Chapter 19
Ihate my life. While that had been a true statement as far back as she could remember, it’d never been more true than now.
Gisela sat on a small bench, sharpening her sword in the stable.
Alone.
Was this really her future? Cuddling Brant’s cold steel?
Her mother had offered her freedom for the contract demon. Now that she’d actually experienced freedom, Gisela better understood what she’d bartered for.
It was nothing like she’d imagined. Being surrounded by strangers in a strange land where she didn’t know customs, laws or idioms. Because in her heart, she knew she didn’t fit in with the other centaurs, and her mother would never allow her to stay in Thassalia.
Gisela posed too great a threat for that.
If she wasn’t under her mother’s thumb, her mother would have her killed.
She’d been in the inn earlier, watching the easy way Candara and Masakage had bantered.
That was what she wanted.
Friendship.
Ironically, she felt that whenever she was with Xaydin. “You just don’t talk enough, Brant,” she whispered to her sword. “I appreciate what a good listener you are, but our conversations are always one sided.”
And rather boring.
Funny how that had been enough before this journey started.
Not anymore.
Sighing, she sheathed her sword and propped it up against the stall. She tucked her stone and cloth into her saddlebags and got up to store them on the door of the stall where her horse was eating hay.
She leaned against the stall to watch the equine. Because she was part centaur and unicorn, she’d never really paid much attention to horses before. Being equine herself, she’d never ridden a horse before this. For that matter, horses were rare in her mother’s kingdom. They weren’t needed.
But they were beautiful animals. Graceful.
Old legends claimed that centaurs had been created when an ancient sorceress had fallen in love with her stallion. She’d craved him so much that she’d transformed herself into a half-human, half-horse so that she could be with him.
Queen Taranilla. The first centaur.
It was said that all their people came from her and her stallion.
Gisela had never really paid attention to the old tale. It’d been something troubadours sang about and poets wrote odes to.
Now though…
She understood the queen. That hunger to be with what she loved. Had the queen ever been ridiculed for those desires? What had it cost her to become a centaur?
What would it cost me to leave it?
She’d lived as a human most of her life.
Sighing, she reached out to touch the horse’s forehead. The coarse hair felt so strange and yet she liked feeling it. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?”
The horse nickered in response.
Just as the horse raised its head to look at her, something sharp struck her across the back of her head. Nauseated, she tried to focus, but everything went dark.
“Gisela?” Xaydin entered the stable where he’d been told she was resting.
He saw their horses, along with the others who were being kept here. But there was no sign of her.
Not until he saw her sword propped against a beam.
“Gisela!” Panic gripped him. She’d have never left her sword behind. Not even to go to the outhouse.
Something wasn’t right.
“Candara!” he called.
She appeared instantly. “You don’t have to shout.”
He picked up Gisela’s sword and held it out to her. “What’s happened? Gisela isn’t here, and I know she didn’t just wander off without her weapon.”
Candara held her hands out around her. Her eyes turned stark white as she cocked her head to listen to the sounds of the universe and her guides.
Xaydin didn’t move as he waited for her to do whatever it was she did whenever she searched for answers.
Her hands made graceful circles around her. In front and to the side. It was a beautiful dance in a very macabre way. He’d never understood why she made those gestures and whenever he asked her about them, she couldn’t remember doing it.
Something takes me over and shows me what I’m seeking.
That was why he remained silent, waiting for her to do whatever it was she did.
“She wasn’t alone.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “Here, horsey. Let me scratch your nose.” She turned around and scowled. “I don’t want to lose him. Why can’t we be together? I can’t live without him.”
Candara’s white eyes met his. He knew she wasn’t seeing him.
Yet she was focused on his face with a stern expression.
“He will leave. Everyone leaves. I don’t want to be there when he learns to hate me.
Ow!” She staggered forward, holding the back of her head in both hands until she sank to her knees on the ground and held her hand up.
“Stop!” Then she fell forward, across the hay-lined floor.
Uncertain, Xaydin stood back, even though he wanted to help his sister.
Finally, she fell out of her trance and pushed herself up from the floor.
“Diflyn. He means to use her to draw you out.”
Rage suffused his body so swiftly and bitterly that he threw his head back and roared.
“Where is he?” he demanded.
She shook her head. “We’ll need a potion for that. I didn’t see where they went.”
“If he lays one hand on her…”
“He intends to kill you both.”
Of course he did. “How did he capture her?” He couldn’t imagine Gisela leaving herself open to attack.
“She was petting her horse when he rose up behind her with no warning. The coward bashed her in the head and took her.”
And before he could say anything else, Masakage came rushing into the stable. “What’s happened?”
“Diflyn took Gisela,” Xaydin growled between clenched teeth.
His eyes flared at those words. “Then we will get her back.”
Xaydin clapped his brother on the back. “Yes, we will. And I will bathe in his blood.”
Gisela came awake to an awful pain in her skull. It throbbed, sending so much agony that she could barely open her eyes. Worse, it made her sick to her stomach.
And as she came fully alert, she realized her hands and feet were tied.
Diflyn. She remembered him now. The quick glimpse of him right before she’d blacked out.
Bastard! She wanted his head for having humiliated her this way. How dare he sneak up when she wasn’t looking!
He sat a few feet away from her, fire-watching. Scrying. Something her mother’s soothsayer used to do.
Before her mother skewered the seer for having a vision that displeased the queen.
Personally, she’d never been able to see anything in the fire more than dancing flames, which made her wonder if they really saw anything.
Or if they simply made it up.
Obviously, Diflyn thought he could conjure the future. He stared as if he saw actors on a stage. And while he was distracted, she lifted her leg toward her hand. If she could just get to the dagger she had hidden there, she’d be able to free herself.
Don’t breathe. If she made a single sound, he’d know. She had to move slowly, cautiously.
And get that damn knife…
It was so close. The tips of her fingers brushed it, but she couldn’t quite get a grasp on the hilt.
Biting her lip, she had to force herself not to grunt or growl in frustration.
You can do it. Patience.
Fuck patience. She’d rather have reach.
Diflyn straightened as if he heard something.
Catching her breath, she lowered her leg and put her head back on the ground as silently as she could manage.
He snapped around to look at her.
Gisela feigned sleep.
Rising slowly, he approached her while she watched him from her barely opened eyes.
He squatted by her side, then put his hand by her nose and mouth.
She leveled her breathing in a slow and steady rhythm as if she were asleep. Her heart pounded as he remained by her side.
After what seemed to be forever, he rose and returned to his fire.
Only then did she dare let out a long breath to steady her nerves. She waited several minutes for him to become absorbed by the flames again before she returned to attempting to get her knife.
Just as she was certain it was a lost cause, she slid it from its sheath.
Victory!
It took everything she had not to shout in happiness as she quickly cut through the rope binding her hands. Watching Diflyn closely, she rolled silently and cut the bindings at her ankles.
She crouched low to the ground, keeping her knife in her fist.
Do I shift?
To do so would cost her the knife as she’d have no way to wield it. But to stay human…
It’d be harder to escape. Damn it.
Fine, I don’t need a weapon.
Aggravated by the choice, she turned herself into a small robin. She hopped away from the camp, toward the brush on her left. Once she was clear, she turned herself into a falcon and took flight.
She’d barely made the tree line before Diflyn realized she was gone. Concealing herself in the leaves, she gave him time to scream and curse.
He looked up and right past her.
Thank the gods.
She settled on a branch and let out a relieved breath, then took a few minutes to try to get her bearings. Where was she?
Nothing looked familiar.
Surely, they couldn’t have gone far. He had a horse, but it wasn’t that much later than when she’d entered the stable. Maybe two, three hours most, given the position of the sun. It’d be dark soon.
Then she’d never be able to find her way back.
Suddenly, a blast landed on the limb above her. She looked down to see Diflyn staring up where she was concealed.
Was that a lucky shot or did he have a potion of some kind that helped him locate her?
Turning into a moth, she flittered away, hoping there was no way for him to find her in this form.
I have to go somewhere.
The sea wasn’t that far away, especially not for a falcon. Changing into a peregrine, she dipped and flew as fast as she could for the water.
To her shock, another peregrine headed toward her.
Diflyn. She knew it.
Furious, she went as fast as she could while trying to find a place to hide and escape him.
He was a crafty bastard to be so close to her now. Worse? He was gaining.
Did he know how to fight in this form?