The mist was thicker here than anywhere else, curling like pale snakes around their boots. It muffled sound, it pressed against their skin, it swallowed light. The campfires behind them were distant, their faint glow swallowed whole by the fog. It was just the two of them now, Rhyka and Nero.
Rhyka's golden eyes gleamed in the half-light, sharp and cutting as they locked onto Nero's pale face. His smirk was there, but thinner now, more deliberate.
"You know," Rhyka said slowly, his voice low but laced with derision, "there's a lot about you that doesn't add up."
Nero raised a brow, but didn't speak.
"You say you're a noble," Rhyka went on, spear haft tapping lightly against the tree at his back. "And sure, you've been able to prove something, whatever papers or seals you carry, the caravan believed you. Emmet believed you. Hell, you probably convinced yourself." His smirk sharpened. "But I don't buy it."
