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I motion for them to follow, keeping my focus on the overhead canopy. Now that I’ve found his tracks, I see the clear path in the trees. The single path.
He sought this camping spot out and didn’t deviate from his exact tracks… Back to where he entered the forest.
“He’s a hunter,” I murmur, mostly to myself. “That’s the only way he could follow his footprints so perfectly, without overstepping or crossing paths.”
Ecaeris strays a few feet to my left, spreading out as he searches for anything we might have missed on the ground. “So it was Cotear stalking Ada for Poko.”
“Maybe, but I’m leaning toward Poko being the one who was standing in the treeline outside her room,” I explain, my thoughts swirling. “Cotear would have been better hidden, wouldn’t have let her see him so close. That just leaves me to wonder if Poko—”
“If he had any elemental power, he would have used it to save himself,” Ecaeris points out. “He didn’t, so it no longer matters where he was from if he wasn’t a Mongrel.”
“I’m curious to know how my mother found him, though,” Lyell wonders aloud from my right side. “She strayed from her usual behavior to put this plan into action.”
I keep my eyes on the tracks as I ask, “Can you trust what you know?”
“There are very few people I trust to stay consistent with their behavior,” he divulges, a slight hint of dark humor in his voice. “Nesta isn’t one of them.”
Ecaeris leans forward, glancing at the Shade prince. “You trust Madigan?”
“Do you trust Ada?” he counters.
“I do now,” the Mongrel prince confesses. “But I didn’t when she first arrived.”
I nearly scoff at his understatement. Ecaeris thought she was a Shade spy on a mission to destroy us from the inside out.
Lyell grins as if he has caught the lie, too. “You are someone I trust to stay consistent with their behavior. That’s why we sent Madigan here.”
“But you trust her judgment enough to stand back while she—”
“Yes, Ecaeris. I trusted her first, then I loved her. Too much to leave her with the very people she’s supposed to lead,” Lyell says. “I trust Madigan with my life, her judgment included. What I don’t trust is my mother’s actions when I turn my back. When I fail to make it to Madi on time.”
“So you don’t intend to let her fight her battles?” I inquire, shaking my head. “She has to stand on her own, and that includes the war with your mother.”
“I don’t intend to let her stand alone,” Lyell corrects me. “Would you leave Ada to fend for herself when you’re capable of offering support at her side?”
I frown. “We wouldn’t leave Ada—”
“I’ve had to leave Madi and only just got back to stand with her, not against her,” he clarifies. “Someone needs to watch their backs because they aren’t expecting Nesta to knife them from behind. But that’s exactly what my mother will do.”
“Then we need to train them both to prepare for that outcome,” Ecaeris says matter-of-factly. “Because they fully intend to finish whatever war Nesta is starting. And to do that, they’re going to need allies.”
Lyell sighs. “Let me guess… You want to take them to the Howlers and the Dwellers?”
“No. I wouldn’t call it a want, but more of a necessity,” Ecaeris defends.
I hum in agreement. “Ada will see that as the best way.”
“The best way to do what?” the Shade prince challenges. “Walk for a week through enemy territory?”
Ecaeris chuckles to himself as we near the stone border. “She doesn’t see them as enemies, Lyell. Unknowns, yes. Dangerous, though? Not really. Maybe you should go to training with Ada... She’s not worried about the rest of the people being a hazard to her; she’s worried about hurting them by accident.”
* * *
It’s a terrible idea. I repeat the same line, over and over, the entire way to the Colosseum, but it doesn’t change either prince’s mind. I huff and smother my complaints, letting fate take its course.
I’ve seen Ada train more than Ecaeris has, which is why I was arguing with them. But they don’t want to listen. So, this should be an interesting lesson in not underestimating your partner, or your queen… Or a newly created goddess.
I suppose she could say no, though I doubt she will. She rarely turns away from an opportunity to learn, and fighting with an experienced Shade warrior will yield invaluable information.
