Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

R ose was steadfastly ignoring the eyes boring into the back of her head. She wanted to turn to see if Juliette was talking to Luc. She could hear soft voices and feel Luc’s magic flaring to life. But only Carter’s stare would await her should she turn to check. The Vesten leader rarely made eye contact, but it turned out that, when he did, it made his point.

The feeling of his gaze piercing her skull eased as Carter brought his horse into position next to her. The road had finally widened enough to ride side by side again as they crested the mountain pass. She waited for his words—the accusations she was sure would come. Her gaze raked over the land below them. The main road north and south was barely visible from the top of the mountain. It would be another long half-day before they reached it. She felt for the necklace chain that held the compass beneath her long-sleeved tunic. Where would it lead them from there?

Carter still hadn’t said anything. She broke the silence. “Can I help you?”

His eyes narrowed, just as she’d imagined. His whole face pinched either in anger or a detailed evaluation of her person; maybe both. “What is it about you? Why does Lord Arctos choose you?” he asked.

Interesting, Rose thought. This wasn’t about the artifact or being on the Vesten property at all. This was about the presence of Arie with her instead of him. “He’s my friend,” she replied.

“Do you hear yourself? What Compass Point—no, what fae— has ever been friends with one of the gods, let alone one who is not their patron?!”

His voice was rising. Rose could see Luc pushing his mount forward, likely unsure, just as she was, of what the Vesten Point would do. She let a hand fall from holding her horse’s reins and gestured for Luc to wait. It would do no good to avoid this conversation with Carter if they were meant to build any kind of trust.

“I know it’s unique, but aren’t all our circumstances?” she asked. “Until a few days ago, he was just Arie to me. He wasn’t Lord Arctos. He wasn’t the Vesten god. Maybe I had to know him as just Arie for a friendship to form.” She shook her head. “Honestly, you’ll have to ask him why he hid his identity. It’s his story to tell, not mine.”

“It’s hard to do when he immediately disappeared again. Without, I might add, so much as a conversation with me.”

“I don’t control him.”

Carter leaned in and whispered angrily. “You and Lord Arctos were digging on the Vesten grounds last night. What were you looking for? What did you find?”

Rose sighed. Even though she’d had all night to come up with an answer for this, she hadn’t. Of course it had been Carter’s shifted form in the bushes. Part of her wanted to give him the coin now—say that Lord Arctos might have been wrong in his direction. But another part of her wanted some time with the Vesten artifact to learn whatever it was that Arie thought she could. She wouldn’t lie to Carter. Maddening vagueness was her only option.

“I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not your enemy. It was Arie’s mission—he wanted me to come with him.”

Carter assessed her words, his brow pinching impossibly deeper. “Again, I point out, he is conveniently not here for me to question!”

“Arie does as he wishes. You won’t win any favors with him trying to change that.”

“You don’t think having him with us as we go after a rogue god would be helpful?”

“He was with me for ten years,” Rose said. “He had plenty of time to go after Aterra himself. He clearly had his suspicions about the cause of the mist plague. And I am sure he knew something was wrong for far longer than that.”

She turned to face Carter, her gaze locking on his. “The thing is, he didn’t do anything about it. He found me, the rightful Norden Point. He befriended and supported me and was there with me on a journey to take back what was mine.” Rose sighed, wiping her hand against her brow as the sun beat down on them on the mountain pass. At the high elevation, it was hot without the tree cover from the ascending or descending switchbacks. “Arie agreed with our plan. He can’t do anything on his own about Aterra. We need to do it.” She let the statement hang there, willing Carter to understand they were the continent’s only hope.

Carter’s eyes widened. Particularly as she noted that Arctos couldn’t solve all their problems. It may be near blasphemous to him, but it was the truth from Arie’s mouth. Rose knew that Carter and Juliette needed to understand it, or they would never succeed.

“It’s up to us.” She paused. “The gods can’t help us. This is why we exist. We can and will stop Aterra.”

“Yes, you said that yesterday. I’m still not sure I believe you.”

“And that is part of the problem. We know our magics are going to need to work together. I can’t imagine that will be easy without trust.”

“I might trust you more if you gave a better explanation of why you were on Vesten property. ‘The Lord of Fire made me do it’ is a little weak.”

Rose sighed, acknowledging that he was right—but she had nothing else to offer him now. She wondered if he could sense the coin in her pocket. It was obviously a source of Vesten magic. But it wasn’t exactly…doing anything. Like with fae, it’s magic probably needed to be actively in use before others could sense it. The problem was that Arie hadn’t told her precisely what it did. It enhanced Vesten power—did that mean only Vesten could activate it?

They had learned quite a bit about what the Suden artifact was capable of yesterday morning. While she had the Norden dagger, she didn’t actually know what it did either. It was known to be a symbol only the Norden Point could claim, so she had done so. She hadn’t had time to test what additional magic that symbol brought to the wielder. As she considered what she knew and didn’t know about the godly artifacts, she wondered what the Lost God had left the Osten. It bothered her that they were riding away from Compass Lake, one of the main sources of information to answer these questions. The libraries at the Compass Points houses would absolutely have held this knowledge. But stopping Aterra was the priority, the artifacts more a curiosity. If their journey took them to Sandrin, they might be able to research there.

Finally, they reached the other side of the mountain pass, which required them to drop back to single file for the descending switchbacks. Maybe it was for the best that there would be little possibility for further conversation today.