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Shyriath
As they traveled, Ilirith found herself with some thinking to do.
Now, at least, she understood why she'd kept catching Demarath stealing glances at her. In hindsight, it seemed a bit obvious, but she'd never really expected anyone to find her beautiful - she knew well enough that, in many respects, she wasn't conventionally beautiful. While she'd had some thoughts about getting closer to Demarath, she'd fully expected that it would involve, well, more effort to see her in that light.
And her? Well, certainly she liked him. He wasn't spectacularly handsome; royal palaces tended to attract all sorts of good-looking males looking for careers in decorating some rich female's harem, so she'd seen plenty of them around, and he wasn't quite in their class. But being a telepath tended to make personality important, and an awful lot of them had made themselves repellent by being, not to put too fine a point on it, arrogant pricks. She was quite happy to accept average looks if they came with a personality she found pleasing.
It had therefore dawned on her that, although the Matriarch had commanded her to look but not touch, said Matriarch was now gone and her successor was a traitor and had no rightful hold over her, and that she could therefore touch as she liked; and that, in addition, she was now in the company of someone who seemed like he might, at some point, be amenable to some friendly touching with her.
And in fact (and she was very proud of this logic), knowing and suspecting what she did of the Matriarch's last commands to her, it could even be construed as an act of loyalty to put herself in an unparalleled position to watch Demarath and ensure his wellbeing, all from up close.
It was a very conveniently self-affirming thing, she thought cheerfully, when you could get personal desire and duty to run in perfect parallel.
They had by this point entirely left the lands that Ilirith was familiar with, and so now Zadireth led them. They had come down out of the hills into a wide, flat swamp, studded with crooked trees and devoid of clear trails. Zadireth, at least, seemed to have been here before, and knew how to move through in a way that didn't involve swimming (much).
“This particular swamp is a bit too unfriendly to civilized use for many people to come in here,” he explained, as they slowly picked their way through. “It'll make it a bit unpleasant for us as well, but also less likely that we get seen. There are certain steps I can take if we are, but that's something to avoid if possible.”