Working at her family's inn in the village Amara and far from the war raging through the rest of Cordelia, Aven Rose Knight doesn't think her dreams of adventure and excitement will ever be fulfilled. She resigns herself to only ever being able to r...
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Aven was growing tired of trees. She'd decided that they must have been in the forest for about three days. Three days of crooked, constant trees, and the nagging thought at the back of her mind that the group was not alone in the woods. Three days of constant vigilance and hardly enough sleep.
Nerves were high, and so was tension. With Mae acting stranger every day, and Eldrin growing impatient with everyone, Aven felt like the only other sane person in the group was Berkem. Both the human and the dwarf were on high alert. Eldrin was more focused on finding the way through the twisting, turning, and often confusing woods, and Mae almost seemed to want them to get caught. She was growing more and more irritable by the minute, it seemed. Aven had no idea what had gotten into her. The she-elf had seemed fine when they first entered the Dark Caverns, minus a few minor, strange things. But it was as if something in her had suddenly been brought out.
Berkem and Eldrin had obviously noticed the change as well. None of them had said a word out loud to each other about it, but the looks they exchanged when she got particularly snappy, said enough for all to understand. Aven almost wanted to ask her what the matter was, but she was afraid to.
Much to her dislike as well, Eldrin seemed to know exactly what was going on. Aven could hear him muttering stuff to himself occasionally, too quiet and too fast for her to catch exactly what he said. She had a bad feeling that something was going to happen, but she didn't want to bring it up, for fear that she would be overheard by the she-elf she now considered dangerous.
"We should stop for the night," Eldrin's familiar voice yanked Aven forcefully out of her thoughts. She blinked to clear her head, and then scolded herself for not paying attention to the shadows gathering about the trees.
As they had progressed through the land, Aven had started to gain more of a sense for night and day. Although both were dark, the shadows seemed to be less haunting during the day, and the sky, or at least what she could see of it, was not as pitch black. She glanced up through the canopy after Eldrin spoke, judging the time carefully. As best she could tell, it was probably evening.
"That's probably a good idea," Aven said, scanning the area around them once more. Eldrin had, once again, found a nicely sized clearing that had a great vantage point.
"What's it to you?" Mae's nasally, rude response was predictable. She always seemed to need to have a say in the conversation any more. As she'd changed, so had her voice. It had become icy cold, and strangely pitched. It was not a pleasant sound.
"Sleep," Aven replied, not caring to argue with the she-elf. So far, she'd luckily avoided a verbal confrontation. But, she was growing more and more annoyed with the she-elf, and the girl had no doubt that arguments would come soon.
Aven dismounted Cinder and tied him to a tree, rubbing his neck soothingly for a moment, before pulling out her sleep roll from his saddle bag and walking away. She wasn't worried about the horse being attacked. Eldrin had already assured her that if goblins found them, they wouldn't hardly even notice the horses. They'd be too busy attacking the rest of them. Of course, that was only partially reassuring.
