A Storm of Chaos (The Hunter Legacy #1)

Chapter Fourteen

Three days passed, and Noah didn't return.

Three days passed, and Kaya still hadn't left for Klave.

She didn't know when, but Kaya had decided to wait until Noah came back from the border before she took her leave. She assured herself it wasn't because she held any concern for Noah, but rather she couldn't stand Felix's moping – let alone him moping on his own.

Despite how relaxed Felix had seemed during dinner the night before Noah departed, during the first day of Noah's absence his agitation became clear. Kaya had barely seen him during that first day, and when she did she could feel his agitation buzzing around him like insects. He barely reacted to her jibes, her taunts, her every attempt to get a reaction out of him, as if his mind was too focused on waiting for Noah to return.

Kaya had spent most of her time in the library. She read about the Gods, from fables, to poems to self-proclaimed true stories, and how they arrived in Amaris by falling from the sky during the Dark Days, which occurred just after the greats wars of the Kings. Then she read about the Dark Days, the Era of Kings, and of course the Anarchy Wars – but she hadn't picked up any books specifically about Hunters. The less she knew, Kaya decided, the better.

On the second day, Kaya had grown tired of Felix stalking around the manor and did the one thing that she figured would catch him off-guard – she swallowed her pride, and asked him for sword-fighting lessons.

The request had cracked his bristled expression with a grin, as if his ego was a far more powerful force than his mood – which, if she were honest, had made Addius seem more appealing – and he made quite the scene when he had "accepted her as a student".

Swallowing her pride had never been so damn difficult.

So when Felix didn't have swordsman duties to attend to, he and Kaya spent their time in a corner of the manor's back gardens sparring. They didn't use real swords, of course, and again Kaya had had to bite her tongue when Felix explained that she just wasn't ready for a real sword.

The next test of her patience came when she had to pretend she'd never fought with a sword before and, granted, fighting with a single sword wasn't her speciality but that didn't mean she couldn't wield one at all. So she played the part, and the wooden sword left quite the bruises when Kaya didn't follow Felix's instructions, rewarding her with a swift wack to her arm or leg – or, his favourite, her abdomen.

Kaya knew she could have snuck in a few hits to Felix herself, albeit underhanded ones, but considering how Felix had reacted last time she didn't want him dismissing her lessons and returning to his perpetual state of sulking.

Besides, she found herself actually enjoying the lessons. Regardless of the bruises.

It had occurred to Kaya, at one point, that her shoulder wound was healing exceptionally quickly thanks to Juris' skills and particular sweet-smelling salve that helped the skin knit back together, and somewhere at the back of her mind she knew her time in Devenese was coming to an end.

But when the third day came and went, it occurred to Kaya that the lessons had been a way of distracting herself as well. She started to question Noah's absence more, started to consider what might have delayed him in returning.

That night, she didn't sleep well. It was both because her mind kept turning over the possibilities of what happened to Noah, and because of her frustration at being worried for Noah. She hadn't been concerned for the first two days, but it was as if it took those two days for her mind to catch up and now she noticed Noah's absence like a cold draft, one that no matter how hard you looked you couldn't find its source – couldn't fill the space that the draft swept through.