Chapter 29 #4
Once more, my body becomes Quin’s crutch as we haul ourselves up the bank to Petros’s residence. He feels heavier today, as if the weight of the kingdom rests painfully on shoulders not quite big enough.
A dozen aklos and aklas are busy offloading luggage from carts when we pass through the iron gates. The drunken porter from the evening before spots us and hurries over.
“Has he arrived?” Quin asks.
The porter shakes his head. “The servants came ahead to get the house in order. The master’s an hour behind.”
“By which route?”
“The main roads are washed out. They’re coming via the badlands.”
Quin shifts subtly. He’s thinking, making quick plans. “Get us the cloaks you took from the soldiers and lend us a horse. One will do.”
“One?” I ask when the porter races off. Quin nods. He pulls a small dagger from inside his cloak, unsheathes it, and despite my sudden cry, slashes the back of his forearm.
“Our next act,” he says, clasping his other hand over the cut and smearing the blood over his bad leg. “I got hit in an attack. You were lucky, but lost your horse.”
Almost automatically, my hands vibrate with magic and the need to heal him.
Quin’s gaze flickers to me and away again. “It’s nothing but a scratch.”
“But you—you’re . . . I should’ve—”
“You’re not allowed to get hurt,” he says.
“Even if it’s just a scratch?”
“That’s an order.”
I grit my teeth. “I have an order, too. You won’t do this again.”
Quin’s eyes return to mine. “That’s not your call to make.”
“I’ll make it anyway.” I stare back, unflinching.
His lips twitch—a shadow of a smile. “Careful, Cael. You’re sounding awfully protective.”
My cheeks burn. “I’m a healer!”
Quin stares at me for a long-drawn moment before he hands me one of the passes I took from the redcloaks the day before. “Show this if you’re asked,” he says quietly. “No magic. Your talent will make him suspicious.”
We wrap red cloaks over our own, mount one of the less travel-worn horses, and ride.
The uneven road is flanked by giant sandstone rocks.
Our horse’s hooves clomp and clatter over loose stone, crushing the prickly flowers growing in the cracks and kicking up dust as we go.
A good stretch ahead, a simple carriage is making grooves through the rubble, moving slow, almost as if procrastinating.
Perhaps its occupant suspects nothing good awaits him at home.
We slow momentarily; the curtain twitches, the occupant peeking from the window.
Quin digs his heels in again as the driver registers our uniforms. With a wince of pain detectable only by me snug behind him, he raises a hand, and the horses pull to a stop.
“What is this?” The freckled cheeks of a man in his thirties appear from behind the curtain. He freezes for a moment but quickly gathers his wits; he sends his driver out of earshot before he turns back to us. “Who sent you?”
Quin speaks, “We were sent on a mission, but we’ve been hunted since we left the palace.”
“Why come to me?”
“The men who attacked us mentioned you were next.”
He gulps and eyes us, frowning. “Show me your beads.”
I pull mine from my waist and toss them to him for inspection. “Do you know any vitalian magic? This man needs tending.”
We put on a show getting Quin off the horse and hobbling to the wide shelf along the side of the carriage to perch, Quin clutching his bloodied arm.
Petros sucks in a breath, his movements turning frantic. “Hunted?”
Quin delivers a flat stare and Petros’s face drains of colour. “N-no, he wouldn’t,” he stutters, “Not after all I’ve done for him. No.”
“You’re no longer of use,” Quin says, embellishing with a nice hiss of pain between his lips.
I grab my handkerchief to bind the slash on his arm, bitterly ignoring the urge to summon a spell.
Quin grabs the cuff of Petros’s sleeve, pulling him closer. “Do you have anything—documents, letters, proof of his involvement?”
Petros panics. “I burned everything, as he ordered.”
I feel Quin’s disappointment in the sagging of his frame. He turns those feelings into a gasp of pain, clutching his leg this time. “Everything?”
“How do I prove that to him? Who’s involved, their families—” Petros snaps his head up, a flash of relief in his eyes. “They’re only in my head, nowhere else—”
“Then,” Quin says. “You are also evidence.”
“No.” A trembling whisper. “This can’t be. He promised.”
“They attacked us, killed one of our horses, wounded me. They’ll be back to finish the job.”
“W-what do we—”
“We have to run. Hide.”
“Right. Alright, alright.”
“The others involved, their families . . .”
Petros shakes his head, gaze widening in terror.
“We have to warn them,” Quin says.
“T-this—this can’t be happening.”
Quin grips Petros’s shirt and hauls him close. “There’s no time, we have to give them a chance. Come with us.”
“Come with . . . no, no, I don’t know how to fight. If they . . .”
“Then give us a list—turn back and hide. We’ll help the others.”
A shifting shadow catches in the corner of my eye; I whip my head around. The driver? I was sure he’d gone in the other direction.
I push off the carriage and sidle cautiously round to check the craggy rocks bordering this stretch of road.
“Y-yes. Yes,” Petros’s croaky voice carries. “Help the others—”
“Names. Where?”
Where did that driver go? Wait, what’s . . .
A flicker of movement from the rocks facing Petros and Quin. I race around the carriage. Men in red, masked. Two men in red. Bows, with glinting arrows notched, taking aim . . .
“In the south. There are five.”
“Names.”
Fear lances through me, quick and sharp.
They release their arrows; I cry out and magic surges out of me. I force it away and it spirals before the distracted king—
The arrow meant for Quin thunks into a nest of thorny flowers.
But the second arrow whizzes past and spears into Petros’s throat. The sharp crack of it punches the air. Blood splatters the carriage wall, its metallic tang mingling with the dust my inadequate shield stirred up. Quin is grasping Petros as he gurgles and goes limp.
A haunting silence follows. I stumble. My shield flips and booms out, uncontrolled, hurling the arrow it caught towards the redcloaks, who are . . . who are nocking new arrows—
Panic jolts my chest, and I squeeze my fist—
Quin steps forward with a roar, pebbles lifting from the ground at his command and shooting towards the masked men.
I stand frozen, caught between fear and awe as Quin’s fury shapes the winds around us and enemy bows fly from hands and smash against the rock.
The masked men scramble away, into the shadows.
Madly, Quin returns to clutching Petros’s shoulders. He looks my way, desperation pinching the corners of his eyes, his lips. “Save him.”
The man is gone. No living mage in this world could revive him. I shuffle toward them, trying to calm my rampant pulse. Telling myself that at least the king is safe.
“Save him!”
I drop to my knees, shaking my head.
“You must, you . . .”
“Quin . . .”
“Try! How will I ever—If I don’t— . . . Why are you not trying?”
His passionate plea is so strong, maybe he believes it can bring back the dead.
“He’s gone.”
Quin grips my arms, the blood from his hands seeping into my cloak in a way that makes me realise why the military wear red. I lift my head and look into his pained, frustrated eyes. I say it again. “He’s gone.”
He knows. He doesn’t want to accept.
He straightens and staggers past me. His torment echoes off walls of stone. He hurls rocks against the boulders over and over.
I let him release his frustrations and take care of Petros’s body, pulling him free, cleaning the wound, setting him inside the carriage to be taken back to his family.
The sprawled lump I glimpsed earlier is, indeed, the driver, knocked out with a blow to the back of the head and presumably taken for dead.
I heal the damage and when he wakes to news of his master, he cries and begs to take the body home; I let them go and once the dust from their leaving has settled, I return to Quin’s side.
Evening sun is quickly fading, but a glimmer of light is cast upon Quin’s face.
The confidence he carries like a second skin has been shed, leaving behind slender, delicate lines that remind me he’s young.
Not many years older than myself, and with an entire kingdom to protect.
His pale complexion and solemn dark eyes are tinted with sadness.
Skriniaris Evander was right. He is struggling.
Every day pretending to be in control, pretending to have a plan, pretending it’ll all work out. He survives on make-believe.
How exhausted he must be. How scared.
He shuts his eyes and draws a deep breath. I want to help him expel it, along with all his worries, but I can’t. All I can do is . . .
I take his injured arm, pluck off the handkerchief, and press a stitching spell against his wound.
Quin’s gaze lingers on the rocks, his shoulders rigid, his breath uneven. The silence stretches between us, heavy with unacknowledged grief. I rub a calming hand down his arm.
He doesn’t turn, but I feel the tremor rolling through him, and I feel his immediate attempt to claw it back.
But it’s too powerful, too consuming.
He shudders again, and this time it tears out of him in a roar.