Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
My heart is in my throat as I stumble my way through the forest in the dark of night.
My evening didn’t last very long after we had to roll the drunk man over and check his pulse—he was alive, just very intoxicated. And after we sat him up against a tree trunk and he vomited right next to Elara’s feet, I decided I'd had enough for one evening.
The moon has shifted, and as I move further into the trees, I lose sight of everything, my instincts leading me in the direction of my cabin. Though I have to make my way around the town square before I’m back in my neck of the woods.
My skirt catches on something, and I hear the snag of the fabric before I stop, turning to unlatch it from the branch it is caught on. But with my eyes still adjusting to the dark, I can’t see what I am doing. My hands fumble around, but I can’t figure it out.
“For the love of the gods,” I mutter, ripping at the fabric. I wince when I hear it shred, the echo of glass jangling in my pocket.
I scold myself internally. This is my favourite dress. But before I can berate myself for it again, I hear the distinct sound of hooves thudding against the packed soil.
I glue myself to the tree, reprimanding myself for not bringing Merlin with me tonight. I left him grazing out the back of my cabin, not wanting to leave him tied up for hours while I was at the celebration. Though now I find myself wishing that I had.
I lean my head back against the tree, heat crawling up my back as I hide, and an itch pricks the base of my neck. My instincts scream at me to barely breathe as the collective sound of hurried hooves gets louder and louder.
“Oh, red,” a deep voice calls out, its lilt echoing off the trees. “I know you’re out here.”
I close my eyes, holding my breath once I recognise the voice. It’s the shield. The one from the tavern, the same one who was watching me earlier, and the same one who must have watched me leave.
My heart kicks with nerves as I wonder if he saw us in the trees. If he saw the shimmer from within the vials and is looking for me so he can capture me, tie me to a rope leading from his horse, and walk me to my end.
I finally begin breathing again, my heart rate rapid as I try to listen, to decipher just how many men are out here, but I can’t figure it out. There are simply too many.
Something falls in my hair, and I swallow a yelp, throwing my hand over my lips to stifle the sound.
I shake my head, and a twig falls into my palm. Holy tadpoles.
Part of me says to stay where I am, but the other says to run. To run as fast as I possibly can and don’t stop until I get to my cabin.
“I can taste your fear on my tongue.” His voice comes out like a hiss. One that slithers around the tree behind my back and into my ear. And the little voice inside my head, the one that has been appearing far more often lately, tells me to run. Now.
I take off, my feet pummelling against the ground as I run blindly in the direction of my cabin.
I duck just as a branch cuts in front of me, a piece of my hair ripping from my scalp as I push forward.
The sound of the shield’s horses right behind me drives me forward as I weave my way through the forest.
Leaves shake above me, masking the sound of my footsteps, almost as if the forest around me is hiding me as I flee.
“STOP!” The shield’s voice almost shakes the ground, but I don’t stop, I don’t falter, I just keep sprinting. Any sense of direction is lost on me, the only thought in my head being away. I need to get away.
My legs feel weak as I stumble on a dip in the soil, but I’m up again in a heartbeat, zigzagging through the trees. My lungs give out on me before I feel a strong arm around my waist and a hand over my mouth. I barely have time to let out a muffled scream before I’m being dragged aside.
“It’s me.” The voice is so steady, so light, it almost sounds like it came from inside my mind.
But I feel a warm breath against the apples of my cheeks, and a familiar scent wraps around me.
The smell of a forest after a summer rain, like cedar wood soaked in water. Fresh, but comforting, grounding.
But the realisation of whose arms are holding me captive doesn’t exactly calm my heart rate.
“Don’t move,” Rylan breathes, his voice low in my ear before what seems like tens of horses go galloping past us while the shield barks orders at his men.
I don’t so much as let out a breath until the sound of them is nothing more than a faint whisper in the night.
Rylan slowly loosens his grip, and not a second goes by before I’m spinning around, pressing him back against the tree and holding my dagger to his neck.
He doesn’t dare look afraid. No, his infuriating smirk pulls at his features. I just press the blade against his warm skin. “Getting confident with that, are we?”
I blink away his comment. “Were you following me?”
“Though if I weren’t so amused by this, I would have you pinned to the dirt by now. Your grip is shaky.”
I tighten my hand around the hilt of the heavy dagger as my breathing picks up, my body kicking into gear. I won’t let his game of distraction succeed tonight.
“Were you following me?” I punctuate the question with extra pressure against his skin.
He tips his head, unbothered by the blade pressed to the column of his neck. “Shouldn’t you be thanking me, Rosie?” he says. “Would you rather that shield have you on the back of his horse right now?”
“At least I would know his intentions,” I spit. “Don’t make me cut you, Rylan. Were you following me?”
I see the slightest flare of his nostrils in the dark before the dagger is ripped from my grasp and I’m back in the position I was stuck in before—my back against his chest, one of his arms pinning both of mine to my side, but this time, the dagger is at my neck.
My breathing halts. I’ve never felt nervous around Rylan, not until this moment. But his heart beats steadily through my back.
“I saw you leave the celebration—”
“From where you were spying in the shadows, you mean?”
“Precisely,” he says. I let out an exasperated noise. “Which means I also saw that brutish shield gather some of his men and follow the exact path you took.”
My heart pounds in my chest as I play out the scenario he’s laying out for me. “So you were following them?”
“Yes,” he breathes.
“How do I know you’re not lying?” The list of people I can trust is dwindling, and it doesn’t include this man, whom I know less than nothing about.
“I guess you are going to have to decide whether you trust me or not,” he says, and I can hear the lilt in his voice, as if he is enjoying this far more than I am.
“Why would I do that?” I ask, feeling the blade nick the skin on my neck. When I wince, Rylan pulls it back an inch.
“What do you know about this blade?” I feel his steady breath falter, the only indication that he knows something. “Why did you give it to me?”
He doesn’t breathe a word. No cheeky remarks or sly comments. The only sounds I can hear are the leaves shuffling around us, and his quickening breath in my ear. Yet mine just slows, the realisation washing over me. “You knew it was my mother’s, didn’t you?”
The cool sting of the metal lifts from my skin, and I turn around like a whip. “You want me to trust you, Rylan? Then do not lie to me when I am giving you the opportunity to tell me the truth.”
He lets out a deep sigh, his eyes so dark, yet I can still see the warm glint in them. I almost beg, almost get on my knees just to hear him give me a sliver of understanding, but then he holds the dagger out to me. I almost slip it back into my pocket, but I decide to keep it in my grip.
“My mother left me journals.” I rear back, those words being the last thing I expected to hear. “I haven’t managed to get through all of them, not yet. But she spoke of a place, a place far from here—”
“Arizaya?” I breathe.
His eyes narrow. “Yes, Arizaya. I’ve never heard of it. Do you know—”
I cut him off with a shake of my head. “I know nothing of it, but my mother left journals too. I saw the name written in one.”
“I didn’t know for sure about your mother,” he says.
“My mother wrote of Esther giving her the dagger as a gift before they parted ways on their journey from Arizaya. She didn’t mention a last name, but when I heard your mother shared the same name, I took the chance that the dagger was hers,” he explains, his eyes screaming at me to believe him.
“When you didn’t recognise it, I thought I might have been wrong, but… ”
I take a step back, running a hand through my tangled hair. He knows barely a scrap more than I do. I’m both relieved and disappointed at the same time.
On one hand, I was hoping he could give me some semblance of an answer, and on the other, I think I would hate him if he knew everything that I don’t. He doesn’t know the effect of the dagger, the way that it was the only blade that could be used to create the serum. A Look Beyond the Mist.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
I simply shake my head. I still don’t know whether I can trust him or not, not entirely. Yet I find myself relaxing, my guard lowering. “I’m sorry I held a dagger to your throat.” I slip it into my pocket now.
That spark in his eyes ignites as his lips curve at the corners. “Don’t be. I don’t mind being at the end of a blade if you are the one wielding it.”
Heat crawls up my spine, warmth finding all the cold spots that were left when I pulled my body from his. “Yes, well,” I say, brushing down the front of my skirts as I feel the heat rising in my cheeks. “It’s not as if it’s very intimidating. I still don’t quite have the hang of it yet.”
“Do you need a lesson in knife wielding?” he says, his smirk ever present, even in the dark. It doesn’t take long for him to go from tense to this effortless flirting he’s so fond of, and it doesn’t take long for his effect to take hold of me either.