Chapter 27 #2
“We’ll—you’ll—have to figure out Captain Vorik as well. I hope the enforcers already caught him and dealt with him, but I fear he’ll show up again.”
Syla couldn’t push aside her aunt’s concern. She well remembered the look they’d shared before Vorik had gone over the edge and the promise he’d made, that he would return. To have her, he’d said, but that wasn’t all he had in mind.
“He’s determined,” Tibby added, “and you’re…”
“My extreme beauty and allure are drawing him. I know.”
Tibby snorted.
“It would have been more flattering if you had nodded in agreement.”
“Sorry. Engineers are practical and realistic.”
“Don’t worry. I have a plan if he shows up again.” Syla delved into her pack and pulled out one of the big candles.
“You’ll beat him on the head with that? Or club him in his cock?” Her eyes lit with enthusiasm at the notions.
“You’ve a violent streak, my aunt.”
“Practical,” Tibby repeated.
Since she didn’t seem to recognize the significance of the candles, Syla opened her mouth to explain, but that feeling of being followed whispered over her again, and she looked out the window.
For the first time, someone else was visible on the road behind them. What looked like an armored carriage, accompanied by numerous horses with riders, was heading in the same direction as they.
“A coincidence?” Syla murmured but worried it wasn’t.
The rain and distance made it hard to make out details, but she thought that might be the same armored carriage that had been sent to collect Vorik. Would it now be used to collect her? To keep her from reaching the shielder?
She doubted anyone on the island, even Lord Ravoran, knew where exactly it was, but, like her aunt, they might have an idea.
Most of the shielders were underground, where nobody would easily stumble across their chambers, but numerous people had probably guessed their approximate whereabouts over the years.
“We’ve got a carriage coming up from behind,” Fel called from the driver’s seat.
“Can you go faster?” Syla asked.
The carriage lurched sideways, caught in a rut.
“No,” Fel stated.
The horses did pull it out, but they soon came to a stop.
“The road ahead is washed out by the rain,” Fel said. “It’s going to be hard to go farther, but we’re in the foothills of this big craggy volcano anyway. I doubt the road goes on much farther.”
Tibby put away her book, and Syla opened the door. Rain pelted her shoulders, and water gushed past around the horses’ hooves.
Washed out was an understatement. A river flowed down from the heights of the volcano, and crossing it would be treacherous, whether in the carriage or on foot or horseback. The road did continue on the other side of the rushing water, but reaching it would be a challenge.
“I think we can get across on foot,” Fel said, then eyed Syla and Tibby. “It’ll involve getting wet and fighting the current.”
“Nothing we haven’t done before,” Tibby said. “Recently.”
Not to mention the downpour was already soaking them. The only boon was that it was summer, so it wasn’t a chilling rain.
Syla looked back to check on the other carriage, but they’d gone around a bend, and a lumpy black lava-rock formation blocked the view.
She climbed onto a wet boulder, water pooling in the divots on top, and crouched behind a pine tree to hide herself in case anyone from the other party was watching.
At first, she couldn’t see the armored carriage, but then it trundled into view, coming out from behind a more distant rock pile.
Behind it, a half dozen men in gray uniforms with black piping rode on horses, axes and bows balanced across their laps.
They’d come expecting a challenge. To have to fight.
“That’s enough people to force us to return.” Syla grimaced. “If they catch up with us.”
And they weren’t far behind. Fel was their only combatant, and would he even fight the enforcers?
Like he, those men were presumably loyal to the crown.
They were his allies. If she’d been crowned as her mother’s successor, the men might have obeyed her, but nothing was official yet, and as a mere princess…
she doubted they would leave if she told them to.
“This way.” Fel pointed upstream to a spot where rocks protruding from the wash might make the crossing easier.
Grim-faced, Tibby appeared ready to follow him.
Syla scrambled down from the boulder but held up a hand.
“We don’t have much time,” Fel said.
“Aunt Tibby.” Syla faced her. “Back at the farm, you were able to get some of my memories from my mind.”
“With my magic, yes.” Tibby lifted her hand, showing the moon-mark on the back. “You could learn to do that too.”
Fel eyed her hand—both of their hands—like the marks meant they were dangerous vipers, not to be trusted.
“Could you do it now?” Syla asked. “To get the location of the Harvest Island shielder from me?”
Would that work? It had been so many years since her father had taken Syla and her siblings to visit it, making sure they could find it in the future if need be.
In quizzes she and her siblings had endured after that, she’d also had to point out the location on a map.
But as far as actually finding a route up the volcano to its chamber today…
“I could try,” Tibby said, “but why? You’re coming with us.”
“Absolutely, you are,” Fel said sternly.
Syla smiled, relieved he still wanted to keep an eye on her after all the trouble being her bodyguard had caused him. “Those enforcers will be after me. They shouldn’t care about you two.”
Tibby lifted her marked hand, as if to say they would care about her.
“We don’t even know if the temple leaders passed on that you’re kin and marked,” Syla said. “I’m certain the enforcers are mostly here for me. If you two go ahead, I’ll pretend to be stuck here when they catch up. I can buy time for you to find the shielder.”
Tibby hesitated, then nodded. “Logical.”
Syla stepped forward so they could share a link through their marks again.
Fel scowled. “I’ll stay with you, Your Highness. You’re my charge, and I’m duty-bound to protect you.”
“My aunt will need you to protect her. And figure out how to get the shielder from its resting place to the sea where the ship can reach it.” Syla worried about the logistics of that, but if anyone could figure out how to tote such a load with only two people, an engineer could.
“She is not my charge,” Fel said. “She doesn’t even like me.”
“Try being less surly when you’re together, and maybe that’ll change.” Syla nodded for her aunt to initiate the link.
Fel scowled at her. With surliness.
“I’ll stay with you and fight these men off,” Fel said, “and then we’ll all continue on together.”
Syla kept herself from pointing out that he hadn’t managed to defeat one rider, so taking on a squadron of a dozen enforcers wouldn’t be a good idea. That wasn’t a fair comparison since that rider was far from a normal human. Still, the odds were against Fel. Very against him.
Meeting his eyes, Syla said, “Sergeant, I need you to go with Tibby and help her get the shielder home. That’s what the kingdom needs.
I’ll be fine. Nobody’s going to kill me.
” She tried to sound confident about that.
She thought that was true, that people would want to find ways to use her rather than get rid of her, but how certain was she?
She wasn’t. Once they captured her, and she was confident Tibby and Fel had been granted enough time to disappear and find the shielder, Syla would try to escape.
Fel clenched his jaw at the notion but said, “I don’t have any choice, do I?”
“Are you still feeling bound?” Syla smiled sadly, not delighted to use his compulsion to make him obey her, but… she did need him to obey her, so maybe it had all been for the best.
“To do as you wish, yes.”
“Good. Protect Tibby.”
Magic was already trickling from Tibby’s hand, flowing into Syla, and, as before, she sensed her aunt’s presence in her mind.
At first, Syla pictured the map her father had used to test her memory of the location.
She envisioned the volcano and a spot on the west side far from the road.
Then she thought about the route they’d taken to it when she’d been a girl, of picking a path through jumbled black rocks dotted with seagull nests and a few stunted trees growing here and there in places where dirt had settled over the centuries since the last eruption.
Still scowling, Fel climbed onto the boulder, taking the spot Syla had used. He knelt, hidden behind the pine, and looked at the road.
“They’re not far,” he whispered down. “You’ve only got a minute or two, especially if you don’t want them to see us.”
Tibby held up a finger, her forehead bunched with concentration. Thunder rumbled, the rain continuing, running down their spectacles and dripping from their jaws. Syla again focused on the map and thought of her memories of the trek.
“I think I have… as much as you can give.” Tibby frowned as she released Syla’s hand.
Did that mean it wouldn’t be enough?
“Your moon-mark might guide you a bit when you’re close,” Syla offered.
“Let us hope.” Tibby followed Fel upstream, toward the rocks protruding from the wash. Slick from the water, they looked as treacherous as the current, and Syla hoped they would make it across.
Meanwhile, she climbed into the driver’s seat and picked up a riding crop so that when the men came upon her, they would believe she’d been trying but failing to urge the horses across.
They were stamping their hooves, shaking rain off their coats, and looking uneasily skyward each time thunder rumbled, so it ought to be a convincing scene.
It didn’t take long for the first of the men to arrive. The horseback riders had gone around the armored carriage to take the lead and reached the wash first.
“Is that her?” one called.
“Halt, Your Highness!” another shouted, as if Syla were on the verge of convincing the horses to cross.