Chapter 19
· YEMI ·
The Coral Road was an ancient trade route that allowed merchants from all three nations to bypass the treacherous mountains of Muris.
It became a contentious, violent place when relations with Kespia soured, and eventually an abandoned one when roads became more commonplace and seafaring commerce became faster.
The group made their trek by ambler. Yemi and Nova rode side by side behind Cutter and Shiro and flanked by Selah and half the Gold Guard.
They moved quickly, the jostling of the vehicles unkind at best and nauseating at worst. They moved in tense silence much of the way, listening and watching for enemies behind rocks, atop bluffs, and in distant fields.
Kespian lands were a short climb to their right, Ixia a quick tumble down a winding, brittle slope to the left.
For all anyone knew, Dahlia had reopened the road, and enemies waited to pounce should Yemi make an appearance.
Every time Yemi looked back, Selah was watching her with alert, keen eyes set in the scowl of her withering false body.
Perhaps an enemy was already among them.
She couldn’t help but count every precious second as the sun moved through the sky.
The satchel in her pocket ticked rhythmically, vibrating so loudly, it seemed, that she glanced every now and again at Nova to see if she could hear it.
Nova occasionally offered fruit, cheese, bread from the packed provisions.
But the one time Yemi took an apple, it was flavorless, turning to sand in her mouth.
No amount of water helped. She couldn’t tear her mind from the thought of meat.
What if this feeling, this hunger, never faded? Could she ever tell Nova everything she learned about Abyssa, about the world, about herself? What would that do to their love?
“You alright over there?”
Yemi was startled out of her thoughts. The sun was blazing its last before setting, and she squinted over at Nova.
“What?”
“You look sick.”
“Oh.” Yemi thought about telling her right then, about the things that led her to Hurand, the way blood triggered her to…
Well, she could spin it as greatness, perhaps.
How it made her a better fighter, an asset in the danger to come.
“It’s this ride,” she said instead. “I feel like a bowl of water being sloshed around up here.”
“You’re not thirsty, are you? For tea, maybe?”
“No,” Yemi replied. For something else, perhaps.
Cutter called them all to a halt on the edge of a cliff overlooking a steep climb down into a thick green forest. The ocean was a thin line disappearing into a hazy horizon beyond it. Somewhere in all of the green was Holicrane.
“The amblers will catch the light. We continue from here on foot,” said Cutter.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Yemi said, extricating herself from the metal beast. What she could feel of her legs was jelly. A climb wasn’t ideal.
“Don’t suppose I could ride you down the mountain, Cutter?” she asked, collecting her things.
He turned with a raised eyebrow and a glimmer of a smile. “Ten years and a hundred pounds ago? Absolutely.”
“A hundred pounds off you or me, old man?”
His laugh was warm. A sound she’d missed. It made the others smile as well. “Come on,” he called. “Take it slowly. We need your skull intact when we reach the bottom. Shiro and I will go on ahead to scout. Ennova knows the way.”
Nova nodded.
“My men take their orders from you,” Shiro declared.
“Understood,” said Nova.
“Obé Selah, they’ll be happy to help—”
“No need,” Selah snapped, yanking her hand from the careful grip of one of the Gold Guard and straightening her back. “I’ll get there before you.”
Yemi and Nova glanced at each other just long enough to hear the snap, and when they looked back, Selah was gone, leaving the puzzled soldier in her wake.
As they began their descent, Yemi replayed in her mind the gibberish spell Ursla had whispered into her ear.
Selah could have gone anywhere, or nowhere at all.
She could have been on the breeze, waiting for her to utter a betrayal or an unkind word.
Wherever she was now, Yemi decided, she’d better be at the house when they got there.
A series of totems carved into trees would ordinarily have directed them to the manor house.
The Swan King had had them installed for his son, the Stag King, who in his youth had a habit of wandering off in search of, well, stags.
The same animal appeared on the surface of ancient pines with directions to the next tree toward the interior coded into its antlers so the young Qorrea could find his way home.
As it was tonight, the forest’s canopy was too thick for moonlight to make out the worn symbols, and they carried no lanterns to avoid giving themselves away.
And so Nova guided them from some memory, a series of lessons burned into her mind like so many other things Cutter had taught her in preparation for becoming Yemi’s guardian.
Everything Nova did, every sacrifice she’d ever made, every task and skill she’d ever mastered in order to be by Yemi’s side, seemed more pronounced when weighed against the secrets Yemi was keeping from her.
Feeling awed by her was one thing. The embarrassment—shame, maybe—of not being awed sooner was another.
And then there was the latent dread of the hunger returning, of being forced into a fight where she would become something else. Something unlovable and unstable. In front of the one she loved.
Please let the house be empty.
Spots of warm light appeared in the interstices of tree trunks maybe two hundred yards ahead. Nova halted and issued a soft, two-toned whistle, and the footfalls of the Gold Guard fanned around them stopped as well. They drew toward her, and together they all crouched behind a low thicket.
“Did Cutter turn on every light in the house?” Yemi whispered.
“Unlikely,” Nova replied gravely. She licked her lips and whistled a second, more elaborate whistle, more like a bird call than an obvious signal.
They listened in the thick quiet until a similar whistle was returned.
“That’s an ‘advance with caution.’ Someone’s here,” she sighed and got back to her feet. “Single column. On me.”
Shit, Yemi thought.
As she followed, the lights became windows. They were approaching between the looming manor house itself off to the right and the smaller staff house on their left. Between the two buildings, moonlight glimmered off the tops of a pair of packards. A lot of someones were here.
They halted again a hundred yards off, and Nova whistled. The response was shorter, accompanied by careful footsteps crunching on forest floor until the forms of both Cutter and Shiro were upon them.
“Do we have a problem?” Nova asked.
“An obstacle, maybe,” Cutter replied. “The groundskeeper reports it’s a small contingent, maybe fifteen total. Four soldiers on the perimeter leaves eleven in the house and… a single ward.”
Yemi frowned. “Who’s the ward? Dahlia’s here? Already?”
Cutter shook his head. “Dorian.”
That smarmy rat bastard. Of course the elder Drake would be more interested in the luxuries than the business of ruling. This was an opportunity to thin out her opposition, to rob Dahlia of some of her stability.
“It’s loud,” Shiro said. “Chances are, they’re drinking. Soft targets. Easy enough to take dead or alive.”
“Alive,” Nova blurted out. “We should find out where their allegiances lie. No sense in wasting a good soldier.”
Cutter and Shiro glanced at one another.
“What? Out with it,” Yemi said, eager to get moving.
“Such a small team has to mean it’s his personal guard.” Cutter looked apologetically at Nova. “You know the rigors those positions require. There’s no question. They are his.”
Nova sighed, and Yemi understood. In many ways, they were getting ready to relieve the world of soldiers with whom she’d grown up, whose sparring made her the elite guardian she had become.
In every engagement, she was cutting through someone whose name she likely knew or had once promised a long, illustrious career in the service of the Crown.
“Your plan, then?” Yemi asked the men while Nova came to grips with their reality yet again.
“Eliminate the outer guards. Find a point of ingress on the upper floors and clear them as we work our way down,” Cutter explained.
“I want Dorian,” Yemi demanded. “Soldiers are a soldier’s business, but Dorian Drake pays me directly for what was done to Moss. That isn’t negotiable.”
She knew Cutter wanted to protest. It was improper for a royal to want blood.
“We can’t wait for them to settle down. We have to have control of this place before Derring arrives, or we’re setting them up for a loss,” Nova interjected.
Yemi recognized the look in her eyes that said she was ready.
“Take your team and clear the field. When you breach the house, we’ll look for Drake. ”
Shiro waited for Cutter to nod before giving his men a silent look that saw them all disperse toward the grounds. A moment later, they’d disappeared into the dark.
“Wait for my signal,” Shiro told Nova before moving away to join them.
“Eyes up. Be bulletproof,” Cutter grunted.
“Heard.” Nova nodded.
He left Yemi and Nova to stay crouched in the underbrush, listening intently for the almost imperceptible rustle of the Gold Guard edging toward the manor.
It was a testament to their skill that they blended into the breeze, their bootfalls indistinguishable from field mice skittering beneath leaves on the forest floor.
“Heh.” Nova laughed slightly in the dark.
“What?”
“We ended up at Holicrane anyway.”
Yemi watched one of the exterior guards bend to out a cigar on the far end of the circle. And when he stood again, he was yanked backward into the trees and replaced by stillness. “Here’s hoping it makes a better honeymoon spot than operating base,” she said.
“Not with the mess we’re about to make,” Nova scoffed.