Chapter 6
Chapter six
Alyx
Istared into the fire, its merry crackling at odds with my bubbling frustration.
Every second I waited without making another escape attempt, the louder my father’s voice echoed in my mind, telling me I needed to be protected.
Even as we rode, my hands bound, toward an enemy encampment, I didn’t feel unsafe with Kelvar. A fact that only prompted my father’s voice to argue that I was being incredibly na?ve. The Warlord had stolen me from my bed in my sleep and absconded with me across the sands.
Still, after two days in his presence, I felt assured that if he were going to hurt me, he would have done so by now. Not to mention, his quiet admissions as he held me next to the fire last night had seemed far too vulnerable for one with nefarious intentions.
No—Kelvar would not hurt me.
As we rode in oddly companionable silence, the thought that had grown like a pebble in my boot from a small irritation to a festering wound, was the thought of what would happen after Clan Katal ransomed me back to my father.
The small amount of freedom I had been afforded, from the occasional ride alone to the time I spent healing injured riders, would disappear.
The argument that I should be able to sleep on my own and spend my time with whom I chose would be snuffed out.
I had been kidnapped once, and clearly I must be guarded even closer to keep it from happening again.
But if I escaped from Kelvar and returned to Clan Padra, such arguments would be dashed. I would have proven that I could protect myself.
Such thinking didn’t change the fact that I was indeed safer with Kelvar than I would be wandering the desert alone without a horse or protection, though.
I narrowed my eyes at the campfire, as if it might hold answers, but that too only frustrated me.
It had sprung to life with nearly explosive energy as Kelvar held out his hand.
While I had been gifted with immense power—healing and calming horses and even calling plants to life in impossibly dry soil—such things had always been beyond me.
Perhaps if they had not, I wouldn’t be in such a position.
I ripped my eyes from the dancing flames to instead look out at the horizon. I could no longer see Kelvar in the deepening twilight. Instead, I admired the ombre sky, staining from fiery orange to dusty purple as the sun disappeared below the tops of the dunes.
A puff of dust appeared in the distance, and I squinted.
Perhaps Kelvar had found prey and was giving chase.
The cloud grew closer, and I frowned. It seemed far too large to be produced by Kelvar on foot, and he had left Dileas behind.
In fact, it seemed large enough to indicate the pounding hooves of several mounts.
I struggled to my feet, a difficult task with my wrists and ankles bound together, but I managed. With a better view, I could see that indeed a group of three riders galloped in our general direction. At this distance, I could not make out the color of their clan sashes.
Still, an ember of hope lit in my chest. I could not make it back to my clan alone, but perhaps I could convince these riders to bring me back.
My father would surely reward them for returning me unharmed—a price that would still be less than whatever the Lord of Clan Katal demanded.
Or even better, I could offer my healing skills to their clan in exchange for aid in returning to my family.
I raised my bound wrists in the air, desperately waving to make myself visible. I even jumped up and down, stumbling a bit with the constraints of doing so while bound, but I did not relent.
The riders drew closer, but they appeared to only be riding in the general direction of the rocky cliff we camped against.
“Over here! Help!” I shouted.
The riders swerved, barreling straight toward our camp. My heart leaped into my throat with both nerves and relief. I did not know these riders, but this would be my chance to prove to my parents that I was not so helpless as they supposed.
As they drew closer, I squared my shoulders and raised my chin.
I was a daughter of the Ballan Desert, and I would act as such.
Dust whirled around me as the group of three riders encircled me, and I fought to not cough around it as I blinked against the burning in my eyes.
“What is a little thing like you doing alone in the desert?” the leader of the group asked before I could clear my throat and speak.
His tone instantly made me bristle, but I tried to stand my ground. His sash was the blue of Clan Tibel, and the snarling hyena of the clan’s emblem adorned the handle of the dirk at his waist. My father was not enemies with the Lord of Clan Tibel, but neither were they friends.
“I could use your aid,” I admitted. “I’ve been captured from my clan, and I need help to return.”
“Why not just take his horse and run?” another of the men asked, jerking his chin toward Dileas.
Dread settled like a rock in my belly. No good men would suggest such a thing. Horses were sacred to the desert, as was the bond between horse and rider. I would not steal Dileas, who stood near the fire watching us warily.
“I am the daughter of the Lord of Clan Padra, and I have more honor than a common horse thief.” I raised my chin as I spoke.
“If you still have honor, this hasn’t been a proper kidnapping,” the first man snorted, and the other two chuckled darkly in response.
Nausea bubbled up in my throat. Even waking up on a foreign horse, held to Kelvar’s chest after being whisked away in my sleep, I hadn’t felt as unsafe as I did surrounded by these riders. I made to step back, forgetting my feet were bound and tripping.
Before I could fall, the third man reached down and grabbed me by the arm. My shoulder wrenched painfully as I lost my footing, and I tried to pull out of his grasp. His fingers only dug deeper into my flesh, and I squeaked in pain.
“Whoever kidnapped you didn’t do a very good job, tying you up nicely and leaving you for us to find,” he commented.
I grasped on to the threads of my original plan, even as they slipped through my fingers. “I’m a healer,” I insisted. “If you bring me to your clan’s encampment, surely there are some people there I can help.”
“Oh, we will take you back to our Clan Lord,” the one holding me promised. “He’ll decide on the best use for your talents.”
I tried to pull my arm out of his hold again to no avail. “If this is how your Clan Lord allows his riders to behave, then Clan Tibel does not deserve the desert’s favor.”
I finally succeeded in wrenching my arm from the man’s hold, only for my struggling to overbalance me.
I tripped over the rope around my ankles and stumbled into another’s horse.
I slammed into the solid wall of muscle that was the animal’s flank, dazed enough that I didn’t notice the third rider had stepped up behind me, boxing me in
He leaned down from his horse, grabbing me by the hair hard enough to make my eyes water. My shriek of pain was cut off by his hand clamping over my mouth.
“If you are going to insult us, maybe we won’t bring you back to our Lord at all,” he sneered in my ear.
A displeased whinny sounded from by the fire, Dileas clearly unhappy with my distress.
“Let’s get her out of here before whoever left her comes back,” the leader of the trio instructed.
As the man holding me dragged me backward, my heart fluttered against my rib cage in fear and even more potent…
anger. My eyes burned and a trapped scream filled my throat.
My efforts to prove that I could take care of myself had backfired in the worst possible way.
These horrid men were proving my father right, and the thought made fury flare within me.
I kicked and struggled, my vision blurring with unshed tears, as the man seated on the horse before me laughed at my antics.
The laugh cut off in a horrible gurgle. Crimson splattered over his horse’s neck, and I blinked the wetness from my eyes in surprise. A wicked slash cut across his throat. His eyes were wide with shock, even as blood bubbled from his lips.
His mount screamed in panic, rearing and bucking. The rider, already a corpse, slipped from his back and fell to the ground with a lifeless thump. Now riderless, the horse bolted, running off into the sands.
“Take your filthy hands off her, or I will cut them off,” a voice came from one side. It was familiar, but the icy cold tone was not like anything I had ever heard before.
I turned my head as best as I could while still trapped, my scalp burning with the strain. Kelvar stood with his hand outstretched, sparks dancing around his fingertips. He hadn’t even needed a weapon to kill that man—just the magic he wielded was enough.
My captor didn’t let go, but he backed his mount up a few steps, dragging me with him, even as a metallic ringing indicating he had drawn his saber. The point came to rest at my collarbone.
The last rider drew his sword too, seemingly the bravest of the lot, as he pointed it at Kelvar. Relief and fear flowed through me in equal measure at his appearance and the promise of violence he brought with him.
Kelvar’s gaze was even sharper than the sword he drew from across his own back—a sword with curved quillons and a blade longer than any I had seen before. It might have been almost comically large if not for the deadly confidence with which he held it.
The remaining two horses whickered and pawed the ground nervously as Kelvar faced off against my two captors, and a bolt of their distress penetrated my skull. I blinked.
My magic was not good for destruction but had an affinity for one other thing besides healing—horses. With all three men distracted by their swords, I closed my eyes, gently unfurling a tendril of magic toward each horse’s mind.
I ignored the feel of Dileas, still hovering nearby, and instead reached into the consciousness of the two other mounts.
I offered a mental apology for what I was about to do.
Then, I injected them with a bolt of borrowed fear—the way my heart had hammered when the first man grabbed me and the dread I felt at knowing I wouldn’t be able to escape.
The effect was instantaneous. Screams of fright split the air, and the horse at my back began to buck and prance. The hand disappeared from my hair, as the rider was forced to grab on to his mount or risk being thrown from his seat.
The other horse reacted similarly, bolting off into the sands despite his rider’s attempts to control him. I stumbled forward, falling to my knees out of the way, as the third rider was carried away by his frightened and uncooperative horse, yelling and swearing in surprise.
As I blinked the dust their sudden flight had kicked up from my eyes, I looked up to see Kelvar, whose expression of stony rage had melted into one of surprised confusion. As our gazes met, though, his expression fell into one of concern.
In one motion, he had sheathed his sword and fallen to his knees before me.
“Are you hurt?” He asked, reaching out toward me, then hesitating. “Did they… did any of them…”
He trailed off, rage beginning to bubble in his eyes as his gaze skated over my ruffled appearance. I shook my head quickly.
“It was just a very unpleasant conversation,” I admitted. “When you distracted them, I convinced their mounts that it was time for that conversation to be over.”
He blinked at me in surprise, and then a tiny smile toyed at his lips, although his eyes still held the smoldering embers of anger. The expression made something in my chest twitch, not altogether unpleasantly, but I shoved it away.
“And here I thought they fled because I was just that terrifying,” he said.
I huffed. “Maybe you only like to think you are so fearsome.”
Even as I said it though, my gaze was drawn to the slumped corpse off to one side, just at the edge of my vision. The hair at the back of my neck stood on end as the horrible gurgle he had made replayed in my mind. Kelvar had killed him with just a wave of his hand—without even drawing his weapon.
The thought should terrify me more. I should be just as scared to be trapped with him as I was to be with the other riders—even more terrified now that I knew the tales of his fearsome power were true.
But I couldn’t help the relief I felt as he kneeled before me.
Now, he pulled a small knife from his boot, like one he would use for skinning animals. He reached out, grabbing the rope between my bound wrists before slicing through it with a decisive snick.
I looked up at him in surprise and cocked my head.
“I’d rather have you steal my horse and run away than be unable to defend yourself against other riders,” he said, tone firm.
“Although, after that trick with the horses…” He shrugged as he gestured for me to show him my ankles, so he could cut those ropes too.
“Maybe you aren’t as defenseless as the way you hold a knife would make it seem. ”
I wrinkled my nose at him at the reminder of my ineptitude, but my chest still warmed. I had not escaped, but somehow Kelvar seeing more competence in my actions than my father ever did still felt like a victory.
When I was no longer tied, Kelvar stood and reached out a hand to help me to my feet.
His fingers were callused and warm against mine, and I didn’t let go right away.
He didn’t move away either. Shocks of adrenaline still ran through me from the encounter, but his touch was comforting in its gentle firmness.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” he asked, voice low and uncharacteristically serious.
I nodded. “I’m tougher than I look.”
“I can tell,” he said without a shadow of doubt in his voice. His gaze skated over me, and the warmth of his proximity enveloped me, paradoxically making me shiver in its contrast to the rapidly cooling evening air.
Seeing my shudder, he frowned and looked away.
“At least we gained one thing from this unpleasant encounter,” he observed. “We found you a change of clothes.”