Chapter Four (Part 1)

“Rook and I will guard the swamp.”

Somewhere down the table, a fork clattered to a plate. Someone made a choking noise, and Gabriel, the guard who had accidentally stabbed Idris, shot to his feet like he was going to grab Idris and take him away.

My lip curled, but I didn’t look up from my own plate. Peace, Wisdom, and I had managed to scrounge up some fruit from the garden, as well as some bread and butter made with ingredients I’d picked up from Abdos a while back. There was just enough to give the guards a meager breakfast before they were sent back home because they were too fragile for my forest. We were all currently seated at my dining room table, with me at the head of the table, Peace and Wisdom on either side, and Idris on the other end of the table with his guards in the remaining seats between us.

Thankfully, the guards and Idris had all heeded my warning about the hallways and stayed in their rooms the whole night. They didn’t get dinner. I barely had enough to put together breakfast, but no one complained. Not that I would care if they did. The fact that I was letting them sleep here and bothered to tend to their wounds was already more than I wanted to offer.

Peace and Wisdom both eyed me after Idris’s declaration, but I refused to acknowledge them, or him. It was kind of pissing me off that he was just making decisions for my kingdom without pausing to ask me. Unfortunately, the swamp needed to be watched. I knew that. And Idris’s pansy-ass guards weren’t up to the task, so Idris’s solution, unfortunately, made the most sense.

“We aren’t leaving you here,” one of the guards protested. His name was Samir or some shit like that. I think he was the one that fainted. “What if something happens to you? Besides, you have a realm to rule. You can’t be sitting around in this…place.”

How kind of him to censor himself. He could just come right out and say it. Shithole. Hellscape. Nightmare. I wouldn’t be offended. It was the truth.

Idris rested his elbows on the table, folding his hands together and resting his chin on them, expression patient as the other guards made sounds of agreement.

“I appreciate your concern,” he said slowly, “but yesterday proved that it’s much too dangerous for you to stay here. Rook and I are better equipped to handle the forest.”

Several of the guards winced at the reminder of their failure and I smirked at them mockingly. Gabriel glared in my direction but didn’t seem capable of actually meeting my eyes. He tsked angrily.

“It’s not the forest I’m worried about,” he muttered with another dirty look at me. I flicked my tongue over my lips while staring at him and he blushed right to the tips of his ears, spluttering with the mixture of fear and arousal that my presence provoked in most creatures.

“Gabriel,” Idris said, tone unusually sharp, making the poor flustered guard snap to attention. “Rook is no danger to me. I will escort all of you out of the forest, and I expect you to keep my palace safe in my absence. Should a problem arise, contact Nen. He will know how to reach me.”

“And if something happens to you?” one of the other guards asked. “How will we know?”

“Nothing will happen to me,” Idris said. How confident. “But if something did, then either Rook, Peace, or Wisdom, would send word.”

Gabriel made a face that said he thought that was bullshit, but Idris wasn’t having any of it. He held up a hand and all the guards settled, pouty but accepting.

“Enough. I’ve decided. Hurry and eat so that I can take you out of the forest. Oh, and if Anastasia shows up at the palace and asks where I am, tell her I’m still in Abdos investigating the river and that I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

I actually glanced up at that, surprised. Idris was going to lie? To Anastasia, whom he treated like a particularly annoying younger sister?

Or perhaps more than that. I wasn’t up to date on the gossip considering I lived in a forest no one from paradise wanted to step foot in, but I was pretty sure there was a rumor going around a few centuries ago that Anastasia had proposed to Idris, only to be heartlessly turned down. Whether or not they were currently dating was a hot topic for debate, but no one was sure if they really were or not.

That was a situation I wasn’t going to touch with a ten-foot pole. Regardless, it provided some interesting context to Idris avoiding her if it was true.

I propped my elbow on the table, resting my cheek on my loosely curled fist to look at Idris from under my lashes. “Trouble in paradise?” I murmured, not bothering to hide the amusement in my voice.

Idris passed me an unreadable glance and ignored me, continuing to eat his breakfast with the calm grace of a saint. I rolled my eyes. Pompous prick.

After breakfast, the guards all gathered in the foyer, looking less than thrilled to go back out into the forest, and even less enthused to be leaving their king behind. Peace and Wisdom showed them out as a group. Meanwhile, I retreated back to my room to start gathering up supplies for this little mission in the swamp.

The swamplands were too far away from my palace to go back and forth easily, especially considering you couldn’t teleport within the forest. And since it was just going to be Idris and I watching over the area, we would probably be sleeping in shifts, so I would need a bedroll, spare clothes, weapons, bandages, and probably food for Idris since he couldn’t live off the stuff that grew out there naturally like I could.

I didn’t have much food to spare, as I needed to leave enough for Peace and Wisdom, but I grabbed enough to last him a couple days.

And since I wouldn’t be able to bathe out there, I quickly jumped in the shower to rinse off. When I finished, I dressed in black leather pants, black knee-high boots for trekking through muddy terrain, and a light red mesh long-sleeved shirt over a tight black tank top. That way at least part of my outfit was breathable enough to keep me from passing out in the thick swamp air. I coiled my long hair into a loose bun, grabbed the bag with my supplies, and went back down to the foyer where Peace and Wisdom were still waiting for me.

Peace seemed a bit uneasy about the whole situation but understood why it was necessary. I had finally broken down and told them about the situation with the river last night after everyone else had gone to bed. They confirmed that they hadn’t noticed anyone coming or going from the forest and were as irked as I was that someone had snuck in here right under our noses.

Wisdom, for her part, just looked at me solemnly. She probably knew something I didn’t, like always, but whatever it was, it wasn’t important enough for her to tell me. I respected that, and I trusted her to know when to divulge information and when not to.

“We’ll keep an eye on things here,” Peace said. He hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck. “And try not to kill Idris. He’s a douche, but like. He’s also the king. War sucks. I would know.”

I rolled my eyes and reached over to ruffle his dirty blond hair. “Relax, kiddo. I’ll be fine. Idris is an asshole, but I’ve been ignoring him for centuries. I will continue to do so.”

Wisdom simply watched me with unreadable gray eyes. “You know how to contact us if you need help.”

I nodded. At that moment, Idris returned, also freshly showered and dressed, with a similar bag slung over his shoulder. He had dressed in a pair of blue jeans, black boots like mine, and a light blue t-shirt with a white denim jacket over top. He stopped near the entryway to stare at me, and I raised an eyebrow at him. The fuck is he looking at?

“What?” I snapped. Idris blinked, coming out of his thoughts. He smiled easily at me.

“Nothing. You look nice.”

I looked at him like he’d grown another head, oddly perturbed. “Yeah well. You don’t look nice. Dickhead.” Wisdom looked between us with an odd expression that I was going to question her about later, but for now, I just wanted to get this whole thing over with. “Let’s go. It’ll take at least half a day to reach the swamplands, so we should get moving now.”