Nesta and the Mercenary

Chapter 2

Telling her family that she was going to "check on Feyre and Aunt Ripleigh" had been a vexing affair. Nesta was still in a pissy mood from it when she met Rab in the town square the next morning at dawn, in the same exact spot she had left the scar-faced woman. Blessedly, Rab had stayed true to her word rather than having made off with Nesta's silver, as many other mercenaries might have done.

"What's got your bloomers in a twist, princess?" the mercenary asked with a smirk, noting Nesta's stormy expression.

"You ask as if I'm wearing any," Nesta said flatly. "Let's go."

Rab raised her eyebrows suggestively, but stayed silent, having apparently decided not to tangle further with Nesta's attitude.

They walked in silence for the first few hours. Nesta felt awkward and exposed in Feyre's pants, which hugged her larger backside obscenely, and she was soon gasping for breath. She may have had a full week of meals for the first time in months, but her body was still not strong enough to overcome the lingering weakness of near-starvation.

Nesta did not complain or let herself fall behind, however, and Rab did not slow her pace, though she did loudly announce, "I could use a bite," before sitting down on a log and handing Nesta a few pieces of hard bread and venison jerky.

Nesta ate quickly, though she appreciated the chance to catch her breath. Rab chewed slowly while Nesta took long sips of water from a canteen and shrugged off her outermost layer now that she was warm from walking.

They continued like this for the rest of the first day: Nesta quietly pushing herself to keep up, Rab maintaining a hard, steady pace but also enforcing regular breaks. She would never admit it, but Nesta was grateful that her pride was saved from having to request time to sit down and catch her breath.

"Didn't your family care to help search for your lost sister?" Rab asked as they bedded down for the night. "I saw you with a third girl. No parents, other relatives to help you or go in your stead?"

Nesta frowned. "I'm keeping up, aren't I?"

"I didn't mean to offend," Rab said with mock solemnity, piling wood onto the fire. "You're doing fine. I'd just be surprised if coming yourself was your first choice."

"Even if my father or my sister could make this trip, which they couldn't, they're so magic-addled they wouldn't understand where they were going." Nesta sighed as she inched closer to the fire, savoring its warmth. "They think Feyre is at some imaginary relative's house and that I've gone to check on her."

Rab froze in the middle of adding a log to the fire and raised an eyebrow. "They've been glamoured?"

"It's utterly infuriating. I forged a letter and everything to ensure that they thought this nonexistent aunt desperately needed me, and not Elain or my father, to come visit. But they're so bewitched that all I had to say was 'Aunt Ripleigh', and they were glassy-eyed and dreamy-voiced, telling me to have such a lovely trip."

"But you are not glamoured."

"Clearly not," Nesta snapped. Sparks flew as she took the log from Rab's unmoving hand and tossed it roughly into the fire.

"There's a science to a good campfire, and you're fucking it all up, princess." Rab grabbed another log and used the end of it to rearrange the fire. "Why wouldn't the faerie glamour you? Have you had past dealings with them? Or a charm that protected you?"

Nesta shook her head, then pulled up her sleeve to show the mercenary her iron bracelet. "This is useless. Elain had one, too, and was enchanted anyway. Don't even know why I still wear it."

"The only metal that will stop a faerie from hurting you is a wit of steel, or a sharp blade to the heart or the neck, and the latter is only after sticking them with an ash arrow first," Rab said, fingering the sword at her side. "You'll have to rely on the former, as it doesn't seem like you're wanting for mental steel. That's a good thing."