That had been easy. Surprisingly so. But she would be the last to complain about such things, especially given her plans, nefarious as they happened to be.
Come quickly, she had said. And so easily he had complied. Take me to her.
Oh, she would, but perhaps not in the sense he is expecting.
With a simple dip of her head, she turns and complies. It is easy enough to misdirect him. A simple tweak here, a substitution there, and he is on the path to Tephra. A slow smile curves her lips as she leads him, a smile filled with satisfaction, a smile entirely invisible to him. She is a master of sight, and he is no match. So as he goes to Tephra, she leads him to Nerine.
--
Soon they have reached the bounds of her home, and she can nearly taste victory alongside the scents of salt and sea. As fortune would have it, the similarities between their respective destinations is not such that it would be immediately noticeable. A ruse she could pull off long enough to steal him along a careful path to a small cave tucked into the base of the cliffs.
Once inside, she pauses, shifting so that she faces him fully. Twisting so that she is directly between him and his means of escape. Only then does she drop the false sight from his eyes, the distant volcano and the brightness of crisscrossing streams of lava. Only then can he see the truth, the lie revealed. Her gaze, cool and blue fixes upon him, no hint of her motive revealed in the fine, delicate lines of her features.
“I do apologize for the ruse, Canaan, but I thought it easier to get you here without a fuss. I would rather not hurt you.” Her voice is soft, almost companionable, but there is steel in the velvet of her tone. With a small, humorless smile, she adds, “Welcome to your new home.”
@[Krys]