Ikelos (The Ephemeral: Book 2)

Chapter 7

Eager to escape the icy terrain that night, we sought out the same mine shaft we'd occupied months prior. It didn't look like any animals had claimed the den for the winter yet, and I hoped it had something to do with the elevation, not a horde of demonic beasts hiding in the shadows.

The mine muffled the howling wind, and I welcomed the quiet. I hadn't breathed a word since leaving Nova's—too devastated to find my voice—and for once, Mason didn't push me. He tended to the fire in total silence, nursing his split lip.

I stared at the mine entrance where Will and I once watched the rain together. It was the moment I first realized I needed him and his robotic brain to get out of the Range alive—when I first began to wander down his dark and lonely tunnel, desperate to uncover his secrets.

Now, I was blindly navigating that maze, and I had no idea what awaited me at the exit.

Harmon returned from his hunt a few minutes later. He dropped a couple bloody rabbits next to the fire. Then he sat down on a heavy boulder and dragged the kill over for skinning.

"How'd you catch and dress all that so quickly?" Mason cried. 

The man shrugged and removed his knife from its leather scabbard. "Rheans aren't so bad with their hands, you know." He grinned at the envious look on the boy's face. "We're also a resourceful people, and we value shared knowledge above anything. Our techniques have been passed down through the generations, built upon by each of my ancestors. It's our duty to do the same for our own children."

"Do you have any?" I asked. "Children, I mean?" He'd forsaken his country to protect the Sterling bloodline. What else had he left behind? And whom?

He scratched the gray whiskers on his face.  "No.  Asa is the closest thing to a son I've ever had, and I taught him all I know.  The sword. The trap.  The trail."

It took Mason a few seconds to process Harmon's words, but then he turned to us, his lip curled. "Wait...are you telling me Sterling knew how to hunt this whole time, and he's been letting me do all the work?"

I remembered Will killing the fish I'd caught like it was second nature. Like he'd fished a thousand rivers and a hundred lakes. His navigation skills, his survival instincts—he was a man sculpted by the wild. And he'd still let Mansion Boy do all the heavy lifting.

"Asa's never been fond of hunting," Harmon reasoned, though the mirth in his eyes told me he also suspected Will's spiteful motives.  "A sensitive soul, that one."

His tone lost its asperity the more he spoke about the prince, and it made me wonder if Will had downplayed the nature of their relationship. "You've been with him since the beginning then?"

"Since his first steps.   His mother entrusted me with his safety before she died.  But the delinquent makes my job a mighty difficult one."

Harmon cut into the flesh of the first animal with no warning whatsoever, and I glanced away, queasy. I'd known Will and his guard were close, even if the prince denied it, but I hadn't realized Harmon was right there by his side all these years.  He was one of the few people on this earth who knew the boy unmasked.

"Siren...she said she changed Will," I said.  "Was he really that different as a child?"

Harmon cleared his throat and sniffed a few times, battling the winter chill.  "He was less cold.  He smiled more, especially when his mother was alive.  But he's always been quiet. A stark contrast to his fool of a brother."

That sparked a thousand more questions, but Harmon wasn't finished.

"Siren may have shaped him into a lowly carpenter's apprentice, but much of the Asa I know still remains. And certainly not the best bits."