15
Aspen
Nicu’s fingers clamped onto mine as we sprinted down the brick lane. Yet instead of continuing that way, he strayed toward the maze of bristling wheat silhouettes.
I stalled, the soles of my boots nailing to the ground. “Not in there.”
Nicu whipped toward me. “It’s safe. Mama taught me the fields will hide us.”
“Except for the part where I stole something from the castle. If I’m with you, the fields could trap us inside.”
“But I didn’t steal anything, and I’m an angel. So if I’m with you, they’ll guide us like ribbons.” Despite the hood, Nicu recognized the mayhem crowding my face. “Don’t worry, Aspen. You’re a warrior of the earth and trees. The fields aren’t going to punish you.”
“I won’t risk it,” I stressed, clutching the sides of his face. “I won’t risk you .”
“I can take care of myself. And the wheat stalks are listening. They hear that you don’t mean to hurt anyone.”
My throat bobbed. “But I already have.”
Nicu frowned in contemplation. “Then the fields will forgive you.” Resolute, he encircled my wrists. “Your tongue lies. But your heart is honest.”
“I don’t know if that’s true.”
“I do. I know.” His thumbs traced leaf vines coiling across my skin. “They’ll protect me, and I’ll protect you.”
Like his mother, Nicu spoke with grit and his own form of resilience. The kind that inspired nations.
The alarm horn bellowed. Stomping hooves and overlapping shouts rang across the landscape.
Licking my chapped lips, I inspected the shrouded entrance. By comparison, the underground tunnels had been ideal for entering the castle. Not so much for leaving.
Once the clan exhausted all potential whereabouts for Nicu indoors, they would move on to external alternatives.
With Jeryn’s logic, Flare’s prowess at locating hidden things, Briar’s wisdom, Poet’s cunning, and Aire’s intuition, they would leave no stone unturned.
However, the fellowship also wouldn’t bank on The Wandering Fields immediately, since anyone intending to endanger Nicu would avoid this path.
“They’ll protect me, and I’ll protect you.”
“No.” I balled our hands into a combined fist. “We’ll protect each other.”
He beamed like a shooting star. A bright light in a dark world. Someone who deserved to be trusted, followed, and treasured.
Hands clinging, we raced into the fields. The stems rattled, their beards smacking my cheek, while another brushed Nicu’s shoulder. Starlight illuminated our path, the grain heads shivered, and the flight took years off my life.
Poet wasn’t the only person who trained Nicu. Our clan all participated, the diversity of weapons broadening his skills. Yet his speed was a natural gift, equipping him with exceptional momentum that threatened to outpace me.
I doubled my efforts, refusing to put my friend in harm’s way.
Never mind stealing an ancient harness. I had escaped with the most precious cargo on this continent, the notion curdling my stomach.
If not now, our fellowship would realize my role in Nicu’s disappearance once I didn’t show up to help them.
As though drawing the same conclusion, the stalks elongated, their spikes rising like hackles.
I tightened my grip on Nicu. While keeping one step ahead of him, my opposite hand clenched the axe.
In case these golden fuckers got ideas of swarming us, I’d hurl myself in front of my friend like a shield.
The instant my fingers locked firmer onto Nicu and the axe flashed, the stalks went still. Then they shifted. Bowing like an arcade, they spread to reveal an adjacent recess where there hadn’t been one before.
Nicu uttered a gleeful noise. He might not grasp where it led, but he did understand the invitation.
We slipped inside. The narrow gap trenched through as if someone had driven a plow into the fields. At length, the slit widened and blended with the beech forest, where pale, slender trees showered us in yellow leaves.
This area, I could handle. Coin, water, and rations waited in a satchel I’d buried under a shrub at the threshold.
Shouldering the bag and keeping off the main thoroughfare, we blended into the mesh of creepers.
I had planned to steal a horse in an outlying village, since Mama might need our pony and wagon.
Until then, our pace remained slow and steady, relying on a compact terrain of bramble hedges.
An unidentified critter with a ring tail scampered into the dense thicket. Nicu cooed, his boots skidding in place as he reached out to greet the animal.
Hating to disappoint him, I tugged on Nicu’s arm. “We need to hurry.”
“What if he wants to come with us?”
“What if he’s got rabies?”
“Nonsense. He won’t chew on me.”
Which was to say, the animal wouldn’t bite him. My lips curved at Nicu’s confidence. But while he displayed a talent for bonding with the fauna, we didn’t have time for introductions.
Time ceased to exist. The growing distance reduced the horn’s call to a distant hum an hour later.
Owls screeched from the canopy. Deer paraded across a clearing, mist puffing from their snouts.
During the trek, we passed my waterskin back and forth. From the satchel, I offered Nicu three-quarters of a cured sausage link, keeping one-quarter for myself. He insisted we share half, but I waved that off.
“I’m not hungry,” I lied.
Because I hadn’t packed for two, we’d need to forage for extra food within a couple of days. Either that, or I would bribe the next illegal peddler who trundled down the road.
Nicu’s head swung left and right, his verdant eyes sparkling. The sight was infectious, relaxing me after a handful of miles, his wonder dabbing a grin at the corners of my lips.
“So what do you think?” I asked.
“Magical,” he whispered. “Like Spring.”
“You remember Spring?”
“I remember everything.”
Nicu had been four years old when he left his birth Season. Whenever he reminisced, it made him happy, so I asked for more stories. He told me about the secluded wildflower forest cottage where he lived with Tumble and Old Jinny, his grandmother.
The scent of honeysuckle. The taste of apricots.
When I asked if he missed Spring, Nicu hopped around a log. “I miss Jinny. Like you missed Aire when he was gone.”
I halted, my shoulders tensing. “I didn’t miss him.”
Nicu glanced down, a smirk nudging his lips sideways. “If you say so.”
No comment. I would take my denial to an early grave. “Well, I bet a lot of blokes are going to miss you,” I teased. “I saw all your fans at the revels.”
A blush suffused his throat. “Papa has fans. I just want friends.”
“No handsome suitor to sweep you off your feet? No one who’ll burn the world for you?”
Nicu grimaced. “That’s selfish. To see the world destroyed for my own sake? Who would want that?”
“I meant it in a different context. In which case, most would call the gesture romantic.”
“Not you.”
“Of course, not.” I flipped my axe. “I can save myself.”
Taking the pack from my shoulder, Nicu shook his head. “A real leader doesn’t let someone burn the world for them, just so they can feel important. A real leader protects that world.”
I skirted around a ring of fungi. “What if it’s about survival?”
“Then it’s survival. Not romance.”
“And what if that world is evil?”
Sweetgum trees replaced the beeches. Nicu studied this new species, the branches shingled in gleaming burgundy leaves. Touching his ribbon bracelet, Nicu said, “Then you change that world.”
I nodded. “Much better.”
“Aire has a crush on you.”
Again, I stalled in my tracks. “Nicu! What the fuck—”
“It’s a lust crush for your weapons and body.”
In other words, a sexual attraction based on combat and physical attributes. Not an emotional one. In which case, accurate as well as mutual.
Like father, like son. They were both right.
However, as I discovered in the tournament arena, it wasn’t a mere lust crush. It was a forsaken avalanche.
Catastrophic. Suffocating. Inconvenient.
Nicu stopped beside me, his features piebald in the waning light. “You don’t want to admit you missed him. But the whole clan sees it.” His irises twinkled with mischief. “Only I saw it first.”
Despite the unbidden lurch of my heart, I let out a dry laugh. “Bragger.”
And he might have chuckled with me, if his complexion weren’t blanching at something over my shoulder. I went rigid, squeezed my axe handle, and braced for a fight. Then I growled as a masculine hand clamped over my mouth.