In Deeper Waters F.T. Lukens (acx book reading txt) 📖

“Athlen?”

“Sleep,” he said, squirming. “I need rest. That will help.”

“Okay. Let me set up our…”

Athlen crawled away from him to where their supplies lay on the ground. He shook out the horse blanket and rested his head on the curve of the leather saddle, tucking the blanket over him. It wasn’t long enough, and his feet poked out of the end.

“I’ll sleep here,” Athlen said. “Good night.”

Confused and hurt at the abrupt dismissal, Tal stood and grabbed his own bedroll as Athlen closed his eyes and pretended to fall asleep. The twitches of his eyelids gave him away, as did the jerk of his legs.

Tal spread out his blanket under the tree. He banked the fire and curled up without removing his boots, the necessity of a quick retreat a very real possibility. Tossing and turning until he found a spot without a rock or a tree root, Tal second-guessed his relationship with Athlen. Had the bed sharing just been a new experience for him? Had the kissing been a way to distract from their argument? Did Athlen not share in Tal’s feelings? Athlen was in pain. Maybe he thought it would be better to sleep apart in case he hurt in the night. Maybe he didn’t want Tal to know how bad he felt. Tal would be sure to find him a private stream or brook to swim in soon, even if it was only for a few minutes.

Exhausted, Tal tucked his hands under his head on the thin blanket and closed his eyes. This was only their first day. He couldn’t afford to worry about Athlen’s idiosyncrasies when his family was in trouble. He needed to press on, and he couldn’t do that with a bad night of sleep, moody merman or not.

Things would look better in the morning.

12

The mare’s hooves beat a steady rhythm as Tal and Athlen crossed the countryside. The packed dirt road ribboned out in front of them, over rolling hills and flat farmland. Tal had never seen this part of the kingdom. He’d studied their northern and eastern borders but knew them only as lines on a map, and not as the ridges of mountains in the distance, snowcapped even in the spring.

Tal didn’t love the sea, despite growing up overlooking the foam and waves, but he had a new appreciation for it after days of riding a horse across the landscape. His hips and bottom were sore from the saddle. His back ached from Athlen holding on to him no matter their pace, and from sleeping on the unforgiving ground.

Athlen wasn’t faring much better. In fact, his pain only worsened the farther they traveled. His face grew pinched and pale, and his lips went bloodless. Circles spread under his eyes, and he hobbled when he walked, gingerly stepping and biting back grunts. When he thought Tal wasn’t looking, he rubbed his muscles—his thighs and calves and the bottoms of his feet.

“Let me find you a river,” Tal said on their third day of travel, the map Dara had given them spread on the ground. “Please.” He reached across the small distance between them and touched Athlen’s hand.

Athlen startled, then stared where Tal’s fingers rested against his own. Slowly, and deliberately, he pulled away and tucked his hands in his lap. Tal’s heart stuttered.

“It won’t help,” Athlen said, unsuccessfully hiding a grimace.

Pushing away his own hurt, Tal took his best guess. “Because it’s not the sea?”

Athlen’s jaw set as he stared at the parchment, his gaze lingering on the jagged coastline. He gave a small, reluctant nod. “We should keep moving,” he replied. “You need to return home as quickly as possible if the rumors we’ve heard are true.”

Tal didn’t argue. Athlen wasn’t wrong.

“That’s the closest coast to here anyway,” Tal added, folding the map.

Athlen nodded. “Yes, it is.”

Tal swung back onto the mare and pulled Athlen up behind him, noting the stark lines of pain around Athlen’s eyes. They rode for the rest of the day, skirting the towns they encountered. Tal’s stomach growled at the thought of stopping at a tavern for a hot meal, but it was too dangerous, especially with the black flags that flew, memorializing his death, instead of the usual kingdom banners.

Food aside, Tal wouldn’t mind a conversation to disrupt his own cyclical thoughts. Athlen had become as silent as the grave, answering Tal’s questions with phrases so short Tal eventually stopped trying to engage with him.

Other things had changed over the days of travel as well. He didn’t touch Tal unless he had to. He didn’t sleep next to him by the fire, opting to crawl as far away as possible and curl into himself. It was as if all the intimacy built between them in the shadows of the cove had disappeared once exposed to the inland sun. It hurt, and while on the surface Tal could attribute Athlen’s strange behavior to being in pain and away from his home, he couldn’t help but feel as if there was another reason lurking beneath Athlen’s forced smiles and distant stares.

Tal slept little that night under a clear sky and a bright moon. Athlen tossed and turned in his sleep a few feet away, while Tal’s thoughts tumbled through his head. His family was in danger. Shay might already be engaged in battle. Ossetia might already be benefiting from their deception. He was running out of time.

On their fourth day of travel, Tal regretted his decision not to travel by boat. It was foolish of him. They’d be pulling into port that day if they’d sailed through the Great Bay. By horse, they still had three more days’ journey ahead of them. Maybe he was too soft to be a prince, so upset by the thought of traveling by boat that he’d put his family, his friend, his country, and himself in greater danger.

Late in the afternoon the silence that had become their constant was broken when Athlen looked to the