Chapter 10: Chapter 10, in which Paige and I leave the town

I was conflicted if I should pretend to be asleep and confront Paige in the morning or go after her right now. Why was she leaving and where was she going? Was it dangerous? Why not tell me she needed to go somewhere?

Was she meeting up with Brian the Apprentice Blacksmith?

Okay, I shouldn't have thought about it, but Paige seemed to get along great with him at dinner and I had to wonder…

The possibility of this made my choice for me and I got up at once.

I made Asrin jump and flap his wings in surprise at my movement.

"Where did she go, Asrin?" I demanded.

The black dragon shook his head. "If I were you I wouldn't bother her," he replied.

I didn't say anything else, just stared at him until he finally gave me an answer.

"She's on the roof of the inn, she wants to be alone."

It felt out of character for Paige to do that, I was seriously worried about her.

"I'll check up on her," I dismissed him and headed out of the door.

It took me some time to figure out how to get up on the roof especially with Asrin discouraging me every step of the way, but I finally climbed out of the last floor's window and swung myself up to the roof.

Paige was there, sitting at the very top, alone.

"Are you alright?" I asked walking up to her and taking a seat at a respectable distance away from her.

“I don’t want company, Vik,” she said.

“You’re worrying me, Paige, talk to me,” I pleaded with her. “What’s wrong?”

"I was wondering if the sky here was the same as on Earth," she mumbled and looked up. "It isn't as far as I can tell."

"You miss Earth that much?" I asked, looking up at the sky as well.

"I don't know…"

At that moment, Paige looked utterly lost, like a puppy who got tricked when a stick wasn't thrown.

I couldn’t imagine how she was feeling, how it must have felt to find herself utterly lost on Earth, and then to be brought back here without warning.

“Is there someone on Earth you want to get back to?” I asked, quite selfishly. This world was amazing, dangerous, and exciting, I couldn’t comprehend why she would be in such a hurry to return if it weren't for someone.

“No, not in particular,” she shook her head. “It’s the life I had in general, how everything was predictable, how I felt safer. I had an actual home.”

“You had a home here, too, didn’t you?”

“It’s gone now, my family too. I talked to Stuart, even my extended family, the ones that survived have gone into hiding, the ones that didn’t hide were found and slaughtered by Blood Summoners and Demons,” she explained. I tried to catch her attention but she avoided my eyes.

Oh, god, I didn’t make her cry, did I?

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"We'll have plenty of time to decide whether we want to go back," I reassured her, scooting a little closer to her and brushing her shoulder. "Hell, I kinda like it here, who knows, I just might stay."

"Mhm… thanks for… listening," she smiled weakly.

“We’re in this together, Paige, I’m not going anywhere.”

***

We overslept, and after staying up late on the roof, we both slept in.

"We're leaving today, I'm not spending another day doing fuck-all here," Paige declared after getting out of the shower. Yes, she showered AGAIN, citing the fact we wouldn't have running water for the next 3-4 days as the reason.

I had packed my backpack, and Asrin curled up inside to sleep.

Paige was getting strapped into her leather armor when I realized I hadn't done that myself.

Once strapped(yes, I strapped myself in, no I didn't have to ask for help) we went to the Baker's and Paige got us some pastries for breakfast and 5 loaves of bread for the road. I thought that was overkill, but I wouldn't say anything to Paige about it.

We left town before noon, and I let Paige set the pace.

The sun was burning me alive, I could feel it through my shirt, and the armor wasn't helping with cooling me down. I was drenched in sweat immediately.

It was funny because Paige was in the same boat as me, yeah, the shower in the morning was already useless.

Around 2 hours after leaving the village, we sat down for a break. We didn't talk at all as we walked, some lingering awkwardness from the rooftop last night was still present. Paige tried to apologize in the morning, but I declined, there was nothing to apologize for in the first place.

Secretly, I was happy she decided to share that with me, and she's been a lot calmer since then, so thought of that as an absolute win.

We each ate an apple under the only tree we had encountered on the road, savoring the time we spent away from the sun.

"I'm going to spontaneously combust if the sun doesn't stop," I whined as we continued walking.

"If you think this is bad, wait until we have to cross the desert patch tomorrow," Paige laughed.

But something started to worry me, I had a feeling that something was very wrong.

I looked around and noticed Paige was on edge as well. I got chills, even though I felt like I was going to melt.

We were walking toward the Blood Summoner settlement, we had to walk off the path soon to stay far enough from there and bypass it completely.

"Do you feel like we're being watched?" I asked, stepping closer to Paige so I didn't have to raise my voice.

She jumped at that, which made me feel even more uneasy about this.

"There might be a demon, guarding this path…" Paige said back. "Stay alert."

I strained my ears and eyes to locate whatever was watching us. All of a sudden I felt it again, the same chill as before, and looked toward Paige, but it wasn’t Paige anymore standing beside me.

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