Calaistas

Day Nine

Light wasn't the same anymore. Leandrios lay looking at the morning sky, thinking that nothing could be the same anymore. How could it? He was a dead man enjoying his last breaths.

They had traveled until the dark had gotten too dangerous, and then they had stumbled upon a cave. C hadn't been too obliging, telling him to eat and go to sleep. He hadn't been able to get up the gumption to do much else.

He had woken up on his own, so he didn't know what the plan was. It looked surprisingly late for them to only start moving, but C wasn't anywhere.

She only appeared after he had done some serious soul searching.

"You need to tell me... everything," Leandrios said.

"Everything you need to know." C dropped down in the corner of the cave, looking at him evenly. "We will be staying."

"Staying?" Leandrios shot up, his eyes widening. "Here? Like sitting ducks?"

"If that's how it seems to you."

"No. No! That's insane. Do you want to be killed? Who are you? Start telling me what I want to know!"

"A temper tantrum won't help you." She glanced at him as she dropped a spark on the rock, and the ignition triggered a fire. She placed a pan over the fire, cracking a few eggs into it.

Leandrios felt his jaw tighten. "Give me one good reason to stay."

"Breakfast."

He hesitated, expecting to be able to argue with that but finding he couldn't.

"Fine. Breakfast. But after that there better be more."

C gave a sliver of a smile. "There is more."

She didn't say more, and Leandrios rested his elbows on his knees, staying quiet and sulking. Nothing could be easy. There couldn't be an easy job traipsing through a forest for unheard of sums of money. No, there had to be explosions and near deaths and—

Leandrios sat bolt upright. "Where is she?" he demanded. "That girl. Where is she?"

"What girl?" C narrowed her eyes at him, doing her best to show him her suspicion and scorn.

"The girl that saved me."

"I saved you." C glared at him.

"We have to go back," he said, looking around because he wasn't wearing his boots. "We have to find her!"

C watched, inwardly able to find the situation comical.

"She pushed me out of the way from the tree that was about to fall on me. No thanks to you. Oh, wait, that was because of you." He glared back at her.

"That was me. I tackled your useless carcass out of the way."

"No, it was that Drakiri!" Leandrios stared at her blank face. He shouldn't be saying anything, but he was. "I saw her face."

"What Drakiri?" C's eyes became two slits in her face.

Leandrios grumbled under his breath. "Two days ago I might have... met one."

"I doubt it."

"I know what I saw." His gaze grew harsher. "She saved my life."

"I saved your life. You were delusional. There was no Drakiri, no magical savior. It was me. Twice." C disdainfully shook the pan. "Eat your eggs."

Leandrios made sure his posture proved how less than appeased he was.

"I'm going to tell you something," she said finally. "It's true, there's a price on my head. And that makes you... complicated. But I can make sure that nothing happens to you. Nothing will."