50
“Clap him in irons,” my brother ordered the soldiers as soon as the schooner was moored to one of the many docks branching in the bay.
“Araton,” I ground out, grabbing him by the arm before he could start toward the gangway.
He stared at my fingers as if they were poisonous vines, his hair whipping around his face in the strong, windy gusts. From the moment he had learned I’d spent the night in the hold with Amlach, he had refused to look me in the face.
“He is not a threat,” I asserted.
Especially now that we had regained our elven strength and speed. Amlach couldn’t even try to escape, let alone attack us. Why did my brother persist in treating him as if he were a danger?
Araton and Amlach exchanged a sideways glance filled with hatred and an emotion I couldn’t understand.
Then my brother gently grasped my wrist and removed my hand from his arm. “We’ll see if you still think that.”
What did he mean?
Before I could ask, he nodded toward the soldier who had come up from below deck, carrying a pair of shackles. He approached Amlach, who held out his wrists without a word, his smug gaze fixed on Araton.
Before I knew it, I moved away from my brother to get closer to Amlach. I watched the metal bands tighten first around one wrist, then around the other, my face crumpling with both pain and anger.
It wasn’t right. We weren’t in Rubra anymore. We were no longer slaves. We were free. Free.
I never wanted to see Amlach in chains again.
“Hey,” he whispered in his language to distract me from the key turning in the handcuff lock. “It’s all right.”
I started to tell him it wasn’t true. To tell him that nothing would be all right, because we would soon be separated.
But Araton clawed at my elbow and pulled me away from Amlach. “Stop staying so close to him,” he hissed.
I snatched his fingers off me, prepared to reply with a ferocity that wasn’t like me but that I felt inexplicably mine.
“It’s not her fault, Prince,” Amlach said imperiously.
I whipped my head back toward him, feeling shocked and deeply hurt.
So, he did know Elvish.
Why had he lied to me? How could he have?
Amlach showed no remorse or apology, merely keeping a harsh look as he stared at my brother. “We have lived chained together day and night. It’s simply a habit.” His gaze turned grim. “Stop getting on at her.”
Araton looked at him as if he wanted to stick his hand in his mouth and rip out his tongue. “Shut your trap,” he replied with utter disgust, without bothering to use the common tongue. “Let’s go!” he then commanded out loud.
I blinked rapidly to hold back the tears and then set off after my brother.
“Nauriel,” Amlach called under his breath as I walked past him.
“No,” I said tartly in Elvish.
His wrath felt like an invisible force engulfing me, as we disembarked and followed the long quay, less crowded than the others.
Nestled in several coves, the port of the Kingdom of the Elves was surrounded by granite cliffs covered with lush, light-sea-green vegetation.
As Araton told me that the Lake Caran dam had been rebuilt, we walked along the cobbled stone streets of the village, passing between its white lime houses, with seagulls screeching and getting a few sardines from the fishermen, and the aroma of fish soup drifting from the shops.
Seeing me safe and sound, people rippled with bows and curtsies, their expressions filled with joy, and their tears-swollen eyes flicking skyward as they thanked the Spirits for my return.
I offered them smiles of gratitude and gentle touches, but silenced their voices, focusing only on the wind’s whistle and the snap of my golden cloak flapping against my legs.
Arriving at the stable of an inn on the village outskirts, we collected the horses left in care by Araton and the soldiers.
I peered at Amlach, who, despite his bound hands, lithely got on one of the two additional black horses prepared for us.
Without the reins, which had been taken from the horse’s neck and tied to a soldier’s saddle stirrup, he held on tightly to a thick lock of mane.
My eyes found Amlach’s.
You hurt me, mine said.
I know, his replied.
“We don’t have all day, Sister,” Araton said, already on his stallion.
I glared at him and, grasping the saddle’s fork, mounted the horse reserved for me with an acrobatic leap. Before my brother issued the command, I sped off at a gallop northeastward.
Fighting to repress the relentless and terrible urge to seize Amlach’s black horse’s reins and run away with him.