The Prince's Mark

The Road to Dezmer - Ten

The next morning, Mirthal found himself alone with Pendaer. He sat up, scanning the area for white and, when he found none, made a confused grunt.

"Oh, you're awake," Pendaer said. He sat on the line of mattresses he had claimed for himself the night before, his back against the wall.

Mirthal let out a long, sleepy sigh. "Tracou's not here?"

"He left a few hours ago. Woke me up, too—I don't know how you slept through his racket."

"Why...?"

"He went to try and find someone to warn. I think it's best we stay out of it, your highness. It's not our place to meddle in the affairs of our lessers, as I'm sure you'll disagree with me out loud, but I know you agree with me on the inside."

Mirthal only absorbed the fact that Tracou had left.

He didn't like it. What if something happened? Tracou was so small—well, outside of Dezmer he was. He had no height disadvantage here. He could speak the language, had some knowledge of the city, and had his wand. Logically, he could find nothing in particular that would scream danger, aside from the fact that Tracou wasn't next to him.

But things hadn't gone well for either of them the last time they split apart! No, this couldn't be allowed.

"Let's find him."

"And how do you propose we do that? You realize there's a city's worth of dezmek crawling around out there."

"I can do it."

Pendaer huffed. "Perhaps you could, but what if he comes back right as we leave?"

"Then... I'll go and you st—"

"No."

"What if you go and—"

"No!"

"You say no an awful lot for someone who's supposed to serve me."

"My most important duty is protecting you and, until we return to the palace, you're not doing anything the least bit risky as long as I'm here."

"So, what, we're just going to wait?"

"That's right."

Mirthal mulled that possibility over for a fraction of a second before discarding it. That would not happen under his watch. He got on his feet and went through their things, looking for his day clothes.

"Let's go."

"We aren't going!"

Grinning, Mirthal gave Pendaer a lengthy stare. "What are you going to do? Physically stop me?"

Naturally, Pendaer had no response to that.

So, in rapid getting-up time for Mirthal, he and Pendaer stepped outside of the inn and stopped, observing the stream of dezmek flowing through the canyon. The innkeeper had given them both some bread and cheese and Mirthal had nearly finished it, chewing slowly as he looked around.

Tracou was not the only dezmek with white hair. Varying levels of gray dominated, with pure white and black being outliers, but there were enough white headed dezmek to make Mirthal droop.

"Well?" Pendaer prompted, his lip twitching from his attempt to keep his smug satisfaction out of his face.

Like it or not, Mirthal had to choose a course of action. If he retreated here, it would set the stage for Pendaer to become even more overbearing and would reinforce his already iffy attitude. Retreat wasn't an option. No, he had to move.