Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
W e left the inn with dawn’s light. I wasn’t sorry to leave the inn behind, though the bed had been nicely firm and the room warm and the food decent. Bonus, the innkeeper hadn’t seemed to care I was half-sprite, as long as we were married. That was a rarity.
I was trying hard not to think of the whole “married” aspect.
Kason slept on the floor in front of the door and awoke pale and drawn.
Served him right for not trusting my word.
Although, privately, I could admit that I’d wondered if the revelations of the night before had mitigated my vow not to escape.
I hadn’t agreed to marriage , of all things.
Shouldn’t that development mean I was absolved of any of my promises?
I was a fool for not trying to escape last night, and now I was stuck, the bindings back on my wrists once we’d left the village behind us. Kason had slapped them on when I wasn’t expecting it, and before I knew it, my magic was once again locked away.
“Did you say a prayer when you caught me?” I asked, rubbing my wrists. The magical leather chafed my skin in the damp chill left after yesterday’s rain.
“No.” Kason sounded impatient—and fair enough, since I had been asking similar questions for the past two hours as I tried to puzzle out how in the hells’ fiery depths we’d managed to get married. I was tired of the questions too, but we had to know .
“Are you sure? Maybe you made a promise to your god?” I raised my voice mockingly. “‘If only you’ll let me catch him, Lord, I promise I won’t let him go’?”
Kason paused and turned to glare at me. His skin was still pale, a testament to just how poorly he’d slept the night before. “No.” He started walking again, tugging the thin strap attached to my bindings.
Grumbling, I followed. Not like I had much choice. “Well, you did something .”
“Or maybe you did.”
My brows shot up. “Me?” I sputtered. “No. Very much no.”
“You weren’t praying to your god when we were facing off?”
“For your information, I don’t have a god,” I huffed. “And even if I was praying—which I refuse to confirm—it would have been to get away from you. Not to bind myself to you. How stupid do you think I am?”
“Pretty stupid,” Kason muttered, just loud enough for my sharp, pointed ears to catch.
“I beg your pardon?” I planted my feet and jerked back when Kason tugged the line, unwilling to move. “I’ll have you know that a stupid thief wouldn’t have evaded you for nearly two years, you?—”
“And yet, here you are.” Kason held up the tether, making my bound hands rise.
“That’s not because I was stupid.”
“You were pretty stupid.”
“I was?—”
“You wanted me to catch up to you.”
Oh, if I had my magic right now, I’d wipe that smirk off Kason’s face. “I wanted no such thing.”
“You did,” Kason insisted. “You hadn’t seen me in more than a week and you?—”
“How can you bear the weight of your ego in addition to your armor?”
Undeterred, Kason continued, “You stayed longer and longer at each place you stopped. You forget, Mokido, I know you. I know your patterns. I know your habits. You stop at dusk, and you leave at dawn.” He arched a brow.
“You don’t stop before supper and leave after breakfast—except you did. For the last ten days, you did.”
I gritted my teeth. “I was— I was resting, since I’d lost you, and?—”
“Horseshit. You missed me.” Still smirking, Kason turned on his heel and started walking again.
Only to pause and stagger sideways.
Without thinking, I darted forward to catch Kason’s elbow. The witch-hunter leaned heavily on me for a moment, breathing hard. Fear thudded in my chest, a heavy, foreboding beat—simply because I was afraid for myself, that was all. I wasn’t worried about Kason. That would be ridiculous.
Still, my tone held concern I couldn’t erase when I asked, “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Kason said, straightening. “Come on, enough talking.”
He stepped away from me and gave the tether a yank, and any concern I might have theoretically been feeling dissipated as though it had never existed.
Good.
Near midday, we had just reached another village when Kason faltered again.
This time, I didn’t recognize what I was seeing until Kason crashed to the ground, and even then, I stood still, shocked that the big, muscular witch-hunter had…fainted? Passed out?
I pulled on the tether, only to find that it slipped through Kason’s fingers—and that was when the hint of concern I’d felt hours earlier flared into being again. This wasn’t right—Kason was supposed to be all but invulnerable. At least, he’d seemed so during the months he’d been chasing me.
“Kason?” I asked, my voice tentative.
I cast a glance at the woods from which we’d just emerged and pulled on the tether again.
The motion met no resistance. I could make a run for it—surely I’d be able to find someone to remove the bindings.
I couldn’t be the first witch in this predicament.
But that would, no doubt, cost coin, and I’d abandoned my meager purse with the rest of my gear during my showdown with Kason.
Of course I could simply relieve Kason of his purse before I ran. Compensation for this idiotic situation. There was some poetry to that, wasn’t there?
Except Kason had yet to move. Was he…? Was he even breathing?
I dropped to my knees beside Kason and rolled him onto his back.
I held a hand over the witch-hunter’s mouth and ignored my own trembling—it was fear, nothing more, fear that if Kason died while I was present, they’d find some way to hang that on me too.
Well…at least then I wouldn’t have to beg for execution, would I?
I thought I felt breath on my palm—a bit ragged, maybe, but there. Leaning forward, I put my ear to Kason’s chest, only to realize the gesture was pointless because I could hear nothing through the layers of leather, linen, and padding he wore.
Thudding footsteps jerked my attention away from the fallen witch-hunter.
I raised my hands in a defensive motion, ready to hurl magic at whoever approached—only to gasp as the lack of magic resonated behind my sternum, as though someone had scooped out my innards with a dull spoon. Damned magic bindings.
A young woman slid to a stop, her hands raised. “I mean you no harm.” Behind her, two men paused—one elderly, one young. The young one looked like her sibling, and the elderly man might have been her grandfather. Or her uncle. Or no one to her at all, what the hells did it matter?
I recognized the rising panic in my chest and tamped it down. Kason was not worth panicking over. “My— He— He fell.”
“May I?” She gestured vaguely at Kason’s form and darted forward when I nodded.
I sat back, rubbing the bindings on my wrists. I didn’t miss when the woman noticed them. She paused ever so slightly before turning back to her patient.
“Has he been ill?” she asked.
“No. He just…fell.”
“May we move him inside? I’d like to get his armor off, and this is not the place for that.”
I bit back an inappropriate giggle. No, it certainly wasn’t the place to strip. An instant later, I pinched the bridge of my nose. Dear gods, what was wrong with me? “Yes. That’s fine.”
The woman waved forward her brother and possible grandfather, who, now that he was closer, seemed more likely to be her father or older brother who’d gone gray prematurely. Not that such details mattered. They were just easier than contemplating why in all the hells Kason had collapsed .
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Hey.”
The gentle word encouraged me to open my eyes again and look up. The woman stood there, a soft smile on her face and her hand outstretched.
“Come,” she said. “Your— He’ll be okay. We’ll find out what’s wrong, and we’ll fix it.”
I wished I had half of her confidence. But I took her extended hand all the same and let her lead me into a nearby house. The two men hefted Kason into their arms and followed.
The woman’s name was Tisin, and she was the nearby village’s healer.
The fellow with gray hair was her older brother Crias and the younger one was her cousin Etdan, both of whom worked in the smithy set behind Tisin’s house.
I couldn’t think of a nice way to ask if they followed the teachings of the Sightless God, but given that they hadn’t struck Kason or me down for daring to employ enchanted bindings, I had to assume they were not Harkanato’s followers.
That assumption was further upheld when Tisin performed a bit of magic herself.
“Just a survey spell,” she assured me as she drew patterns above Kason’s forehead. After a moment, she frowned and opened her eyes—just as Kason did.
Oh, the relief that spiked in my chest was so unwelcome. How dare my feelings get involved in any form? Why did I care what happened to Kason? The man was nothing less than infuriating. Exhausting. In fact, if Kason were ill, I would have an easier time sneaking away at some point…
Very easy, if Kason’s lack of reaction to his new surroundings was any indication.
“You’re safe,” Tisin said, looking down at her patient. “I’m a healer.”
“How—”
“You just fell down!” I hadn’t realized I was going to speak until the words burst out of me. “Right in the middle of the road!”
“Mokido—”
The trembling was back. Godsdamn my body and its asinine reactions. “Don’t Mokido me.”
“I’m fine. I’m just tired.” His eyes slid closed for a moment, as though adding their own punctuation to his sentence.
“Unfortunately, I’m afraid you’re not fine,” Tisin said softly. Kason opened his eyes again at her words, but made no move to sit up, which was worrying in and of itself. “There seems to be a drain on your energy.”
Both Tisin and Kason looked at me. I held up my hands, still bound in the godsforsaken leather. “It’s not me, genius.”
Kason rolled his eyes. “Perhaps whatever cast this ridiculous mark on my wrist?—”
“What mark?” Tisin asked.