I remember that night in Tadekha's Citadel. The way I crawled all over his lap like a cock-hungry ho, begging for his dick. Is he thinking about that? Is me handling a weapon turning him on? I wait for him to say something, do something, and I keep prickling with awareness. I know he's watching me.
My stomach growls, the sound overloud in the early morning quiet.
Aron turns and walks away. "You have a few minutes to eat before we leave. I suggest you do so because I do not plan on stopping again."
35
Aron’s wrong of course. We do end up stopping again, though not for several hours.
The weather turns to a misty rain, which makes our clothing stick to our skin and everything damp. There’s a muddy, rutted road that cuts through the countryside, but we avoid it. Walking on it would probably be easier than creeping through the trees and bushes, which is what we’re currently doing since Katharn is still on the distant horizon, but every so often someone rides past on a horse, or in a wagon, and I don’t complain about hiking next to a road.
Even if Aron’s pretty clueless about some things, he’s right when it comes to keeping us safe.
Just when I’ve about hit my limit of walking for the day, a small farm comes into view on the horizon. It’s no more than a square cottage in the midst of an enormous plowed field, but Aron points to it. “That is where we’re going.”
“Sounds good.” I’m not so sure about his master plan of “steal horses and supplies” considering the place looks pretty bare to me, but he’s the one in charge, and I’m too tired to argue.
We pick our way through the barren fields, and I can’t help but notice that they’ve got the saddest-looking crops known to mankind. The ground here seems to be mostly rock and the plants are choked with mud and sludge and look wilted. My feet sink into the carefully tilled rows, messing up their symmetry and making me stagger behind Aron a good distance. Him, you’d think his feet were made of air. He doesn’t notice the mud, and even the rain doesn’t seem to be soaking him quite like it is me.
I hear him sigh heavily as he pauses. I catch up to him, about to retort that if he wants me to keep pace with him he needs to walk at a human speed, when I realize he’s not even looking in my direction. He’s looking ahead at the farmhouse, and so I stop at his side and gaze, too.
At first, I’m not entirely sure what we’re supposed to be looking at. It’s all foreign to me. The walls look like stone spackled with mud, and the roof is thatched hay. In the distance there’s a second shack that might be a stable of some kind, with a fat land-hippo chewing hay nearby, his legs encased in mud. Then I see them.
There’s a man and woman at the front of the cottage, their heads bent as they kneel in one of the puddles. They’re both incredibly thin and dirty, their clothes faded and poor. The woman clutches a swaddled baby to her breast and her belly is huge with another kid on the way. The man has both fists over his heart in Aron’s symbol, as if he’s holding an invisible axe to his chest.
Oh.
“Look,” I tell Aron brightly. “Superfans.”
He gives me a dark look and doesn’t move forward. Even as we stand there, the rain seems to pour down harder. They ignore the rain, but I can see the woman trembling as water drips down over her, and the baby starts to cry.
I glance at Aron. He looks highly annoyed, as if this has ruined all his plans. “Why aren’t we approaching?” I whisper, leaning in.
He leans back toward me, not taking his eyes off of the couple. “They know who I am.”
“Well, you don’t exactly blend,” I point out. Even now, my hair’s streaming water into my eyes but Aron looks only lightly misted upon and just as overwhelmingly sexy as ever. At least, he’s sexy until he opens his mouth. “And they don’t look all that dangerous.”
“They will tell others we have stopped by.”
“So tell them not to,” I whisper. “You’re a god. It’s clear that they’re scared of you.” The baby wails louder, but still Aron doesn’t move, just scowling in their direction.