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"WHAT DID YOU SAY?"
Rynaezel felt something cold settle in her gut as she whirled around to face Tamas. Stolen from us, he'd said. He looked like he always did, like a sleek arrow gliding towards a heart, but there was something missing, something about him was darker now.
She wondered what that darkness did to them, the vultures, how it twisted gods so much that it left them half broken.
And she wondered what it would do to her, if she was trapped there, too.
"Brother," Sattvas warned from behind her as he walked up to them.
"There's no harm in telling her the truth, Sattvas," Tamas shrugged, folding his hands across his chest as he leaned his head back.
The sun filtered through his short, pitch black hair, lining it with streaks of pale gold as he breathed in the mountain air.
Rynaezel glanced sideways at Sattvas, who stood watching his brother in silent disapproval and felt anger rising to grasp her throat like a crooked hand.
Tamas opened his eyes, gaze blacker than night sliding to meet his brother's. Something passed between them, Rynaezel could feel it, like a spark of agreement, charged to the point of breakage.
"What I mean is that we have to move on."
Rynaezel narrowed her eyes at him, holding herself back to stop them from rolling.
There was a secret there, darker than what they would dare tell her. Darker than what she would want to hear.
She had known, of course, from the very beginning that there was a reason why these men of such enormous power would follow her in her search for a sword (which originated from nothing but her own curiosity). There was a reason why they were in Rhene, in the first place. And she never asked, because to be on their side just in time for the shift of the eon... it was a priceless position, which she could not dare lose to her suspicion about their true purpose.
She knew she would leave them eventually, to seek her own power over theirs. To rule a nation, if all went right. Because mingling with this kind of energy... it would ruin her if she didn't leave it behind soon enough.
But that time was not now. Not until she found the sword. So she kept her mouth shut, only nodding as Tamas's gaze dared her to challenge his silence.
"I see we are missing someone," said Tamas, eyebrow dancing into his forehead as if on its own accord as he gazed back at the place where they'd broken camp.
Sattvas shifted uncomfortably at her side as Rynaezel rolled her eyes to the Ethers.
Auran.
Another thorn in her side, which just kept burrowing itself deeper and deeper. The boy had run, run from them as if they were after him like wild hounds. And he'd taken something with him, Rynaezel knew. Something that wasn't hers, but something which could have been.
