Chapter Nineteen #2
He couldn’t let himself hope askells would return—and he shouldn’t hope for it—so he allowed himself the tears. Then he wiped his cheeks and indulged in some time with the goats and chickens in the enclosure outside before he ate the breakfast Cador had left him.
It wasn’t too long until he headed toward Rusk, drizzle falling from the same gray sky he’d seen for weeks and weeks. But Jem hummed defiantly. He wouldn’t let Ergh’s miserable weather bother him. If he could forgive Cador for the books, a little rain was nothing.
And he could. Although it hurt his heart to think of Morvoren and the others abandoned in the dirt, he believed Cador wouldn’t do that now. His belly was full of the fresh bread his husband had baked for him, and he would focus on that—and the flowers peeping through the damp soil.
Making sure not to venture too far from the path, Jem investigated the hardy little buds. The towering trees blocked the worst of the increasing drizzle, and Jem crouched on a bed of pine needles to get a closer look. The air was moist and loamy, rich with spring.
Ergh had been so gray and cold, but now Jem realized how fortunate he was to be here. To experience a true spring, new life bursting from its winter prison. He bent low and inhaled deeply, but of course the tiny, furled flowers had no scent yet.
A bird sang—an askell?—and he imagined it was Derwa. He’d never know if she survived her first night in the wild, but there was no harm in believing she fluttered above him now.
A voice suddenly echoing through the trees had Jem almost landing on his face in the dirt.
Cador’s voice. Springing up, Jem followed the distant sound before hesitating.
Cador was hunting. Would Jem stumble into a dangerous situation?
He should have brought one of Cador’s many spears, although they were so big he’d have to drag it.
He could hardly believe he’d actually speared a boar himself.
Amazing the strength abject terror could inspire.
He shuddered as he remembered the sensation of the spear plowing through flesh and scraping bone, Cador open-mouthed in the mud.
The relief that had swept Cador visibly and the gratitude in his blue eyes. The softening.
The love?
Standing in the shelter of giant pine boughs, a warm glow in Jem’s chest had him smiling. He should leave Cador to the hunt and retreat to the path. Go to Rusk and offer Austol another apology. Offer him any help he could possibly give.
But Cador’s voice rang out again on a gust of breeze—raised in…what? Anger? It didn’t sound like triumph, although Jem couldn’t yet make out the words. He was moving toward the sound before he even realized it, drawn helplessly.
Even as some instinct whispered to make his steps light.
Hidden in the shadows, he crept closer. Closer still. He spotted snatches of movement—leather-clad muscles. He tiptoed, bunching his cloak in one hand so it didn’t get caught on the sharp needles as he slipped into a pine’s embrace.
With no fur-topped cloaks today, Cador and Delen faced each other in a small clearing.
Their arms were bare beyond leather vests, and Jem saw that Delen had another tattoo around her forearm, the ink making a tight swirling pattern in her dark brown skin.
They stood holding spears dug into the soft ground, their horses nosing the underbrush.
“Then why have you been kind to him?” Cador accused.
Delen motioned with her free hand. “Why should I be cruel? He isn’t to blame. It would serve nothing.”
“Yet you’ll stand by and let it happen?”
“You would defy Tas? Forget that he’s our parent—he is our chieftain. He hasn’t made his plan lightly. We need this war and now is the time.”
“But he’s innocent in all of this.”
Jem could barely breathe. Only a fool would believe they could be discussing anyone but him. And what was this talk of war?
“He is,” Delen agreed. “But what of the children? More and more are afflicted as time goes on. Are they not innocent? How do you weigh innocent lives against each other? We have a duty to Ergh. To Hedrok.”
Cador’s face creased with grief. “But Jem…”
His name from Cador’s lips was a boot to the stomach, crushing the sliver of hope that they discussed another after all.
“I warned Tas you were too tender-hearted.” Delen sounded truly saddened.
“Me?” Cador scoffed.
“Of course. For all your bluster, you’re not the hardened warrior you’d like to be. For all your insistence that marriage is for sentimental fools, it didn’t take long for Prince Jowan to get under your skin. For that brand to mean something.”
Cador looked at his left palm before curling his fingers into a fist. “Why do you insist on calling him that? Jem—”
“ Prince Jowan must play his role. None of this has been decided lightly.” Delen shook her head. “Honestly, when I saw him, I thought it would be all right after all. He’s hardly your typical lover.”
“That has nothing to do with this!”
She raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t it? Jory says it’s obvious you’re fucking him at the very least. We’ve never known you to be possessive, brother.”
Jem swung from a helpless burst of joy that Cador might care for him more than any others back to the mounting dread. What was this plan? What was his role? It didn’t sound as though he’d like it. Not a bit.
Part of him wanted to run and remain ignorant, but of course he stayed motionless, hidden in the tree. Needles poked through his cloak and tickled his cheeks. He gripped the rough trunk, waiting.
“I’m supposed to sit back and let him be taken? Let these kidnappers spirit him away?”
An icy fist squeezed Jem’s heart. He couldn’t breathe.
“You had no qualms before,” Delen said.
“I didn’t know him then!”
“Focus that tender heart on your nephew! On Austol’s sister, on Meraud’s son in his grave, on Jory’s cousin in hers. How many more shall I name?”
As Delen rattled off a seemingly endless list, Jem’s mind spun. Kidnapped. He was to be kidnapped. Of all the secrets Cador could have hidden from him, of all the lies he could have told, Jem hadn’t once imagined anything so horrific.
Heart galloping, he was suddenly very aware of how alone he was. His people were across the sea, and though he’d realized the Erghians weren’t so very different after all, who could he trust if his husband was part of this plot?
He choked down a sob, a terrible grief welling deep within. For all his initial misgivings, he had trusted his husband. He truly had, but if Cador could hide this from him… He squeezed his eyes shut against the flood of tears, his fingers digging into the tree’s bark.
Kidnapped.
Where was he to be taken? By whom? Why? When? He felt like he had on the shore of the Askorn Sea, staring into an endless, fearsome unknown. Alone. But worse now— betrayed . Sorrow and hurt swelled, blotting out everything like the fortress of clouds that kept Ergh in perpetual gloom.
He thought of his mother, and a pang of longing for her and Father and Santo and his brothers buckled his knees. He clung to the tree. Would he ever see them again? Would he ever go home?
Cador said, “We may need this war, but no one is harming a hair on his head. Let alone severing his hand and delivering it to his mother.”
Darkness took Jem like sudden midnight. He choked down a surge of nausea, his breakfast threatening to come back up as the joy was snuffed by anguish.
He couldn’t breathe. Blood rushed in his ears and he stumbled back, his body taking flight of its own accord, unwilling to hear another word—unable to withstand the heartbreak.
Of course they heard the rustle of boughs and spun toward him, spears in hand. Run! Yet his feet were stone as he met Cador’s gaze, horror in those wide blue eyes.
“You were going to cut off my hand?” Jem didn’t recognize his own voice, the words scraped from his throat barely a whisper.
Then he was running, unable to bear the answer. Cador had lied to him from the moment they met. He was to be kidnapped? His hand chopped off? Then what? Imprisoned? Tortured?
And Cador knew ?
It had to be a phantom pain, but Jem’s branded palm throbbed as he ducked below branches, tearing his cloak free and running like he never had before. Because Cador and Delen chased—of course they did.
They called his name, pleading, but Jem ignored them, wind rushing as he ran, ran, ran. His size worked to his advantage for once, and he evaded them by ducking between thick stands of pine although they knew the forest so well.
It rained heavily now, a wall of gray that broke through the thick boughs and branches that clawed Jem’s cheeks.
At some point, they had to have given up the chase, because they would have caught him eventually.
His smallness was no match for their skill in the long run.
Though he’d been the one running away, Jem couldn’t stop a fresh burst of pain at wondering why Cador had given up so easily.
Somehow—perhaps the gods felt he deserved a bit of luck—Jem found Rusk and skirted the trees toward the stable. His soaked tunic and leather trousers clung to him, his toes squelching in his boots. It was surely almost midday, but the rainstorm made it dark, thunder clapping and making him jump.
The stable was the only place he knew to go. Surely Austol would shelter him, at least for the moment. At least until he could figure out what to do. Where to go.
He’d begun to feel comfortable on Ergh. Welcomed. Did the children and their parents who’d gathered for his stories know he was to be taken and wounded so grievously? He prayed not, but questioned everything he thought he’d known.
“Prince Jowan!”
Jem instantly scowled as Jory jogged toward him. Jory was soaked by the rain himself and out of breath, his ginger hair dark and plastered to his head.
“You must come with me. Cador—”
“Cador can sink to the bottom of the Askorn Sea!” Jem backed away, his boots slipping in the mud. He furiously wiped rain from his eyes.
Jory held up his hands, having to shout to be heard over the deluge. “Please. There’s…” He shook his head. “There’s so much you don’t know.”
“I know all I need to.” He stumbled back. “Stay away from me!” Had Jory known all along? Had he and Cador been fucking and plotting? Had they been laughing about how gullible Jem was?
A small voice reminded him that Cador seemed regretful, and there was no reason to think he and Jory had been together, but the roar of jealousy and resentment paired with suspicion. Jory wasn’t his friend. He’d assured Jem there was nothing to fear from him. Why would he say that?
“Jem.” Austol’s voice rang out as he strode toward them, and Jem moved to him eagerly.
“Please, you must come with me!” Jory said. “We must find Cador.”
Austol eyed Jory warily. “He doesn’t want to go with you.”
“I know, but he must.” Jory pleaded with his hands. “I think you’re in danger.”
“I know I am! Cador is a liar. I was a fool.” The weight of Austol’s arm squeezing around Jem’s shoulders was a warm relief. Something solid to lean on.
Austol spoke calmly to Jory. “He’s clearly upset. He doesn’t want to go with you or see Cador right now. Come on, Jem. We can talk. Find out what this is all about.” He whistled, and one of the horses trotted over from the pasture, its hooves spraying up mud and rainwater.
But Jory shook his head. “I can’t let you leave.”
Jem’s stomach flip-flopped uneasily. He thought of Jory and Bryok together yesterday by the stable. What was this? Was Jory his kidnapper? He could well imagine Bryok being involved.
Austol huffed out a sound of surprise. “What? Are we prisoners, Jory? This is madness.” He squeezed Jem reassuringly. “We’re going to talk.”
The horse who joined them wore no bridle, but stood obediently, a third point on the triangle of their standoff.
Jory repeated, “I can’t let you go.” There were no traces of his usual good humor, and his jaw set in a stubborn edge.
The hair rose on the back of Jem’s neck. Jory meant it—he wouldn’t let them leave. He was a big man—certainly bigger than Jem or Austol. Jory reached for the horse, and Austol suddenly shoved him into the mud, yelling at Jem to mount as he and Jory wrestled.
Grabbing the horse’s mane, Jem sprang up—and made it!—his heart drumming. A moment later, Austol was behind him and they were off, Jory’s shouts lost in the howling rain.
They galloped along the outskirts of Rusk before Austol guided the horse across soaked fields. The deluge finally eased. Jem blinked at the unfamiliar landscape. Had they gone south? He thought so, but couldn’t be sure.
It didn’t matter—at least he was away from Jory and Cador and Delen. He needed time to think. He dismounted gratefully at the edge of a thick copse of trees on the swell of a hill and sank to his knees in the mud.
“Thank you,” he croaked to Austol. “I just need some time. I…” He was in need of much more than time, but he couldn’t begin to put it into words.
“I understand,” Austol said. He petted the horse’s neck and looked down sadly at Jem. “I know it’s easy for me to say, but try not to be frightened.”
He had to laugh dully. “Rather a lost cause. There’s so much I didn’t know.”
“Me too.” Austol sighed.
The dark clouds had departed, the sky brightening by the minute, a mass of white rather than gray for a change. Jem was so thirsty. He wanted to spill out the whole awful story to Austol and get his advice, but he was too heartsick.
Instead, he pushed to his feet and said, “I’m so sorry your sister is ill. What’s causing it? Can I help?”
Austol leaned into the horse, stroking its neck rhythmically.
He closed his eyes. “It’s taken years to discover the cause.
To find a solution.” He swallowed hard, his throat working as he met Jem’s gaze steadily.
“Thank you. You’re a good man. If it’s any comfort, I think Cador really has fallen in love with you. I can see why.”
It shouldn’t have been a comfort—Jem shouldn’t have allowed it for even a moment—but it was, and he did. He opened his mouth to respond but was suddenly blinded. He blinked, holding up his hand to block the staggeringly bright light.
It took him longer than it should have to realize it was the sun. The sun! Not only had the rain stopped, but now the sun was peeking from behind the clouds that had remained impenetrable for so long. Perhaps he’d even see blue sky.
In that moment, Jem thought he would weep for joy at feeling the sun’s warmth on his face for the first time since the Holy Place. It overwhelmed with its simple beauty, and he closed his eyes, hands loose at his sides.
He was able to smile as he murmured, “Maybe it’s a sign from the gods.”
The words had barely left his chapped lips when hands were upon him, rough and merciless. Jem jerked open his eyes in time to see the world made black by the dark sack that encased his head and muffled his screams as he was dragged away.