Prophecies and Lies

Chapter One

Sequel to "Seduction of a Princess", second part of the "Travelling with a Wolf"-series.

I have never been able to write a sequel, so I hope that this will turn out my first success rather than a failure. We've got Terrance, June, Marc and Maya all packed in one neat box, so I think we'll be alright for at least a few chapters ;).

Enjoy!

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          Along the road, they walked; two travelers, a man and a woman. They were silent, they did not chat as they made their way through the mud that was left behind after the pouring rain of yesterday. The weather, that had been sunny since the start of summer, was darker now, gray clouds threatened to unleash a storm. It was cold too; the woman pulled her cloak tighter, to protect herself from the chilling breeze.

          She was tired, and trailed behind the man who kept a steady pace. Even though they had been walking for hours, he showed absolutely no sign of exhaustion of any kind. She however, needed a rest.

          “Lunch?” she called out to him. He turned around—surprised to see her so far behind—but then shook his head.

          “You know we don't have any,” he said. She sighed and muttered something, but followed him as he continued walking. “We'll just have to go on and hope that we meet someone.”

          “But I'm tired!” she complained.

          “You can rest your feet in just a little while. We need to get some distance behind us—we need to get somewhere, Nadia. If we keep resting, we won't ever reach anyplace... And we need someplace to make money, so we can buy lunch.”

          She wanted to argue, but realized in time that arguing wouldn't help her any bit. Her companion would not stop for her—they had traveled together long enough for her to know that. Coming all the way from the Seaside Province, they had seen a lot of things together, and grown very accustomed to each other’s mannerisms. If Steven wanted to get somewhere, he usually got his way, and fighting over it wasn't going to help.

          “We cannot afford to stop too much today,” he went on even though she had given in. “There aren't many inns on this road, and I don't want to spend the night outside.” They did not have a tent or any kind of shelter from the rain with them, but Nadia knew that was not what he had meant; he glanced around, wary of the trees and shrubs around them. Yesterday they had already been warned about the forest, that it was infested with bandits.

          “Why did we leave the inn again?” Nadia complained after a while. “We could have just stayed there; then we wouldn't have to drench through this mud to go to some city at the end of this road, somewhere... At least there, it was warm and dry.”

          “And expensive. Too expensive for us. We don't have any money left, Nadi. We need to make some before we can get anything done. And that inn wasn't exactly... that wasn't the place to start performing—didn't you see the people that walked around there?” Softly so she wouldn't hear it, he cursed the Wooden Province and the fact that they were once again flat broke. He glanced over his shoulder and waited for a second, giving Nadia the opportunity to catch up.