The Rider's Truth.

Those that bind us

Unedited.

Chapter 31: Those that bind us.

There were shadows dancing along my finger-tips. And they had been there all morning, like a darkened caress against my pale skin, a whisper of something that I tried not to listen to. It made it harder not to hear everything around me. Murmurs of energy and pulses of magic wound deep in the fabric, flesh and earth of Ithrall.

"Are you alright?" A familiar voice asked tentatively behind me.

I didn't deign to turn around and face Alex. Stress was baring down on my shoulders, a prickle of seat that was trailing down my spine as I surveyed the carriage in front of me. Our luggage had been packed into here to travel with us to Bulmar. Which was fine, of course, but when I had gone to put in my carefully arranged suitcase with the clothes arranged by shades of colour, I found a travesty inside that large carriage.

A mess.

I mean, I had been sloppy. There was only so much you could do to arrange shades of black but the tragedy before me was enough to trigger instant anxiety and make my palms sweaty. It had made me obsessive and instead of grabbing a quick bite before we left, I had spent the last half-hour rearranging the carriage.

We were to travel to Bulmar where the winter celebrations would be held. That was enough to worry me because this time last year, I had never even heard of Acheron or experienced half of the darkness that would invade my life. So much had changed and there was a pit inside my stomach that unsettled me. A foreboding of sorts but if something bad was going to happen, I was hoping that Jenna would sense it before it came.

"Don't worry about her." Dem's smooth voice cut in. "This is an ordinary reaction for our dear Neely."

I scowled at the carriage. "Shut up, Dem."

"I mean, Neely, you're just standing there." I could perfectly place the confusion on Alex's face. In my mind's eye, I could see myself sketching the knot of his light brows and the eyes so wide and innocent. "Muttering about gradients."

"Oh dear." Dem murmured. "She must truly be stressed."

I rolled my eyes, before focusing on the bags once more. The twins had the largest bags by far, and yet had deigned to put their bags on top of Peter's pitiful backpack. I had wrestled it out from under their bags and spent ten minutes stressing about whether the clothes inside had been folded.

I had to check.

And they weren't.

So, I simply folded them, arranged them to my satisfaction and told myself that I wouldn't check anyone else's bags for unfolded clothes. And I had been convincing myself not to do exactly that for the past five minutes. Dem came to stand beside me, surveying the cleaning process in motion. "You're stressed."

I cast him a sideways look. "I might be."

Tentatively, Alex stood by my other side. The Ithrall Riders had slotted easily in with us after a while. We had no Ashbourne to go back to after the explosion and while we could have gone to the other academies, this one had the most room for five new Riders. Alex was the shyest of the Ithrall four: he was more inclined to stay quiet and drop his eyes to the ground when other personalities rose, but I found him to be nice. Friendly.

"Is that because you're avoiding Zephyr?" Alex blinked owlishly.

My cheeks flamed, while Dem laughed and reached past me to clap Alex's shoulder hard. Grumbling under my breath, I couldn't be annoyed when Alex gave a brief, bright smile.