Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-Five
This time, when Juniper hit the water with a cold splash, he didn’t have a sword or a large best friend to hold on to. Instead, the cold woke him up, welcomed him in, and for the first time, Juniper could appreciate the sharpness of it.
Maybe Mo was rubbing off on him, after all.
His heart was pounding in his chest. With excitement, with—with strength.
He still missed his skin care, though. No excitement could replace the feeling of being cuddled up in front of his very own hearth fire with a steaming mug of mulled cider and recently moisturized skin.
One splash, and then another, echoed behind him.
Ah, fuck.
Juniper ducked underneath the rapid current, twisting to avoid a few rocks, and then ducking again as he was swept around the bend toward a tree fallen across the river.
Was that Bill and Phteven? And were they running for their lives after going behind the prince’s back, or were they pursuing Juniper in an attempt to get to Mo?
Juniper chanced a glance over his shoulder as he went under again, squinting in the water.
It was Bill and Phteven, and they were floundering, fighting to keep their heads above water.
Juniper swam faster, kicking his feet to go with the current, and then another rush of water swept him farther on and he could no longer see them.
They were reaching golden hour, the sun leaning low toward the edge of the horizon, and the current felt like it must be moving faster today. Or maybe Juniper was just adrenaline-spent and exhausted.
He reached out and caught a branch—or, well, the branch caught his pants, tearing them slightly, but then Juniper caught the branch.
He hauled himself out, cold, silty river water dripping from his chilled skin and soaked wool clothes.
There was no choice but to keep moving. He could no longer hear Bill or Phteven.
Could no longer hear the prince or his mercenaries or any of it.
There was nothing but this swath of forest, the rush of water and wind, and Juniper’s clothes clinging to his frigid skin.
And then Juniper just walked. There was nothing else for it. To walk back up the river to Filleadh, to formulate a plan as he went.
When he finally stopped to rest, the moon was high in the sky, almost full now.
They were nearing Samhain—the moon would be full by then—when the veil was thinnest and the forest was the strangest, if Mo’s grandmam was to be listened to.
And, based on the accuracy of her predictions about both dragons and members of the royal family, she was.
As Juniper pulled everything out of his pack, he stopped, his blanket in hand. It was the softer blanket, the one that smelled like Mo, which Mo had traded for the new scratchy blanket a few nights back.
If Mo was here, and Juniper hadn’t ruined everything, Juniper would give him a shoulder rub, focus on the knot that always formed just beneath Mo’s left shoulder blade.
It ached especially as the days grew colder, and in winter the pain got so bad Juniper usually nagged at Mo to go and see a healer (Mo rarely did).
And then Mo would rub Juniper’s ankle, the one that was always a little swollen after a long day of farm chores, and Juniper would tell stories and then they would go their own rounds, and Juniper would listen for the sound of Mo’s gentle snores.
How often had he heard that exact sound through the wall that separated them? Juniper shivered, still damp as he tried to fall asleep under the stars and the…
Divona’s sake. The rain.
It rained steadily through the night, putting out the fire almost immediately, and Juniper slept only fitfully, looking for Mo every time he woke.
Juniper’s training regimen had been utterly lacking for most of his life (farm chores and walking to the Tús tavern being the most he’d ever really done at home).
But trying to keep up with Mo’s long stride for weeks now must have been effective, because as Juniper took off through the forest the next morning, his pack catching on stray branches as he walked, he found that his pace had him nearly to Filleadh by midday.
Maybe Juniper really would have a chance of beating Mo in a foot race when they were safely home.
If he got Mo safely back, Juniper promised all the gods and anyone else who might be listening, he wouldn’t even demand a head start.
Unlike Mo, he did not keep a map in his head, but follow the water, Mo’s grandam’s favorite map, remained true. Juniper marched his ass upriver until he reached Filleadh again.
Filleadh was even louder and busier than he’d bargained for, but Juniper snagged an abandoned cloak that was hanging on a post outside a tavern at the edge of town.
It smelled of spilled mead and someone else’s sweat, but Juniper would have to worry about this cloak’s impact on his skin care later.
He pulled the hood low and walked through Filleadh, past the goose-throated upselling merchants to the Filleadh jail.
Everyone was talking about the prince, the dragon, and the dangerous mercenary who was under a rotating guard day and night—every group of people Juniper passed, mercenary or not, was talking about it.
He also caught a few flashes of stories about a rogue pack of mercenaries who had accosted the prince many times.
If Juniper didn’t have so much at stake, he would have been a little flattered.
Predictably, the local jail was surrounded by guards. Bill and Phteven were standing at the door. Their old cloaks had been replaced, and they were wearing red cloaks with the king’s sigil on them now, both of them looking unhappy to be there.
Juniper approached, heart thumping.
Bill’s eyes widened, and for a moment Juniper thought they would call out to the other guards at the corner of the building.
Instead, Phteven opened the door and nodded to him. “Prince’s orders,” he said out loud to Bill, but the words were spoken loud enough to be more for the other guards’ benefit.
Bill entered first, and Juniper followed, his hands growing slippery with sweat. He was walking into a building the prince would happily lock him up in, with Bill fucking Bronson.
The jail was a small building, with uneven stone steps leading down to a narrow, dank corridor.
“I don’t think I can give you much time,” Bill said in a low voice.
Juniper drew in a breath to settle his nerves. It didn’t help—too much damp stone and not enough breathable fresh air down here. They passed another guard, who nodded to Bill but looked at Juniper curiously.
“Speak quietly,” Bill told Juniper in a whisper. “I’ll distract this guard. Get out of here fast, though.”
Bill split off and engaged the other guard in conversation, stepping farther down the hall to give Juniper a moment.
“Junebug?”
Juniper had to stop himself from sprinting down the hallway toward the cell.
Mo was the only person in it, those big hands clinging to the bars of the jail.
“Mo,” Juniper whispered.
“You—you came.”
“Prince Edward lied,” Juniper blurted. “I know you’re angry at me, and you have every right to be, but—”
I don’t know you at all.
The memory of the words rattled like a killing cough in Juniper’s chest, hollowing him out.
Mo’s expression was guarded. “You made a deal with him about Bear,” he said. “Without telling me.”
They did not have time for this.
“Mo.” The annoyance leaked into Juniper’s words, even though he had no right to it. “I didn’t think you would listen to me. And I thought if we didn’t make a deal of some kind, they would take you away and I couldn’t—”
“You couldn’t let me out of your sight.” Mo’s voice was colder than the river.
“I’ve known that for ten winters now. I can’t get out of bed early without you giving me those sad kicked-hound-dog eyes.
Like you’re always furious with me for leaving, and you’ve spent ten winters refusing to forgive me. ”
This was news to Juniper.
He’d never said he blamed Mo for leaving. He’d never asked Mo to stay, not after that one awful morning ten winters ago when he’d asked and Mo had said no. And he’d never meant to give him any kind of eyes.
“That’s what all this is about?” Juniper hissed, barely moderating his voice. He glanced over his shoulder. The guard was still talking to Bill, but he was peering around the man now, his expression curious.
“Of course that’s what this is about.” Mo took a step back.
He had a new bruise on his jaw, and he was favoring his shoulder, and that one ankle looked awfully swollen.
“Because I made a stupid choice when I was nineteen, and you’ve held it against me ever since?
Because no matter what I did or said, I could never make it up to you? ”
“I…what?” Juniper stared back at him, dumbfounded. “You thought you had something to make up for?”
“Of course I had something to make up for.” Mo was making no effort to control his volume. “You’ve acted that way for ten winters now. Don’t act like you haven’t. Would they have let you down here if you hadn’t made yet another deal with your new bestie, Prince Edward?”
“I know I broke everything,” Juniper said. It was honest, as honest as he had ever been with Mo. “And I was terrified you were going to leave again, yeah. But I didn’t blame you for leaving, and I would never, ever sell you out.”
Juniper could never blame anyone for leaving him behind.
Look at the mess he made, anywhere he went.
“Every single autumn,” Mo ground out. “Every single autumn, you treat me like I’m a firework about to explode at the slightest fucking thing.
You act like I’m just waiting to leave, and you cling to me so tight I feel like I can’t even talk about leaving without you talking over me, Juniper.
And now you wanted to drag me home so bad you sacrificed a little kid to do it. ”
Juniper couldn’t breathe. “I didn’t know I was sacrificing her,” he whispered. “And I’ll get her back. I promise, Mo. I promise I’ll try to get her back.”
Mo’s shoulders were tight, his expression unchanged. “Why don’t you go home, Juniper? Don’t you have a little scroll from the prince, saying you’re free to go?”
He’d tried to tell Mo.
But it had been too little, too late, and none of that mattered to Mo now.
“I didn’t know they had a muzzle,” he said. That was important. It was. Bear was precious, and tiny, and good. And now she was scared and alone, and it was all Juniper’s fault.
Mo turned those fierce brown eyes on him again. “Of course they had a muzzle, Juniper,” he said. “They were never going to treat her as anything but a monster.”