal attire for her battle-black armor, lodging daggers, quite accurately, into a tree nearby. Alora wondered if Jade wished it was her face those daggers were embedding into instead.

“Ghost?” In no way of a greeting, Garrik stalked toward the fire.

“Attended to and saddled. Prepared to leave at your command.” Thalon emerged from between two tents, also adorned in his armor. Rolling tension from his back and shoulders, he sheathed a golden sword behind his back and wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead.

Aiden held up a longsword by the blade as Garrik passed him by.

In a smooth motion, Garrik gripped the hilt, pulling it from Aiden’s hand. “Aiden, see to the training arena.” Glancing at Alora, who sat on the stump by the fire, he added, “I expect to return within a few hours.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” Aiden pulled himself to his feet and sheathed his own sword.

Garrik turned to Alora. “Stay within camp until my return.”

Those silver eyes flashed to her boot, the map concealed inside, and she warred off the flush of scarlet burning her cheeks. He couldn’t know about it—he hadn’t been inside his tent since he’d left her inside.

“Aiden will remain here should you require anything.” And before she could say anything—do anything—shadows tendriled from Garrik’s body, swirling around him in clouds of ash and smoke, engulfing him in a storm of darkness.

She watched him step from it, mesmerized.

His scaled battle leathers were now returned as he walked toward the hitching line. The tendrils of darkness swirling behind his back as he walked away.

Warmth brushed her skin before Aiden’s voice murmured beside her, low and with just as much wonder as her examination. “Smokeshadows,” was all he said, gesturing with a nod to the whorls dancing around Garrik’s shoulders.

Alora couldn’t take her eyes off them, off the power she could feel rippling from them. Fromhim.

Thalon and Jade followed to where three horses were tied while a white one grazed, saddled and unhitched, and each mounted. Garrik patted his white horse on the neck and offered it a stroke before sheathing the sword to the saddle. In one effortless swing, his foot slipped into the stirrup and he mounted.

Her name fit well. Ghost, Alora heard him call her. Much like the shadows, they too were difficult to turn from. They looked almost majestic together. And as if the skies were in agreement, she could have sworn she saw a glistening twinkle of starlight on Ghost’s forehead. Only for a moment. Perhaps a reflection of light from somewhere in camp.

Garrik caught her enchanted eyes, and she quickly tore them away. “I will return soon. Remember, you are safe here.” He about nudged Ghost, then stopped. His eyes flashed to her boot once more before his careful warning laced in the air. “Do not do anything foolish.” With a resolute nudge of his heel, he, Ghost, and the two others rode down the line of tents.

The sound of hooves faded as they climbed the hill, diminishing from view when they passed the sentries, leaving only a rising swirl of thick smoke and shadow dancing up into the sky.

He’d left her.

How foolishofhim.

How foolish indeed.

Alora paced the empty firesite. An occasional, crisp breeze, laced with smoke and the earthy taste of a nearby lake, echoed of clanging steel mixed with confident cheers and grunts across the valley. Far from the padding of maidservant footsteps turning over bedrooms and preparing for a new day at the manor.

And unlike the spread of warm, steaming pastries fresh from the ovens and lush fruits of ripe flavors, her breakfast settled like stones in her stomach, with the savory, smoked waft of stew lingering on the wind.

Camp teemed with life, unlike the early hours of darkness. Through a trampled path that lay between Garrik’s tent and expanded out into smaller walkways, Alora could see flashes of blackened armor and the gleam of steel in the shards of sunlight. She only knew one path within the labyrinth, the one to Eldacar’s tent. And given the amount of canvases she glimpsed in the moonlight, there really was no clear path out.

Even so, Alora ached to follow the scurrying of steps trailing between the rows.

If the High Prince expected her to stay in the confines of his secluded area in camp, he was highly mistaken.

Alora pivoted on her pacing feet, turning to the hill in which the High Prince rode off and thrust a highly satisfying middle finger in the air. She wondered if she would’ve had the courage to shove it in his face. Wondered enough to the point of wishing he would soon return so she could try.

Wherever this newfound courage had uprooted itself from, she relished it. After all, she’d been fanning her embered self, from the ashes of Kaine, for many years. Slowly, she was igniting back from a dark and lonely place. Back to who she knew she always was, and away from the parts of her that he stole. Or suffocated.

With the High Prince, it almost felt easy—effortless—to be herself.As simple as with any stranger, she supposed. Easy to be who she once was with people who hadn’t seen the person Kaine had broken her into.

Alora didn’t know how she held the courage to fight. In fact, it was even more dangerous to disobey the High King’s son, especially amongst his army. Especially inches in front of him.

She didn’t care.

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