Chapter 41 : Hidden Again
The forest was louder at night.
Not with beasts or monsters, not the kind Rhea could burn with a glare, but with frogs, and owls, and leaves brushing each other like gossiping old women. Rain still clung to the air from earlier, and Elias's boots squelched softly in the underbrush. Somewhere behind him, Rhea stepped in a puddle and muttered something about "nature's rudeness."
"We should've brought socks," Elias said over his shoulder, adjusting the bundle of camping supplies on his back. "Extra socks. That's what I've learned today."
"I told you I don't need socks," Rhea grumbled, half-sulking, half-tired. "I have... internal heat regulation. My toes are immune."
"Really?" he asked, glancing back. "Because last time you stubbed one, you declared vengeance on the entire floorboard family."
She glared up at him, hair clinging damply to her face, and didn't deny it.
It had been two days since the Bell of Purity had rung in the town square. Two days since it had turned, seemingly of its own divine will, and pointed straight at Rhea.
That had gone about as well as expected.
They were lucky no one had seen the light leave her fingertips, or the whisper of darkness rise like smoke around her shadow. Elias had shoved her cloak tighter, faked a coughing fit to draw attention, and dragged her straight out the back of the crowd. No one had stopped them—yet—but the tension had changed. The city felt colder. The guild master's warning echoed behind every stare.
And now they were here. Again.
In the same forest where he'd first found her—naked, amnesiac, and yelling at a squirrel.