Chapter 20
Kendrick was feeling gloomy at the thought that Maya had left him behind without the slightest hesitation.
‘At least she’s wearing the cloak I gave her.’
It was nice that she was using his gift, but it didn’t ease the sting in his chest.
‘I didn’t know she could be this reckless.’
He had warned her about the danger, but it seemed his words hadn’t reached her at all.
Still, that in itself was so like Maya that he couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
After all, it was that very quality of hers that he’d fallen for in the first place.
Letting out a sigh, Kendrick consoled himself with the fact that he had enchanted the cloak Maya was wearing.
He’d cast a protective spell on it just in case, and now he was immensely grateful that he had.
If it activated, he would be able to track Maya’s location—at least that was something.
With that, he’d be able to follow her somehow.
“What are you thinking about?”
Alec frowned as he delivered Tristan’s message and looked at Kendrick.
It was because he knew too well that the Magic Tower and the emperor were not exactly friendly toward them.
Kendrick ignored Alec’s comment completely and got straight to the point.
“You serve the Grand Duke so loyally—surely you’re not just going to sit around and wait?”
His sarcastic tone made Alec bristle.
“You’re one to talk… I want to go too, but I’m holding back. Who knows when monsters might appear? We can’t leave the estate without the Grand Duke.”
“Then the dependable commander can stay here. I’ll go instead. They’ll probably need reinforcements.”
Kendrick had no intention of obeying Tristan’s orders.
There was no way he’d let some other man travel alone with Maya.
“Ah, save the thank-you for later. Time’s ticking.”
Without giving Alec a chance to say anything more, Kendrick turned and started walking away.
Alec stood in place, opening and closing his mouth like a fish.
‘How is someone like that her close friend…?’
It only worsened his impression of Maya.
Just as he was inwardly grumbling, Kendrick turned his head back.
“You don’t like me, do you? And you probably don’t think much of Maya either.”
Caught off guard, Alec hesitated.
He had already been warned by Tristan, so he was being careful with his words.
Kendrick smiled softly, like poison dissolving in water.
“Then help me get together with Maya. Wouldn’t it be great if we just left the North together?”
That was one point Alec couldn’t argue with.
He had only been told that Tristan had married Maya under a contract to lift a curse.
But the Pendragon family was full of gamblers and swindlers.
Alec was someone who wore his emotions on his sleeve more than he hid them.
Kendrick, quick on the uptake, picked up on that immediately.
“They may be in a contract relationship, but who knows what could happen between them?”
The two who hadn’t even called each other by name at first were now speaking comfortably.
Who could say how much closer they might grow?
Even though it was a contract marriage, Kendrick had felt uneasy from the moment Maya got married.
Maya was an attractive person.
He needed to create distance between her and Grand Duke Tristan before Tristan realized that too deeply.
“What am I supposed to do?”
Alec’s question was as good as agreeing.
“Keep Maya and the Grand Duke apart until I return as the new Tower Master.”
“Tower Master?”
“It’ll take three months. Surely the great commander of the Northern Knights can handle that much.”
Alec shuddered as he met Kendrick’s cold gaze.
Even a battle-hardened man like him got goosebumps from the eerie intensity of those eyes.
“And I don’t forget my debts.”
The look Kendrick gave him was unpleasant, but the sincerity behind it wasn’t hard to read.
He couldn’t help feeling rebellious—Who are you to use me like this?
But if Kendrick’s confidence was real…
‘If he truly becomes the Tower Master…’
Then, for the sake of the North, it was better to have the future Tower Master owe him a favor.
Separating Tristan and Maya was just a bonus.
“Looks like our interests align.”
In the end, Alec reached an agreement with Kendrick and allowed him to leave the estate.
Kendrick’s lips curled upward at the thought of seeing Maya again.
“Looks like we’ll rest here for the night.”
Maya pointed toward a cave, speaking to Tristan.
She’d expected to spend the night uncomfortably between trees, but luck was on their side.
She hadn’t known there was a cave near the lake, but it was a relief.
Though the entrance was huge, the inside was empty.
‘Maybe it used to be a monster nest.’
But it seemed abandoned now.
In any case, it was cozy to have shelter from the wind.
Gathering twigs she had picked up along the way, Maya quickly started a fire.
She hadn’t done this much since she started working at the imperial palace, but her body remembered.
It was strange, how instinctively her hands moved.
‘Fire is always essential.’
It reminded her of when she first joined the imperial knights.
She marveled at the fact that she’d been given another chance like this.
Every moment, she felt thankful—thankful to be alive and to have this opportunity.
Tristan took out some jerky from his bag and handed it to her.
“Here, have some.”
“Wow, thank you!”
Maya beamed as she took the jerky. As she chewed it, her face turned serious.
“Then for dinner, let’s have jerky and this monster meat.”
Tristan nodded as he looked at the new monster, an Iberid, that Maya had skewered on a stick.
‘She’s really something.’
With so many kinds of monsters, it was vital to know which ones were edible. Maya knew them all flawlessly.
She only targeted ones that could be used as substitutes for food.
The warmth of the fire made her feel drowsy. The roasting meat filled the cave with a mouth-watering aroma.
Maya’s eyes sparkled as she looked at the meal in front of her.
“Bon appétit.”
Holding the skewer carefully, she took a big bite.
High-quality jerky was good, but nothing beat real meat.
She used to eat this kind often when she was in the knights.
‘The meat isn’t even the most useful part, but food comes first.’
As she ate with delight, Maya recalled what Alec had told her.
“The mountain range practically surrounds the entire North, so we haven’t been able to fully explore it. The higher we climbed, the worse the knights’ conditions got, so our progress slowed.”
There had been many who vomited or collapsed from shortness of breath.
At first, they assumed it was ordinary altitude sickness. So the Northern knights, used to mountain travel, didn’t think much of it.
But when everyone who had been exposed to the mist started collapsing, they decided not to take any more chances.
Monsters hadn’t appeared in the mist, nor was the mist expanding, so there was no reason to risk further danger.
‘That was the Northern knights’ fatal mistake.’
After hearing Alec’s story and conducting her own investigation, Maya was certain.
The symptoms were indeed altitude sickness—but the mist intensified those symptoms.
‘Because the peaks of this mountain range are the lair of serpent monsters.’
The reason people couldn’t see them was because they hid themselves completely in mist and ice.
The serpents, white like the fog itself, were specially adapted for winter.
They moved freely wherever they wanted, resting in places no human could reach.
They didn’t stay in one place for long, so Alec’s knights had never encountered them.
Frankly, they’d been lucky.
But the gods wouldn’t always be on their side.
‘The reason Alec couldn’t stay on as commander of the knights.’
And the major event that had kept Tristan from coming to find Maya had likely been Alec’s death at the hands of a serpent monster.
After dinner, Tristan looked over at the pile of monster corpses behind Maya and asked,
“What are those for?”
“Rope.”
“Rope?”
She twisted the ends of the feathers together, forming a long cord.
The feathers, which naturally adhered to each other, had been discovered by the knights after capturing a wyvern.
Maya fully intended to put that knowledge to good use.
“We’re going to use it to capture a wyvern. As a substitute for a carriage.”
She grinned brightly.
Tristan grew pensive.
A wyvern, huh…
Even with the monsters appearing, no wyverns had been sighted yet.
He stared at Maya in silence.
“You’re saying there’s a wyvern nearby?”
“Yes, in this lake.”
This journey was going so smoothly it almost felt like a vacation—enough to stir suspicion in Tristan.
It was Maya’s first time in the Northern mountains, yet she knew the geography perfectly.
What he had seen of Maya’s skills over the past two days had far exceeded his expectations.
He had expected some skill from someone of Pendragon blood, but not this much.
Maya hunted monsters as naturally as breathing.
Her precision in striking vital points made her seem like a completely different person from the one in the castle.
