The King Trials.

~The Vulkra~

The wind blows its warm breath on my face.

My face tightens slightly at the bright, shuddering light that pierces through my closed eyelids. I heave them open and the intensity dissipates to the far corners of my vision. The colours of the world return. My senses awaken. My nose wrinkles at the potent stench that brutally shocks me to full consciousness. I shift my hand. It explores the hard surface beneath a layer of dark brown lycra material.

A chest. Vince's chest.

I glance down, his arm slung over my shoulder. I rise carefully, slowly sliding up. His arm slips off me, dropping beside him limply.

"You two looked cosy."

I look to my right. Solaris rubs his forehead and pinches until the centre ripples with fleshy folds. Then he runs his fingers through his tousled Achilles mane.

Unsure of how to respond to that, I say, "I suppose...I fell asleep."

His hand drops to his lap with a loud, unconvinced plop. "You never fell asleep on me," he says with an enigmatic smile. Perplexing, since I'm uncertain if it comes from a place of envy or disapproval.

"You sound jealous, Herem Solaris."

My head turns and I look down at Vince's hidden eyes, his face inexplicably still.

"Concerned," he corrects harshly. Then adds, "For her safety, the Hera should be wary of those she draws close."

As if I do not  already know that?

Without looking, he says, "With me, she's the safest she can be, Solaris." Tenor enwrought with austerity.

Solaris lets out a quick burst of laughter with resounding skeptisim. "Ironic coming from the Herem of the most violent Regnum, Empire, in all of Urium."

The remark earns him a glower, revealing his eyes, shadows creeping beneath.

"Violent when I must, or when someone tempts me to be," he says as a matter of fact.

Solaris's spine snaps straight and his gaze drills holes into him. "Perhaps I should increase my efforts."

I shoot both hands up placatingly. "Easy there. Where did all this hostility come from?" I ask, conjuring a babying tone. "Did the Herems not get enough sleep?"

Vince scoffs and draws his arm over his eyes.

"Arghh." A familiar, maddened groan. "We have been travelling all night. Surely the horses need tending by now," Brennon blathers. "Any excuse to escape this rattrap of a carousine."

"Rattrap?" Dario repeats disagreeably. "It feels like one of the castle's State Rooms compared to the Orombuc's sleeping huts. I would gladly take this option any day."

"Of course, you would say that. Even nobility cannot conceal your rodent-like nature, tracker boy."

Dario thrust himself forward like he's about to attack but he wrests himself under control. Teetering at the verge of the seat. His fingers clutching onto the edge, knuckles whitening. He glowers at Brennon; he sits opposite him, staring back at him smugly from down his nose. His one bent leg settled on the seat, a black leather boot on the brink, his wrist resting on his knee.

"Say that again, and you will find that I possess far more lethal skills."

Brennon's smirk endures. He drops his leg down to the ground, dipping forward to rest his elbows on his thighs.

"Oh, is that—"

"Cut it out," Treyton intervenes for the first time. He swipes the locks of his medium-length tresses from his face. Strawberry accents in his hair. "You both are squabbling and squawking like a pack of ringerds. Shut it or I will make you."