Page 77 of Love, Nemesis
Without Manaj’s voice to echo the words, they felt powerless.
“Is something wrong?” Cal asked.
Lethe exhaled from deep in his chest, leaning back as he released the saddle. “Cal,” he asked, “has anyone moved the bags?”
He walked over to Ana and Jasper’s bags, searching them fruitlessly.
“Ana and Jasper never really touched your things. Only me when I helped with the horses, and maybe Evira,” Cal said, and Lethe promptly approached Cal’s bags and rummaged through them.
Nothing.
“You said maybe Evira?” Lethe asked.
“Well, yeah,” Cal said, searching Lethe’s face. “Just a bit. I thought she was looking for something. I think they were her bags though. She took something.”
Lethe’s eyes narrowed. “Were they hers or were they mine? Think, kid. Think hard. This is important. Her bags were dark leather. Mine are lighter. Think hard.”
He knew the differences because he’d gone through her things too.
Cal kept glancing back at Lethe’s things and swallowed. “I don’t know.”
“What did she take?”
“I don’t know—I’m not even sure she took something. It was quick. Whatever she took would have been small anyway.”
“When?” Lethe said forcefully as Cal fiddled with hands nervously.
“Y-Yesterday, just after we unsaddled all of the horses. She was moving things around. I thought maybe she was helping or just organizing things.”
Lethe cursed and walked away running a hand through his hair.
It was Evira.Of course, it was her.
She’d known more than she’d let on, observing him just as he’d been observing her.
He closed his eyes tightly and exhaled as he looked up at the mountain range. Snow and ice were crisp against a bright blue sky, in sharp contrast to the darkness boiling inside him.
He looked up at those peaks longingly as he lowered his hands by his side, taking a deep breath as he looked out at the valleys of lush grasses, grown up around old ROSE cabins.
He hadn’t found anything in Evira’s bags before he’d burned them. In all likelihood, she had kept the tablets on her person. He remembered her laughter before she died, that absurd, knowing laughter. His folly had not been killing her; it had been in burning her. In the end, she too had known that. In seeking to appease his demons, he’d destined himself, perhaps, to become one.
The small flicker of renewed life inside him was just a candle against the sea of darkness he needed to keep at bay.
He lifted the flask from his belt and measured the weight of what Snake Bite remained inside.
“Is everything okay?” Cal asked behind him.
Lethe put the flask away.
“It’s time to go,” was all he could muster.
Time.
Suddenly, he had so little of it.
Chapter 21: Kings Caged
JASPER LEANED BACK in his chair, fingers resting against the edge of his plate. Ana could tell he was deeply dissatisfied with the events to come.
