A God Of Kings ✔

NINETEEN: The Calm Before The Storm

Rina's rude brother had shown Emrick to a room hidden below the inn not long after his and Isiah's little show of their powers. The little Prince had whisked Isiah off to another room and that had been the last he'd seen of him for the remainder of the night. They were supposed to get plenty of sleep before dawn, when they would launch their attack on the Ishini camp.

Somewhere outside his room, a drake chirped happily and cheerful voices replied to it. The people of Maeve were in surprisingly good spirits, considering what would happen once the sun rose. In reality, they had planned for it to happen in a week, but with the urgency of Isiah's journey, they pushed it to the next day. It would be better to get the army out of the way as soon as possible anyway.

For the first few hours after they arrived in Maeve and spoke to its tiny resistance, Emrick had found it strange that the army hadn't completely destroyed the town or at least killed everyone that lived there. When he'd asked, Benj had told him that they probably still wanted to use the town, but from the look on his face, he hadn't known for sure either. The actions and plans of King Harudan went unknown to everyone and it irritated him.

Whatever Harudan was doing, it wouldn't be good for anyone. It was stressing him out, making him want to rip his hair out, but he couldn't dedicate all of his focus to it, there was Isiah to worry about. They may not be speaking outside of having to translate the many conversations going on inside the resistance, but he would still protect him. He cared for him and couldn't just leave him to fend for himself.

With a sigh that echoed through the bare room, Emrick pulled out the fear stone. The spider earlier had been far easier to conjure than it had back in the abandoned house and Isiah's fears had been easier to see. The moment he'd pulled it out at the table, it had whispered to him all the minor fears of the people around him. Rina was scared of heights, her brother of wasps, others feared spiders or mermaids or the ocean. It was strange to hear it, the constant whisper in his mind.

Sitting on the bed with it in his hands, it was silent. There was no one around him for it to talk to him about. Isiah had gone to sleep and Rina was still out talking to her brother, even though the plan to wipe out the camp had already been sorted. He supposed it was because they hadn't seen each other in so long.

They were similar, the siblings, in both how they looked and how they acted. They were both headstrong, knew what they wanted and stopped at nothing to get it. Except Rina was far more respectful than her younger brother, but that could easily be chalked down to Prince Benj being jealous of her status and abilities, she was a better fighter than him after all, even with less training.

In the grand scheme of things, cutting her hair had been a bad idea. When she'd protested it, he'd assumed it was her wanting to stick to traditions, but if her brother was upset about it, then Askari traditions were far more important than he had first thought. Even so, if he hadn't, it would have risked her life during a fight.

He put the stone on the small bedside table and rolled under the covers. With Isiah in a different room, the cold was starting to seep in. If only he'd been able to keep his powers in check when he'd used the stone on him. He would have still been oblivious to the real reasons why Isiah didn't want them to be together, but they would have at least talked more than they were.

He hated it, the silence, but there was nothing he could do about it. Isiah didn't want to hear his apologies or excuses or anything else he wanted to say. All he wanted from him were translations. But he missed their late-night talks and the way they comforted each other. Sometimes, they didn't need to speak, like back at Askarune's Sanctum. All they'd done was sleep next to each other, content with the other's presence. Since the barn and the abandoned house, Isiah had slept as far from him as possible without letting him freeze.