The rest of the journey to the cave was pretty uneventful. Taheton seed to have learned his lesson and kept to himself, but Adrian often saw him staring in his direction or gossiping with Sula.
At first, Adrian was worried that the two would be cooking up so sche. But so far, they hadn’t done anything to raise his suspicion.
The heroes mostly kept to themselves. However, Adrian couldn’t ignore a peculiar change in Vincent’s deanour. Since the confrontation with the girls, Vincent’s glares had beco more frequent and intense, as if he was cursing him inside his head.
How did he know? That’s what Vincent used to do before when he was jealous.
’Jealous of what though?’ Adrian pondered.
The thought of Vincent being jealous ca naturally to him. However, he couldn’t rember why he felt that way. After all, if anyone should have been jealous, it would have been Adrian, as Vincent was living the best of his life—apart from their little jungle safari, that is.
Still, the thought of Vincent’s jealousy made Adrian feel a mix of emotions, including confusion and a hint of satisfaction, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was sothing more to it.
But Vincent wasn’t the only one behaving oddly. Clara was doing the sa. For a mont, the thought of them seeing him crossed his mind, but Adrian quickly shook it off.
’I looked around before undoing my transformation, but nobody was there. They couldn’t know about ... unless Alia or Sophia spilled the beans.’
With that thought, Adrian weighed his options. He had known Alia for a long ti, and for her, honour ant more than her life. She had sworn she wouldn’t tell anyone about him, so it was unlikely she would be the one to tell the others about him.
That left Sophia. But for so reason, Adrian felt like he could trust her. He didn’t know why. She was a stranger to him, yet she felt closer to him than even Alia. However, if it was neither of them, then who else could it be?
’Nah, I’m just overthinking things as usual,’ Adrian shook his head.
"Is everything good?" Alia asked him.
The two were riding on Fenris since the wagon had been destroyed. Adrian had opted for Alia as his partner because she knew about his little secret; that way, the two could talk more about what was happening.
Adrian had already inford her about the heroes being kept as slaves of the tribe and that he suspected they would soon et the sa fate.
He expected Alia to make a scene and attack Taheton and Sula, but she remained surprisingly calm.
Then she told him she had felt sothing was off about the tribe after overhearing the few Nexarians there. They kept talking about slaves and how much they missed the ’festivities’.
"I decided to snoop around, which wasn’t difficult, and that’s when I found out about the slave barns," Alia whispered into Adrian’s ears. "I planned on breaking away from the group and rushing back to the Church to ask for help. But I realised they must have been involved in this ss, and I couldn’t trust anyone."
"Who else knows about this?" Adrian asked.
"Sophia. No one else."
"Good. Let’s keep it that way," Adrian replied. "We will free the others, but first, I need you to promise sothing and convey the sa to Sophia."
Alia stared at Adrian’s back before nodding, "What do you need?"
"Promise no matter what happens from here on out, you’ll trust and do what I say."
"Of course, I’ll help-"
"Take the oath, and I’ll do the sa," Adrian said, cutting her off.
Alia let out a sigh, feeling lost. Adrian had always been trustworthy, so the idea of doubting him felt strange. But taking an oath was no small matter.
But Adrian had never acted so distrustful towards anyone before, which made her conclude that soone close to them might have been involved in his ’death’. It seed like the only explanation for his newfound distrust in them.
’If it’ll make him trust , then I guess there’s no harm in it...’ Alia sighed before placing her hand on Adrian and whispered.
"I, Alia Silverleaf, daughter of Goddess Elenion, solemnly swear upon the sacred bond of nature and elven honour to uphold the virtues of our ancient kin to put my faith and belief in you..."
Adrian, despite not being an elf, repeated the oath verbatim. It made Alia chuckle a bit. He had always been like this, caring about others and their life while trying his best to make them feel important.
It was one of the many who realised why Alia fell for him, and he was sure many others felt the sa. Sophia was a lucky girl, but thinking about her made Alia snap back to reality.
The two lovers had been separated through a series of misfortunes, and it wasn’t the ti for Alia to pounce on the situation... not after what she heard from Sophia last night.
"Now that it’s taken care of, it’s ti I tell you about it," Adrian mumbled. "The tribe, they are most likely to enslave you all today after the ’expedition’."
"I figured as much," Alia replied, getting serious. "What are our odds of winning?"
"Honestly, I’d say our chances are slim, maybe 10% or less," Adrian admitted. "The tribe has done this many tis before. They’ve probably got tricks up their sleeves to tip the scales even if we faced them headfirst."
Alia nodded. She was thinking the sa thing. They were already in too deep. Besides, as talented of a warrior Vincent was, he was no leader. That was the primary reason he wasn’t even considered a candidate to be the next monarch of Alfvania, even though he thought otherwise.
"So what do we do now?"
"I guess you’ll have to trust ," Adrian chuckled as they finally spotted the cave ahead.
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