Page 81 of What Lies Beyond the Veil

“It already has,” I laughed.

“But I am serious, Estrella. I don’t trust him, and I’m not certain you should either,” she said pointedly, watching as Caelum guided one of her men through a move he used often in their sparring sessions, continuing to walk as he did it with a coordination I envied.

“You don’t have to, because I do. He sacrificed himself to save me multiple times. How could I not trust him after that?” I asked.

“Have you ever known a man who could single handedly destroy a cave beast? You didn’t see the carnage after that fight, but I did. There was nothing left, Estrella. He reduced the creature to strips of meat not even fit for a stew,” she argued.

A cool wind kissed my cheeks as we strolled through a break in the tree line. We wouldn’t arrive in Calfalls until the next day, and the prospect of enduring another one of her lectures sounded more exhausting than trekking through Nothrek itself.

“HisViniculumprotected him, and he’s gifted with a sword. Those are hardly crimes, and you don’t seem hesitant to use them to your advantage when it suits you. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be out here accompanying you to Calfalls,” I said, glancing over at her. “If you don’t trust him so much, why did you bring us?”

“Better to keep an eye on him myself than leave him with my people,” she said, kicking the snow with her boots as she walked. “If anyone should suffer the consequences of trusting the wrong man and allowing him into our midst, it should be the ones who made the choice in the first place. It should be you and I.”

I reached out, gathering a clump of snow off the stone side of the mountain. It melted against the fabric of the gloves Melian had lent me, the unique flakes disappearing quickly. “What is it that you think he’s going to do exactly? Kill me? He’s had hundreds of opportunities. Give me to the Mist Guard? He could have easily done that before we arrived at the mountains. There is no other purpose or ulterior motive. He just wants to be with me. Is that really so hard to believe?” I asked, letting a rare moment of vulnerability shine through.

Her face softened for a moment of understanding as she shook her head. “It isn’t hard to believe at all that he would want to be with you. That isn’t what drives my concern. I only worry that you’re so blinded by your feelings for him you aren’t thinking clearly. I can’t help but think you’re keeping things from me to protect him,” she said, reminding me of the information that I had, actually, kept from her. Caelum had said he’d escaped the Wild Hunt because of their desire to find me. Whether or not that was true, I couldn’t say, but surely nothing good would come of admitting it to her.

She would either condemn him for doing the impossible or kick us out because of the potential danger I posed to them.

“What could I possibly be keeping from you? I don’t understand what you think there is to know about him that matters,” I said, my exasperation leaking through my voice. Whatever secrets he kept about his twisted childhood aside, what could possibly be important enough that Melian thought it meant she couldn’t trust him.

“Then tell me about him,” she said, pursing her lips as she pierced me with an intense stare. “What town was his home before the Veil fell? What’s his family name?”

I paused, heat tinting my cheeks red when I couldn’t answer either of those questions. “He’s the bastard son of a member of the nobility,” I said, providing the only information I had.

“What line of nobility?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. She saw the weakness she’d exploited, realizing how little I truly knew of the man I’d taken as my lover. “You don’t know even that?”

“He doesn’t like to talk about his family,” I said, rubbing a hand over my face. That much was true. I’d seen the melancholy on his face when I tried to pry into his life with his family.

“He is feeding you vague bits of information to keep you satisfied, without ever providing anything of use for identifying him. If that doesn’t tell you there’s something off about him, then I don’t know what will,” she said.

“What? What could possibly be so wrong with him that we need to worry about our safety? He’s not Fae,” I snapped.

“He could be working with the Mist Guard,” she said, eyeing the swords strapped across his shoulders.

“He would have killed me long before we reached the Hollows if that was the case,” I said, my disbelieving chuckle hanging between us. “I’ve had the misfortune of encountering them a few times. They don’t generally let the Fae Marked just walk away.”

“What if the Mist Guard somehow heard of our existence? They would know that we wouldn’t turn away a Fae Marked person in need of refuge, or at least they’d suspect it. He could have bargained for his own life, promising to help them find more of us. People will do anything to save their own skin, Estrella,” she said, the words such an echo of Brann’s concerns about Caelum that my heart stalled in my chest.

“He’s not working with the Mist Guard,” I said, feeling the truth of my words in my soul, despite the pain that lanced through me at the thought.

“So stubborn. I just hope it isn’t the death of us all,” she said, shaking her head to signal the conversation was over as Caelum glanced back over his shoulder at us. He leveled a look that did nothing to ease her distrust, something in his eyes twinkling knowingly.

He was far enough away that it was impossible he’d heard her.

Right?

* * *

In the dark of night, Jensen dropped down from the thick branch of the tree, landing on the snow-covered ground and bending at the knees to absorb the shock. “The meadow is crawling with members of the Mist Guard,” he said, rising to full height. He only spared a moment to glare at me before turning his attention to Melian. She raised her brow at him, conveying that she would deal with him personally if he didn’t pretend I no longer existed.

“We’ll have to go through the city to get to the tunnel in the tree line on the other side, so we can make our way to Calfalls,” she said, her chest heaving with a disgruntled sigh. “This was far easier before the Veil fell, when we were just raiding the deliveries sent from the Royal Guard.”

“What do you mean we’ll have to go through the city?” Caelum asked, glaring at the stronghold on the other side of the strait. “It has to be crawling with Mist Guard.”

“We can’t take the bridges across the strait for obvious reasons. That leaves us with no choice but to cross here, because the flow of water isn’t so strong that we’ll be swept away with the current. With the Mist Guard surrounding the city walls, we won’t make it around the perimeter. What else would you propose we do in this situation?” she asked, returning his glare with one of her own.

The two of them would be the death of me.

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