"Urgh!"
Gideon grunted loudly in his sleep and rolled over, causing Kel to flinch.
"What do you an 'saved' you?" she questioned, lowering her voice.
Taegus remained silent for several monts before speaking again.
"It was supposed to be a normal border patrol, but we were ambushed," he said softly. "Even so mbers of our own squad turned on us."
Kel listened as the boy went on to describe a grueso scene.
While the twenty-man squad was preparing to make camp one night, a sudden group of unidentified soldiers sward into their camp. The Pandreian soldiers quickly moved into a defensive formation and managed to hold the attackers at bay for quite a while.
But the real damage started when three of the Pandreians began slashing at their own comrades.
Between the confusion and blood, Taegus and another one of the Pandreians managed to crawl away. They were weak and injured but sohow were able to hole up in an obscure alcove to avoid getting caught.
The two soldiers, Taegus and the boy that traveled to the Lion Camp with them from Tael, were on the brink of death, praying for another Pandreian squad to co by, when a Serin patrol found them instead.
Rather than killing them straight away, the soldiers offered to allow them to live as refugees in a nearby Serin stronghold just north of the Pandreian border. The silver-haired boys agreed, harboring the intention of escaping back to their ho country later on.
Shortly after arriving in the stronghold, however, an urgent declaration was made that the area was no longer safe for civilians. As a result, the boys, both still too weak to fight or run, followed obediently as they were moved across the entire Serin empire to a tiny village in the north.
Kel couldn't help but notice the irony of the situation. Here they were, she and Taegus, each one dubbed one of the most promising new recruits of the very empire they had spent the last several years fighting against.
"But how did you know it wasn't Serin who attacked you in the first place?" Kel questioned after the boy finished his story.
"... because there were won," Taegus responded.
The Serin military was famous for not allowing female soldiers. It was one of the reasons Kel was trying so hard to keep her gender a secret now more than ever.
But, she had seen female Serin fighters with her own eyes.
At least one of them.
Lucy.
The woman who never wore a Serin uniform, yet fought as fiercely as any other soldier under the direction of the emperor.
Could the emperor be using his secret squad to ambush other countries under an ambiguous identity? For what reason?
As she wondered what the emperor's goal could be, Kel suddenly rembered Dash telling her that there was so kind of situation in vani.
Was the emperor's plan to stir up issues within each kingdom? To make them easier to conquer?
That seed like the only logical explanation. Unless, like Taegus had insisted, those soldiers weren't from Serin at all.
"There's sothing else I don't understand," Kel frowned, glancing back toward her golden-eyed comrade. "Why did you associate with Adriell?"
Taegus's gaze was drawn back to the crackling fire, his lips curling into a soft smile.
"When I first arrived in Tael," he recalled, "I spotted you imdiately. Despite the way you were dressed, it was the sa."
"What was the sa?" Kel snorted.
How could he think anything about a farm boy was the sa as vani's golden flower.
"The sa beauty that radiates from the princess," Taegus replied, his cheeks turning red. "You must have noticed it too, or else you wouldn't have covered yourself in dirt the next ti we t."
Now Kel was blushing too.
This kid was really unashadly spouting a bunch of nonsense about radiating beauty to her as she sat covered in gri and dressed as a man.
"I an it!" Taegus said a little more loudly. "At first, I thought you just wanted to pretend not to know you."
Imdiately, he lowered his voice again and brought his knees to his chest, giving Gideon's sleeping figure an uneasy glance.
"But when I saw how quick-witted and strong you were… I realized you weren't her after all."
Kel's hand flew to her mouth as her attempt to stifle her cackles resulted in a fit of coughing.
Adriell.
Weak and pretty.
Graceful and stupid.
Kel wasn't exactly known for her wits, but as a trained warrior, she was much more perceptive than the pampered princess.
As Kel's coughs subsided, an awkward silence fell between them again.
While listening to the chirping crickets and distant howls of ravenous wolves, Kel pondered what Taegus had told her. When she first saw him, he seed mysterious and aloof--maybe even a little threatening.
But now, the silver-haired boy huddled across the fire from her looked so vulnerable and sincere.
Which side is real? Kel wondered.
"You should sleep," Taegus spoke up again, his face regaining its usual icy expression.
Kel glanced at him but didn't respond. Though she was considerably less afraid than she had been, she still couldn't quite bring herself to close her eyes.
"I, um.. I found out about.. you.. by chance," the boy whispered, placing a hand on his chest. "On wash night back at the camp. I was late and.. I didn't an to-"
"What are you talking about!" Kel hissed, warily looking toward Gideon who was still snoring happily.
"Oh! I just wanted.. uh.. I'm sorry," Taegus stamred sheepishly, bowing his head as red filled his cheeks again.
With a sigh, Kel turned away from the boy and spread out her blanket.
She couldn't trust him. That fact hadn't changed.
But she was certain this kid would have already slit her throat if he intended to.
She wouldn't count on him to keep her secret forever, just because he seed to be keeping it now.
But, just for one night, she decided to leave it be.
For the next several days of their trip, the mood between the three improved significantly. Taegus finally seed comfortable speaking with both Gideon and Kel, and Kel felt less stiff around the boy than she had before.
Eventually, after many days of chattering and sleeping together under the stars, the three finally arrived at their destination.
The Dragon's Heart.
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