Feeling oddly like an intruder, Kyrion moved on with a renewed feeling of impatience.
Soon. She would return soon.
Once back at his camp—chosen only because it was where he’d stayed with her—he blew the banked coals of his fire to life and set the fish to cook. He could eat it raw at need, but what did he have to do other than cook and eat and wait?
The fish was nearly done—flaky on the inside, crisp and blackened on the outside—when a sound caught his attention. A mere whisper, little more than a breeze from nowhere at a time when nothing else stirred. It was faint, but out of place, and it did not move on.
Something hunted him.
Kyrion nearly bared his teeth in a smile. He dared not hope any of Melger’s men had caught up with him this quickly, but he welcomed the challenge nonetheless.
Melting swiftly into the darkness, he let himself become part of the night, passing from shadow to shadow as silently as falling snow. He’d missed this. Missed being able to feel the night air on his skin, or to see around him without the limitations of that damnable mask. Without his gloves, air currents kissed his fingers and told him their secrets, while the sounds of the forest spoke volumes to his sensitive ears.
And the first thing they told him? His quarry walked on two legs, not four.
He did bare his teeth this time, in a silent snarl. If a human dared hunt him, it would be their last mistake.
But he wished to know what sort of human might be out here, stalking a stranger in the middle of the night, so he made the hasty decision to return to the fire. Tempt the hunter to think him an easy mark.
He had only just seated himself and removed his dinner from the coals when a man appeared on the far side of the clearing.
“Have you enough for two?” The voice from beneath the hood was smooth and lilting. Almost musical.
Kyrion held up the perfectly cooked fish. “Unless you object to forest fare,” he said, as if he offered to share his food with strangers every day.
“I prefer it,” the man replied, and lowered himself to the ground on the opposite side of the fire. “Little in this world tastes as good as food prepared under the stars.”
He had no utensils and no plate, so Kyrion made two plates out of bark. His only tool was the dagger, so he removed it from his belt and prepared to split the fish in half.
The stranger stiffened. It was nearly imperceptible, but to night elf eyes and ears, it was as good as a shout.
And because Kyrion’s patience had already run dry, he did not stop to consider the prudent response. He should have waited, allowed the stranger to betray himself further.
Instead, he held up the weapon and twirled it between his fingers.
“Something bothering you?” he asked with a smirk.
Had Kyrion not been prepared, the man’s attack might well have succeeded, but instead, they ended with blades at one another’s throats. The stranger was shorter by an inch or two and slighter of build, but he was quick and wiry, and his grip on his own dagger left no doubt that he knew what he was about.
“Tell me where you got the dagger, elf,” the stranger spat. “Or I will leave your corpse smoking in your own fire.”
Kyrion sneered at the threat. “I owe you nothing,” he snarled. “You hunted me, and now you spit on my hospitality. Why should I not leave you eyeless and earless for the forest creatures to dine on?”
The stranger’s blade pressed deeper. “Tell me!” he growled. “Did you find it? Steal it? Or kill for it?”
Puzzled by the man’s vehemence, Kyrion tried to recall anything particularly special about the weapon in his hand. It was a simple knife, sharp-edged and well-made, but not noticeably ornate. Quality steel, but not visibly remarkable. The hilt was clumsily wrapped in leather, most likely by Leisa herself, making it a well-loved tool but not a treasure.
“The dagger,” he said, “is mine. It hardly matters how I came by it.”
With a guttural sound of rage, the stranger shoved forward and tried to gain the advantage.
For a moment, they locked together. Kyrion sensed that he could have overpowered the other man but chose to test him instead, and they whirled about the fire, crossing blades in a dance that left him both exhilarated and slightly more cautious.
The stranger was far faster than he should have been—fast as any night elf—and stronger than his slight frame suggested.
Still, not difficult for Kyrion to throw off and regard curiously across the dying flames.
“Why does this dagger matter to you?” he asked. “It’s only a blade. Nothing special.”
“It means everything to me,” the other man said hoarsely. “If you cannot say the same, then you have no right to touch it.”
A curious statement.
“Perhaps you have the wrong weapon,” Kyrion suggested.
“Not possible.”
After another moment’s consideration, Kyrion decided he might learn more with a less confrontational approach. The dagger was immensely important to Leisa. If this man actually knew where it was from or who it originally belonged to, perhaps he could lead to some of the answers she longed for.
He held the blade up in front of him. “It was a gift,” he said. “From a woman, if such details interest you.”
“Tell me about her,” the other man commanded.
Kyrion raised one brow and smiled. “The only person permitted to make such demands of me is my mother.”
His adversary lowered his own blade. “Please,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.
“Lower your hood.”
The other man paused for only a moment before reaching up to comply. And as his face was revealed by the glow of the fire, Kyrion acknowledged the uncomfortable sensation of surprise.
“And what,” he asked coolly, “does a fae have to do with a human woman?”
The fae watched him warily, still holding his blade ready by his side. “By what right do you ask the question, elf?”
“Night elf,” Kyrion growled. He had no love for his daylight cousins. “And I have served as a guard for her in the past. No more.”
“True, as far as it goes,” the fae said, and Kyrion recalled that some of their people could sense lies.
He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d seen a fae. When humans first came to Abreia and began claiming the land, they’d blighted its natural magic through bloodshed and continual expansion of their cities and roads. The fae were steeped in magic—down to bone and blood—and generally shunned violence, so they’d chosen to retreat rather than fight.
No one quite knew where they went, but unlike elves, huldra, or dwer, the fae seemed able to step between worlds at will. What this one might be doing here, searching for a human, Kyrion could not begin to imagine.
He was not young, even in fae terms, which meant he could be hundreds of years old. His skin was bronzed by the sun and bore the beginnings of lines, while his closely cropped chestnut waves were threaded with silver. A worn leather patch covered his left eye, and from beneath it, a scar snaked down his cheek.
Impressive, that someone had dealt a fae a wound that would not heal.
His other eye was deepest azure, a bit wider than a human eye and glowing now from within. But it was the shimmering silver patterns swirling across every visible inch of his skin that marked him most noticeably as fae.