“New Rosanthe?” he inquired when he was past the tree branch.
The king’s face wrinkled and his lips twisted as if something nasty had crossed his tongue. “I don’t know. I want to say no, but I have no real reason for that opinion. An Empire soldier could just as easily be keeping tabs on our progress. If they’ve been in the Ordas for the past several months or even years, they could have devised a way of reliably communicating with other troops.”
“What other option is there? Besides animal, that is.”
Caelan paused and turned slightly to face Eno. “Someone from the same village that gave birth to Safa. Someone from Green Spring could have found us.”
Eno’s mouth went dry at the thought. He didn’t know why that idea bothered him more than facing a bunch of New Rosanthe soldiers. Except maybe the Empire was a known entity. He’d spent the better part of his lifetime studying New Rosanthe fighting techniques, armor, and weapons. He knew exactly what to expect when standing against an Empire soldier.
What would they be faced with when it came to someone from Green Spring? Were they all like Safa? What made her different from her own people?
He didn’t know the answers to any of those questions and it worried him. Even if Caelan was a god, how was he supposed to keep his king safe if he didn’t know what he faced?
“What should we do? Can we really allow this person to keep following us?” Eno inquired.
“I’d rather not.” Caelan resumed walking, starting to catch up with Rayne and Drayce. “If they are a spy tracking us, we need to stop the reports if they are being made. I’d prefer to have some element of surprise when we reach Green Spring.”
“You think that’s actually possible?”
Caelan snorted and shrugged a shoulder. “No fucking clue, but we can at least try.” He paused and lifted his gaze up toward the canopy high overhead, where patches of golden sunlight were sending slender beams down between breaks in the leaves. “But what if this person isn’t tracking us for the Empire? What if they’re just curious?”
“Seriously?” Eno scoffed, his voice jumping louder than he’d meant for it to be, but he couldn’t hold in his disbelief. “Like…a kid trailing after us because we’re some oddity in the Ordas?”
“If you lived your whole life in the Ordas, would there be anything stranger to you than us? Particularly when one of us could change into a dragon at any time?”
“That is true,” Eno conceded. It was a weird concept. Then again, they’d lived their entire lives believing that no humans called the Ordas home. Until recently, he’d thought all of Thia believed that only wild animals existed in the Ordas.
“Any thoughts on how to handle this?” Caelan inquired. “Something that isn’t immediately lethal in case this person doesn’t mean us harm.”
But could easily turn lethal if their follower was New Rosanthe or worse.
Eno shoved a hand into his too-long hair and scratched his dirty scalp. He missed regular showers. Bathing at the riverside was short and tense, requiring them to wash one at a time while the others stood guard. No one was quite sure what was going to leap from those dark waters at any second.
“I’ve got a few ideas,” Eno murmured. He paused and dropped his hand back to his side on a sigh. “But Drayce and Rayne aren’t going to like it.”
Caelan flashed him a wide grin. “It probably wouldn’t be half as fun if they did like it.”
“Let’s search for a spot to camp early today,” Eno suggested and Calean grunted in agreement. If they were lucky, they might be able to catch their stalker while there was still some light left.
Eno was right. Rayne and Drayce were incredibly pissed.
They’d been left behind at the camp while he and Caelan wandered into the woods under the guise of hunting for their dinner. They still had enough rations and supplies to get them through another couple of days, but it was a feasible excuse for them to separate.
For this ploy to work, Eno was banking on their stalker following him and Caelan rather than remaining behind at the camp with Rayne and Drayce. It wasn’t like those two were going to do anything interesting besides pout. They were both under Rayne’s protective dome, so the stalker couldn’t even reach them if that was what they wanted.
No, the more interesting targets were him and Caelan. Without Drayce’s dragon-y presence, Eno was hoping they both looked more approachable.
When he and Caelan got a good distance from the camp, they stopped and talked in low whispers, giving Caelan a chance to confirm that their stalker had chosen to follow them.
It was also a chance to come to the easy agreement that Caelan was the sneakiest of the two of them. Eno was comfortable with this fact. He was brute force and intimidation when necessary.