Chapter Thirteen. In Which the Trio Encounters Outlaws #2
The Wolf led them down the other side of the inn, away from the sheriff, and back toward the main road. Risa clung on for dear life as the wind whipped through her hair and stole the screams from her throat.
Javi cursed under his breath and leaned over the side, nearly taking her down with him. She scrambled to get a better grip, pressing closer against his back and gripping the horse with her thighs. Finally, Javi settled back in place, a yowling, furry black creature trying to claw out of his arms.
“Take him,” he ordered, though the commanding effect was lost when he sneezed. He shoved Brunie into her lap. The creature took one look at Risa and settled down without further complaint.
They rode out of Spearbelly quickly, in the exact direction the Wolf had cautioned against. The spot where Bo the dwarf had dropped them off yesterday flew past as they circled the town and rode toward the Grunion Mountains.
Eventually, Risa’s good hand slipped. She slumped sideways, too weak to hold herself up any longer.
“Stop!” Javi called.
Everything sounded dull in her ears. The horses’ slowing trots, their snorting, even Javi’s voice as he turned and caught her in his arms. “I think she’s dying.”
She wasn’t, of course. No one died from a dislocated shoulder.
The Wolf’s voice floated around her fog-filled head. “Let her down. I can catch her.”
Javi clambered down before his shaking hands reached for her waist. Risa slid off, another pair of hands gently grabbing her good arm.
The Wolf slipped her cape off and spread it across the dusty ground.
A halo of tight curls sprang from her head, blue-black hair shining under the full moon.
With the Wolf backlit, it was difficult to get a look at her face.
Once again, a tingling started at the back of Risa’s neck the longer she stared.
“Lie down,” the Wolf urged, voice gentle. “Did something break?”
“My shoulder,” Risa answered, wincing as she lowered herself onto the cape. The material was cool to the touch, slippery like silk. The Wolf helped, hands arranging her arm at her side. “It’s happened before.”
Like many of her accidents, it was a result of refusing to listen to her mother.
With no one to play with and bored of being stuck in her room, Risa took to climbing water-soaked trees and scaling the rotted frames of abandoned homes.
When she got home with a dislocated or broken bone, her parents would set it back properly themselves, and then her mother would yell at her father when she thought Risa was asleep, convinced their daughter might one day hurt herself in a way she wouldn’t be able to recover from.
Risa didn’t know how to tell her mother that there was nothing to worry about. Bad luck was a scavenger; it settled beneath her skin and waited for the right opportunity, then rooted around and searched for ways to cause pain to others.
Javi hovered above her, eyes blown wide with concern. “She’s dying!”
She didn’t know how to tell him, either, without revealing her secret.
“She’s not dying,” the Wolf snapped.
To Risa, she sounded a little different. The accent more lilting, the speech less monotone.
The way Javi gestured wildly at her implied he did not believe the young outlaw. “Look at her. She’s pale and sweaty. Practically at death’s door.”
He didn’t look much better himself. The entire affair had flattened his curls and lined his temple with beads of sweat. He looked properly disheveled.
“I can set it,” the Wolf offered, looking at Risa for consent.
They needed to get moving. The Wolf didn’t say it, but Risa was sure they weren’t far enough from Spearbelly to breathe easy.
“Do it.”
The Wolf snapped her fingers at Javi. “You heard her.” She looked back down at Risa. “I have a handkerchief I can stuff in your mouth. If you scream.”
“Scream?” Javi knelt beside Risa. His frantic eyes darted from her arm to the Wolf. “What are you going to do to her?”
Risa nodded, ignoring his concern.
The Wolf searched her pockets and pulled out a beautiful embroidered handkerchief the color of the night sky. Rosemary and mint flooded her senses as the Wolf stuffed it into her mouth.
“What can I—?” Javi’s fingers fiddled with the hem of his shirt.
Risa tracked his movements with her eyes.
He cleared his throat and tried again. “What can I do?”
“Stop being so dramatic, for one thing,” the Wolf snapped.
“Impossible,” he said, but he took a few steadying breaths in a pathetic attempt to do as she ordered.
“Hold her still on that side.”
Javi’s glassy eyes stared down at her. He placed a hand above her heart, the other against her forearm, and pinned her to the ground. His hands trembled, his concern palpable.
Risa shrugged him off for a moment to fish out the handkerchief. “Your hair is flat.”
He barked out a laugh. Then he pressed his lips into a thin line, as if disappointed in himself. “You’re impossibly rude even at the most inappropriate times.” But the trembling stopped.
Before she could blink, the Wolf grabbed the handkerchief, stuffed it back into her mouth, and pulled her injured limb upward. A small pop burst in her ears as her bone returned to its socket, immediate relief flooding through her.
The Wolf let her catch her breath for a moment.
Javi did not. He hovered over her, eyebrows pinched together. “Are you all right?”
The fact that it wasn’t the first time he’d asked her this did not bode well.
She spit out the handkerchief. It came away damp and rumpled, landing in a wet slop in her palm.
“Don’t sound so worried. You’ll make me think you care.”
He dropped his hand away from her, taking his heat with him, leaving her chilled despite the balmy air. “And we couldn’t have that.”
Risa faced the Wolf, wet handkerchief balled up in a fist. “I’ll wash it.”
“Please do.”
And then, because that was not enough, Risa mumbled, “Thank you.”
“Of course!” the Wolf said, beaming, a genuine smile splitting her face.
Without her hood, she appeared younger, sounded sweeter, the rough years she’d spent as an outlaw sliding right off.
But staring at her made Risa’s head buzz.
The Wolf’s face turned blurry around the edges, as if she were underwater.
The only thing that remained sharp was her livid, angry scar.
“Javi.”
The prince hummed. “Yes?”
“Describe the Wolf.”
Her words made the Wolf retreat. She hunched over, hiding her face from view, and the buzzing ceased.
“You’re not jealous, are you?” Javi gave a nervous smile. “Or are you upset she tried to kill me? That was a few hours ago.”
Risa struggled to sit up, even with Javi’s hand at her back. “Humor me.”
He snuck a glance at the Wolf. Surprise flitted across his face as he leaned closer to her.
“I—I can’t.”
The Wolf reared back farther, away from his scrutiny.
“Her face is strange.”
Inkling confirmed, Risa nodded. Peeking through her eyelashes, she could almost make out the other half of the Wolf’s beautiful visage through the magical shroud that veiled her. An upturned eye, an unmarred cheek, a mole at her temple. All before the image went fuzzy.
She knew what this was. Felt it prickle over her skin like a warning.
The Wolf was cursed.
It was obvious now. The constant tickle of magic. The change in her voice when she didn’t wear her hood. The way Risa’s stomach twisted every time she stared at the girl for too long.
“Were you born with it?”
“Risa,” Javi admonished.
The Wolf seemed to understand that she wasn’t talking about the scar. “No.”
“Who did it?”
The Wolf glared at the ground. “I don’t know.”
Risa climbed onto her knees. “Do we turn to stone if we stare too long?”
“No.”
She didn’t know what was worse. To have an outlaw try to get in with them for the sole purpose of betraying Javi later on, or to have a cursed outlaw try to get in with them for a darker, more sinister purpose.
Frustrated, she struggled to her feet, ignoring Javi’s offer of help in the form of an outstretched hand. “Is that why you’re so eager to go to—” She still she couldn’t say it, though the shape of the word was on her tongue.
The Wolf snatched her cape from the ground. “That isn’t any of your concern.” There was the edge of that lilting accent again, the vowels too long in the mouth. It was evident that the Wolf wasn’t from Kheadon; her voice was like a song when she spoke.
Risa was a hypocrite. Accusing the Wolf of keeping secrets when she was doing the same. Staying by the prince’s side though it risked his life, all because it kept her breathing, the tiny hope of finding someone willing to break her curse a distant dream.
They were both running in their own way, though Risa couldn’t tell if the Wolf was running away from or toward something. She hated not knowing. If she didn’t know, she couldn’t predict how her curse might intervene and make things worse.
“Why?” Risa asked again. “Why do you want to come with us?”
At this, the Wolf stood and threw on her cape. With her hood pulled over her head, her face was once more cast in shadow. The half that Risa could see was as cold and smooth as ice.
“For revenge.”