Dark Prince & the Doe

Chapter Forty-nine: The Azure Sky

Chapter Forty-nine: The Azure Sky

Calden

Calden's eyes burned; it was like he was grinding sand into his eyeballs as he rubbed them with the back of his hands. They had barely made any stops, and when they had, it was only for the sake of the tinderhorses. Calden had not received much time to rest. At their first stop, Kiren had comforted the frightened ambassadors while everyone else tried to clean up.

Calden hadn't brought another change of clothes, but Larken had scrounged up a spare tunic – probably tore it off some unfortunate soldier's back, but Calden was too desperate for a clean shirt to care. After squeezing into a dark alcove, he'd changed as Larken stood guard at the entrance.

Despite the change of clothes, he was still covered in dried blood; his hair was matted with it. They didn't have enough water to waste cleaning him up. He smelled absolutely foul – he'd been making himself nauseous for hours.

Larken had cleaned up much nicer, most of the blood had burnt off of him – all that remained was a black grime smeared across his skin. The cream-colored dress shirt he was supposed to wear this morning looked terribly out of place on him. No wonder he'd refused to wear it. It was now wrinkled and sweaty from hours of travel. He'd honestly looked more respectable in his armor.

Sulfur trudged along tiredly. All the tinderhorses were exhausted, they'd been pushed well past their limits. They were very far behind schedule; they should have arrived eighteen hours ago. By now, Prusen had probably paced a hole in the floor. No less then he deserved, this disaster could have been avoided if the King had forced one of the labyrinth lords to give them safe passage through their tunnels.

Changing the route in case of emergency was the only thing father had given Larken control of and he'd guided everyone through unexplored offshoot tunnels so narrow the carriages had scraped against the walls. Larken had even blown a hole into a wall at one point so they could jump over to another tunnel. For hours, Larken muttered about how they had to keep moving, snarling at those who slowed.

There were mumbled complaints from the soldiers but there was something in Larken's eyes that told everyone to obey and, strangely enough, Kiren supported all of Larken's route changes. They only ever stopped to swap out a few of the carriage tinderhorses. Now, most of the tinderhorses were lathered in sweat and could barely keep their heads up. They'd die if they were pushed any harder. Some of the men had unburdened their tinderhorses, choosing to jog alongside them after leaving saddles and saddle bags behind in the tunnels.

Originally, they were going to host a large meal for everyone when they first arrived at the Castle of the King but judging by the soured moods, it might be best to direct the ambassadors to the North Hall and have food delivered to them once they were settled.

Over the past half hour, Larken had visibly relaxed and was no longer driving them all forward at an unattainable pace. His calm had spread through their entire company – everyone could finally breathe at ease. Kiren had even fallen asleep. His body swayed in time to his tinderhorse's trudging, his tangled black hair a veil in front of his face.

Calden pulled out the tarmanze tooth and worked the small rasp he'd bought off Nix into the soft crystal. It wasn't a very good rasp – definitely not worth the eight copper finches he'd given the soldier. The tooth would've grown too hard for him to work if he waited much longer, then he would need to borrow Nocturn's precious tools and he'd get all grumbly about it. It was easy enough to carve scrollwork grooves though the outer layer of the tooth in a flower pattern. He was nowhere near as skilled as Nocturn was but he could do a few simple patterns.

After blowing dust from the swirling lines carved along the crystal, Calden used the edge of his shirt to wipe away any remaining dust. The tarmanze tooth was naturally lustrous, so he didn't need to polish it. They tended to get a rougher surface as the creatures grew older, but their baby teeth were almost perfectly translucent.