Mantle of the Gods

The rest of the watch was fairly uneventful.

Once we defeated our second Bramble Skeleton I started waking everyone up. Ether started cutting up fruit, so we’d have breakfast ready.

Edward groaned as I nudged him awake last.

“Come on." I nudged him again. "I need you to put in some stakes and then Ether’s cut up some fruit for breakfast.”

“Ugh…” He rolled back over. "Not yet.”

“Edward." I poked him. "We have stuff to do.”

“It’s too early.” He covered his face. "Leave me alone.”

“We don’t have time for this.” I poked him again. "You’ve got to get up.”

“I don’t have to do anything.” Edward looked over at Justia. "You can hurt me all you want, but I’m not getting up until I’ve slept.” The blonde noble closed his eyes.

I looked over at our brunette Healer. Justia had just started eating.

“What do you want to do?”

She swallowed the food in her mouth. "Can we do this without him?”

I picked up the sword and offered it to Aelin. The blade looked more like a dagger now. Edward had smoothed out the jagged edge so that it looked almost like a C at the tip instead of point.

“Can you handle them?” Everyone knew that she wasn’t going to be able to kill them before they hit me.

She looked nervously at the blade and took it. "It’s what we have to do.” The blonde looked up at me. "Are you going to be able to handle it?”

“Honestly?” I took a deep breath. "We’ll have to see.” I shook my head. "But I think we have to try.”

Aelin nodded. "I’ll do it.”

Ether stormed over to us and I had to hold her back. "Let go of me and I’ll get him up!” She struggled in my arms.

“Do you really want him to be the one in charge of my safety if he doesn’t want to be out there?”

My question took all of the fight out of her. I heard a soft chuckle behind me.

“If we weren’t in a time crunch, I’d deal with you myself.” I turned around. "But I’ve just about had it with your attitude. We are a team. We are trying to save a member of our team. I get that you’re not used to intense physical activity, so I’m willing to cut you some slack, but I swear if you don’t stop being a pretentious ass, I’m going to drag you out in the grass until a snake spawns and let you fight it by yourself with your bare hands.”

The chuckling stopped. Edward looked like all the blood had drained out of his face, but he kept his eyes closed.

I looked at Aelin. "I’ll have the knife, so I can help. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

Aelin eyed Justia. "Can we switch, I don’t think I’m the best one to cover Atlas.”

I shook my head. "Ether and Justia have a system for taking out the Skeletons that works. We just have to find one of our own.”

The blonde swallowed. "I’ll try.”

“I still think you should let me motivate him.” Ether scowled. "I could put enough fear in him.”

“I’m sure you could.” I guided her back over to where Justia was finishing her breakfast. “This might be a good thing.” I lowered my voice.

“How?” Aelin said a little too loud.

“Shhh.” I huddled the women up. "If Edward isn’t with us then we’ll earn experience faster.”

“Because he isn’t in our party?” Aelin frowned. "Is that how that works?”

I shook my head. "Rix is still in our party even though she’s not on this floor.” I looked around at each woman. "Trent set our party and without a crystal band, we can’t change it.”

“Oh.” Aelin looked confused. "So how does this help us?”

“When a party member is too far away, they don’t get a share of the experience.” Ether answered before I could. "Since Edward is staying here, the experience will be split four ways instead of five.”

“So we’ll be getting more experience!” Aelin clapped her hands,

“Until he decides to join.” Justia shook her head. "I guess he was never taught Noblesse Oblige.”

“What’s that?” Aelin lowered her voice to just above a whisper.

“The obligation of the Nobles to look out for the Mundane.” Ether scoffed. "There are a few Nobles who practice it, but very few.”

“That’s a rule?” Aelin was perplexed. "And they just ignore it?!?”

“Like she said, very few take it to heart, instead they adhere to Might makes Right.” I sighed. "But we’ve got more important things to work on than solving problems that we have no power to sway.” I nodded to Justia. "You know what to do?”

Justia hefted her ax. "Stay as close to the treeline as we can.”

“Right.” I leaned forward and kissed Ether real quick. She leaned into the kiss, which made it last longer than I’d planned, but I could spare a few seconds.

“Get a room!” Aelin playfully pushed us as she walked down the trail. "We’ve got snakes to kill!”