Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
As Verna watched the bear come, she was suddenly aware of everything with a strange, heightened clarity: the cold morning air on her face; the weight of the laurel wreath in her braids; the silk of her gown against her legs; and the sand under her feet.
The same sand that had been used in the three days of competition and stained with the blood of the injured.
She was aware of the crowd, utterly silent now in the way that people went quiet when something was happening that they didn't fully understand.
She was conscious of the boxes along the western wall, Thom on his feet at the rail, Carlton beside him, and Marie with both hands pressed to her mouth.
She saw her guards who had followed her down the steps, standing impotent along the stone wall.
In the imperial box, Borgine stood with his hands on his hips, with Bain looking uncertain beside him.
She heard sounds from behind the western archway, Kalen's voice, and the yells of the emperor's guards trying to contain her.
She was aware of all of it.
And underneath the lot, she was acutely conscious of the ring.
It had started before the thick door opened.
A vibration, not warm or cold, but a reverberation of a plucked string, starting at the point of contact and moving outward through everything connected to it.
It moved up through the metal of the ring into the bone of her finger and from there up through her hand and her wrist and her arm, not unpleasant, not painful, but insistent.
The feeling of something that had been awakened and the wait was finished.
She pressed her thumb against the ring without thinking about it.
The vibration deepened.
It reached her chest and she felt it there, not in the way she felt emotions, but deeper than that, somewhere beneath her ribs. It sat there and resonated like the lowest note of an instrument too large to be played indoors.
She breathed in and out, embracing the magic.
When she looked up to see the bear was getting closer, the ring pulsed rapidly.
Then something happened.
The best way Verna could describe it afterward was that it was like a door opening. Not a large door but a small interior one, that she had always known was there but never had the key.
What came through wasn’t something foreign.
That was the thing she hadn’t expected and couldn’t quite explain.
It was something that had been waiting in the blood exactly as her great-grandmother had written: patient, ancient, and entirely her own.
It seemed like looking into a glass and finally seeing clearly what had always been there.
She felt it move through her like the waves in the sea, dwarfing her sense of her own scale without diminishing her. And the ring on her finger was no longer vibrating, it was singing.
She couldn't have explained this to anyone who hadn't experienced it. It wasn’t sound but the air itself.
The bear came closer.
Twenty feet. Fifteen.
She didn’t step back.
Her fear was acute as she gazed at that huge body and long claws, but she held it alongside the thing throbbing in her blood that was older than life itself. When the bear was ten feet away, she raised her hand.
The ring flared with power, like an ember that went to brightness in a single breath. It burst out of her in every direction at once.
The bear stopped.
Not gradually, but completely, mid-stride, as though it had run into a barrier it couldn’t pass through.
It stood very still, breathing loudly, and studied her.
This close, it wasn’t the claws or its size that held her attention, it was its eyes.
She let it look at her for as long as it needed, then she projected her thoughts at it.
Somehow, she knew in her very bones that it would hear and understand her.
She told it she knew how it had been taken from its homeland, how it had been beaten and caged, and kept in the dark in filthy conditions.
How they had put the heavy collar around its neck and chained it to the wall.
She projected the scene in the auctions, where people were similarly chained and beaten. How she had bought the most vulnerable and taken them to her estate to heal.
The bear's head dropped slightly in acknowledgment of her kindness.
She took one step toward it.
The bear sat down.
She ignored the sounds that came from the stands, ten thousand people reacting loudly to the scene unfolding before them.
Verna stood in the centre of the arena with the bear sitting in front of her, as docile as a lamb.
She turned and looked at the imperial box.
Borgine’s hands were gripping the rail, his face the colour of old ash. For the first time, he looked afraid.
She held his gaze for a moment, then turned back to the bear and projected, Do you want your freedom?
It nodded its shaggy head.
She moved up to it and raised her hand to conjure up a twirling wind that spiralled the sand around them.
Once hidden from sight, Verna spurted a white-hot flame from the tip of a finger and cut through the iron collar in two places.
As soon as it fell off the huge neck, she let the wind drop.
The bear, now free of the heavy shackle, stood up on its hind legs and roared.
The sound echoed like a boom around the arena and people in the lower tiers scrambled to get higher up.
When it lowered its head to look at her, she asked, Would you like to come home with me where you’ll be safe?
Yes, witch, came the gravelly reply in her head.
Then from behind the western archway, came a crash of something heavy being overturned followed by the loud cries from the emperor's guards, and Kalen burst onto the sand.
The bear whipped its head around and bared its teeth.
She’s a friend, Verna said urgently.
Kalen skidded to a stop and stared at them.
Verna took a paw in her hand and projected, Come. Let’s get out of this accursed place. She waved to Kalen. "Send two guards to get the carriage and collect my belongings and Marleen. We’re leaving immediately."
Kalen didn’t argue, simply nodded and signalled to the guards who were standing on the sideline.
Ten thousand people watched in silence as Verna led the massive bear across the sand to the entrance to the amphitheatre. The emperor’s guards stepped aside, allowing them to pass. Her soldiers and Kalen flanked her and the bear as they walked across the street to the inn.
The carriage was waiting for her by the time they reached the entrance to the Laurel Crown. When Marleen saw the bear, she squealed and ducked into the carriage.
Verna turned to the bear. Can you keep up with the carriage?
Yes, witch. I am bred to run.
Good, because I want to get out of Castine before the emperor sends his soldiers after us. I am, after all, stealing his property.
They left the inn at a pace that was somewhere between undignified and reckless, the carriage rattling over the cobblestones with Marleen protesting every time it hit a bump.
The people in the streets hurried aside to let them pass as they sped through the city, Kalen on horseback alongside, the four guards spread around them, and a war bear the size of a small house loping behind the carriage.
Thankfully, the streets weren’t crowded, for most people were in the amphitheatre.
The carriage and its unusual escort produced reactions ranging from frozen disbelief to one man dropping his entire basket of cabbages.
Meanwhile, Verna tried to stay composed, trying not to think about Borgine getting over the shock and ordering his troops to catch them.
They cleared the city gates twenty minutes after leaving the arena, which was faster than Verna had ever made it through the Castine traffic in her life.
The coastal road opened up before them and when her driver flicked the whip, the horses found another gear. The bear kept up with an easy loping stride. She had been built for this and was clearly enjoying the run and the freedom.
"Do you think they’ll follow us?" Kalen called, pulling alongside the carriage window. The cut on her forehead had opened up again from her tussle with the emperor's guards, and she looked worried.
"Borgine will take a while to get over the shock and humiliation, but he’ll give the order.
He’ll have to or he will lose all face," Verna replied with certainty.
"Someone has to carry the order to the garrison, then the commander has to organise the troops. If we're lucky, we’ll have a three-quarters of an hour’s start. "
"So, we need to be off the main road in an hour."
"Ideally," Verna agreed.
Kalen looked at the bear, who was running alongside the carriage with its tongue out, that appeared strange given its size. "Does it … does she know to stay with us?"
Verna relayed the question.
The bear's response in her head was something that translated roughly as obviously, witch, with an added crude remark she didn’t pass on.
"She knows," Verna said.
Kalen accepted this with the equanimity of a woman who had long since stopped being surprised by the world and worked with the information as it arrived.
They made good time on the coastal road, although the horses moved at a pace they couldn't sustain indefinitely. The sea appeared on their left as the road climbed the ridge, and the wind blew cold off it.
Inside the carriage, Marleen had progressed from small sounds of distress to a resolute silence that was almost more concerning. She sat with her bag on her lap and her eyes straight ahead.
"Are you alright?" Verna asked.
"Perfectly fine, My Lady," Marleen said, in a tone that meant the opposite.
"The bear is very gentle," Verna offered.
Marleen's eyes moved briefly to the window where the bear was visible in large portions as it ran alongside. "If you say so, My Lady," she ground out.
They were perhaps a mile from the turnoff to the ridge road when Kalen's voice came from outside.
"Dust. Behind us. Two miles maybe."