Chapter 158

CAMILLA’S P.O.V

Anxiety bubbled through me as we took the carriage into town. Christine was a bundle of nerves with how she was anxiously biting her nails and twiddling with her fingers. Even Juan’s presence did little to calm her although I could clearly tell that he was doing his best. She was torn up over something and it didn’t matter how many times I asked, she repeated the same words- you need to see it.

By the time we got to town, I was already thinking up the worst case scenarios. Christine was the first person out of the carriage and I watched as Juan went after her whispering words in her ears until her shoulders slacked and she was relatively calmer. He held her shoulders and guided her through deep breaths. I didn’t realize I was smiling and staring at them until I felt Ryker’s presence behind me.

“It is rude to stare,” he reminded me and I rolled my eyes playfully. “He is a good man, to her at least.”

“She deserves it,” I said simply before turning to face him. “When does Riley return?”

He thought about it for a second before shrugging. “I honestly do not know. I haven’t gotten a letter from her in two weeks. I know that she is fine, she just wants to take some more time away I guess. Don’t worry about my sister, she is stronger than any of us realize.”

A throat cleared in front of us and I looked forward to see Christine standing there. She looked a lot calmer than she did before with her shoulders squared and her spine straightened. Sometimes I wondered how she managed to do that so easily, she was always so put together and compartmentalized. She could be sobbing one second and the next, she is the perfect imagine of a princess. It used to scare me and a small part of me was jealous knowing I would never be as good as her at that.

“You should brace yourselves,” she warned before leading us towards what looked like a farm. I could smell the animals and the dung and it took everything for me to not cover my nose. We walked past what seemed to be a pig sty and I almost threw up. I seemed to be the only person that was bothered by the scents.

As we got closer, I felt my powers begin to buzz under my skin. I was not wearing my gloves so I quickly intertwined my fingers with Ryker’s. His eyes shot to mine

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immediately with worry and concern but I shook my head. Now was not the time to talk about it. A part of me hoped that if I ignored it then it would go away but it only seemed to get worse. I felt the buzz closer to the surface of my skin, as if it was crawling to get out. It pushed against every boundary and border I had until my head was pounding in my skull.

We suddenly came to a stop and I blinked in confusion when I saw a farm land or what should have been a farm land. All the crops were dead. I wasn’t sure how possible it was for all the crops in a single field to be dead at the same time but that was what I was looking at. The buzzing under my skin had intensified but I was too confused to pay attention to it.

“Why are we looking at a field?” Juan asked voicing everyone’s thoughts. “If his crops died then maybe he should try a new fertilizer or some dung.copy right hot novel pub