and I’d gotten to watch her at rest, looking innocent and sweet as the sunlight rose over her. It’d been spectacular.
When neither Quilla nor Melaina answered me, I rode ahead until I’d drawn up alongside them and had wedged Holly between the two horses they were riding.
Each woman remained mute.
They’d been giving each other the silent treatment since we’d broken camp earlier and Melaina had let me finish their stew from the night before for my breakfast. Quilla had snapped at her for feeding me since I was supposed to be fending for myself. But Melaina had argued that she was just going to throw it out anyway, so what did it matter. Then Quilla had directed half her anger at me for eating the stew.
But it was stew.
The stale, tasteless rations I had in my pack could never compete with the rich bounty of flavors in stew. And Quilla had made a particularly damn fine stew. Besides, I’d gone to bed last night without any supper, so I was starving. There was no way I was passing up an offering of stew. Quilla could just be mad at me for a while.
Which she was. And Melaina was now mad at me too, because—
Well, I wasn’t sure why she also refused to talk to me. But Melaina didn’t seem to need a reason to be pissed off. Her moods shifted so frequently I figured she’d get over whatever was wrong with her within the next five minutes, anyway.
It might’ve had something to do with how quickly I’d cleaned the crock in the spring after finishing the stew, though. She had thrust a scrubbing wand and soap powder at me and instructed me to go wash the pot out in the brook. Which was exactly what I’d done. Thinking I needed to hurry, I’d accomplished my task with the utmost speed, not wanting to delay us from our departure.
But she’d snapped at me that no kitchenware could possibly be decently cleaned in the pathetic amount of time I’d taken on it. Muttering something about how I needed to learn proper hygiene and cleanliness if I truly intended to go to the old world with them, she jerked the cauldron from my hand, adding, “Let me see this.”
I assumed her intent was to criticize my shoddy washing abilities, but after squinting into the pot for a good two minutes, she looked up, scowling. Obviously finding nothing critique-worthy, she shoved it back into my stomach as hard as she could. “Well, put it away in the pantry pack, then.”
With a huff, she spun away and ignored me. And neither she nor Quilla had spoken to me—or each other—since.
I sighed heavily into the silence. Aside from their unstable temperaments, I had to admit the relaxed pace they set was nice.
No one traveled like these two, I swear. I was used to riding with parties who were under strict schedule constraints and didn’t spend unnecessary minutes lollygagging because it was always time to get back on the road. But Quilla and Melaina liked their luxuries and made comfort a priority over haste. Their we’ll-get-there-when-we-get-there mentality was refreshing and utterly stress-free.
Except for one point.
Safety.
My mate was never going to be safe out on the open road like this.
“So, anyway,” I started when no one responded to my first question. “How the hell did you make it through the canyon pass the first time through?”
Melaina gave an aggravated sigh of disgust. “It’s really quite simple, dearest. We used a glamour.”
I frowned. “But they do glamour tests at either entrance.”
Quilla’s aunt smirked at me. “Not after we openly showed them Quilla’s mark, they didn’t.”
Okay, what? “That makes no sense.” I turned my attention to Quilla, but she still wasn’t talking to me. With a sigh, I refaced Melaina. “I’m not following.”
That earned me a condescending smirk. “It’s obviously been a while since you’ve visited High Cliff, hasn’t it?”
I nodded. “Just over five years now. Why?”
“Well, there’s a posted notice going around the kingdom that’s requesting the capture of at least one live Graykey. Or a Graykey could always surrender themselves before the crown.”
Quilla snorted. “Surrender, my ass,” she muttered. “Death would be preferable.”
I turned to her, sensing anxiety and fear in her emotions just under the layer of spite in her tone. She honestly believed execution was preferable to being taken alive.
“Why do they want one of you alive?”
“For my blood,” she answered. “What other reason?”
Shaking my head in confusion, I glanced at Melaina for an explanation.
The mistress