The Prince's Mark

Chapter Twenty One

As he reached for the tavern door, he heard feminine voices from the other side.

"What if he's not here?"

"Where else would he go?"

Tracou pushed open the door, revealing Ina and Nesta. Ina gawked at Tracou for a moment before smiling at him. Behind her, Nesta hovered, peering over Ina's shoulder.

"Oh, here you are! Pendaer said you went to get something to eat so I thought you'd be here." A beat passed and Ina addressed Nesta over her shoulder. "I told you we'd find him."

"Ah... Yes. I was just heading back," Tracou said.

"Great, we can walk you there. And then..." Ina adopted a sly look. "We can exchange those things we talked about."

Seconds ticked by as Tracou stood there, puzzled. Luckily what Ina meant clicked before she had to explain it further—she wanted to give that necklace to Nesta. He nodded to her and the three of them were off.

Walking through the mud was miserable. Ina and Nesta didn't mind the muck, but Tracou was careful to avoid as much of it as possible. He didn't have enough clothes with him to risk ruining what he had on.

Ina and Nesta walked close together, their legs moving in sync. They weren't speaking, but they were holding hands. The atmosphere between the three of them wasn't quite right. Tracou found himself drifting away from them as they walked. They were even holding hands! It must have been nice. Instead of walking with Tracou, shouldn't they be alone together? Though he was only a few feet away from them, they were in a completely different world than he was.

But they were like him. In many ways, they were devastatingly different—they were humans, women, Aodehsh, people who needed to work to survive—but they were odd in the same way he was. He wasn't the only person who was like this. For Tracou, who had attempted exactly once to connect with another man romantically and had that attempt blow up in his face, seeing Ina and Nesta together was both reassuring and frustrating. Why was it easy for them and yet impossible for him?

Lost in his thoughts, Tracou walked automatically until he realized that Ina and Nesta had disappeared. Whirling around, he scanned the area for them and spotted Ina's head popping out from behind a small building.

"This way!" she called.

Tracou trotted over to her. Ina and Nesta were standing in an alleyway, one that Tracou never would have noticed on his own. When Tracou was normally in Shalen, he kept in the open areas, like the square where they held the Gathering of Merchants. He peered down the alley, frowning.

"Why are we going this way?" Tracou asked.

Ina shrugged her shoulders. "Nesta wants to talk to you and I think we should do it away from Pendaer."

"Ugh!" Nesta shouted, loud enough for anyone in Shalen to hear, let alone Pendaer. "He's so creepy. I didn't think he would actually want us to beat up a dezmek. I mean, just look at him! It's not fair!"

Tracou blinked at her. Their eyes met and Nesta shuddered, averting her gaze. Both Ina and Pendaer had had plenty of time to get used to the way Tracou's eyes glowed in the dark and had stopped flinching, so seeing it happen again momentarily surprised him.

"Nesta! Don't say things like that—I think he's sensitive."

"Is he? Well, sorry. Oh, and..." Nesta turned toward Tracou, eyes staunchly on his forehead. "I'm sorry about pulling your hair, too. And, you know... all that."

He had forgotten about the hair pulling. Considering everything he had gone through in the past month, hair pulling was minor. Even so, it wasn't exactly okay that she had done that. Tracou considered what she said for a while before coming to a decision.