Chapter 52 Neirin
NEIRIN
“Bested you again!”
I blinked, the sun beaming down on me as I lay in the cool grass. Squinting, I followed the line of the wooden sword held to my chest. A familiar, rounded face looked down at me. Freckles dotted the boy’s nose and cheeks, and his short-cropped hair stood on end.
Thatcher.
I scoffed and pushed the pretend weapon aside. Getting to my feet, I dusted autumn leaves off my tunic, which hung over one shoulder, a bit too large. “You distracted me on purpose,” I said, my voice youthful.
Thatcher grinned, not denying the fact, and playfully skipped back a few steps, his sword held straight out.
“You’ll get me this time, little brother.
” Little. I was younger than him by less than a fortnight.
In truth, I stood an inch taller than him.
He was agile, though, and clever. And admittedly, I was easily distracted.
“I don’t want to play anymore.” Tossing my sword to the ground, I picked up my waterskin from where I’d left it atop a stone bench and took a deep drink.
It did little to cool me, so I dumped the remaining water over my head.
Beads dripped from clumped silver strands of hair and made wet paths down my face.
“Why’d you do that?”
“It’s hot,” I said, tugging at my tunic.
“No, it’s not. Are you daft?”
I readied a retort, but something told me Thatcher was right.
It was the season of falling leaves. Overhead, the sun shone in a clear sky, but it had not been warm in several fortnights.
The mornings were frigid, and the days not much better.
I was distantly aware of icicles dripping from the bird bath just beyond the flower beds to my left.
Heat surged through me.
“I think I might be ill,” I said, recalling the last time I’d caught an ailment. The flashes of heat had come before I spilt the contents of my stomach.
“You just don’t want to lose to me again,” Thatcher said boldly, though he took a step back anyway, just in case I did lose my midday meal.
Feeling dizzy, I sat down. The heat was becoming as unbearable as grabbing a pot hung over a hearth. Burning, searing. A writhing panic rose in my chest, like a nightmare, like snakes beneath my skin.
“Neirin?”
A sharp pain in my head sent me curling forward. I held my head atop my knees, hands cupping my ears to fend off the ringing.
“Neirin …” The voice, smaller and frightened this time, seemed so distant I almost didn’t hear it.
Intense pain took me, blurred my vision until darkness consumed my sight as I fell to my side.
Half-unconscious, aware only of agony, time fragmented.
Cloth confined me, but when I sought to push it from my face, I could not.
I had no control over my limbs. I tried to cry, to scream, but I was trapped within myself.
On shaking limbs, the body that bound me got to its feet. The world took on a lower vantage point, and I beheld my brother before me like a giant, the colors of the world around him all off. Again, the wooden sword was pointed at me. This time, tears gathered in Thatch’s eyes.
“Monster,” he cried, his voice broken. “Give me back my brother!”
I am your brother. Monster?
Thatcher jabbed at the air in front of me, and the body that held me leapt back, snarling. My brother stepped forward, cornering me against a garden hedge. The tears that welled in his eyes created paths down his cheeks.
“Monster!”
This time, the wooden sword struck my head, radiating dull aching pain, sending the world sideways. Again, I growled, getting to my feet. But the sound was not my own. Neither were the steps that took me toward my brother.
When Thatcher struck out again, the monster leapt at him.
And in the next moment, the taste of iron consumed my senses.
My brother’s neck snapped within the grip of the monster’s jaws.
So fragile. The gasping gurgles silenced, and from a place outside of myself, within the confines of a monster, I watched my brother’s eyes loose their life.
All I could feel was the pounding of the monster’s heart.
Shock consumed my thoughts, even as the monster licked the blood from its snout.
The murky darkness of a nightmare held me. But this was not a nightmare. It was a memory. I’d seen this before, been here before.
I’d killed my own brother.
I woke with a start, heart thundering in my chest.
Reality came back to me in a rush. I became aware of the lack of warmth, of the quiet, of the absence of my mate.
Evera and Calix—they were gone.
Rushing to my feet, I forced the memories of my brother’s death down.
The small blanket that had covered me in the night fell to the earth.
The only remains of our supplies aside from Sorrel, who nibbled at the short grass.
Panic, anger, and worry sent me pacing. I’d slept in my boots, and twigs snapped beneath my feet. Sweat beaded on my forehead.
Where did they go? Why would they leave without me?
Through the rasping of my breath, I fought to make sense of the situation.
How had I not woken? I cursed to myself.
With Evera, I slept more soundly than I did on my own.
But that was no excuse. If anything, I should sleep lighter when I have my mate to protect.
Was it the nightmare that had held me in sleep and kept me from waking?
“Neirin.” A voice carried from across the river, and I turned.
Evera.
She stood at the far bank, Calix beside her and a sack of supplies over her shoulder. Relief fell over me to see them safe, though in the next instant, frustration took its place.
“Dammit, Evera,” I growled. I didn’t want to snap at her, but what she’d done was reckless, and she’d only done it in the dead of night because she knew I would not agree to the plan.
“How did you cross the bridge?” Soldiers were mostly young, selfish pricks of men who would take such an opportunity to— And after what she’d told me the night before … “Did they touch you?”
“No.” Her level tone spoke for itself. She’d known, then, that it had been a possibility that one of them would try something.
Clearing the few short steps to the river’s edge, I ran a hand through my hair. “You shouldn’t have gone without me.”
“We couldn’t have crossed with you; those soldiers are posted there in search of you.”
She wasn’t wrong. Still, she’d put herself in harm’s way. Equal measures of guilt and fear flashed hot and cold through me. I should have woken.
“What now?” I asked, knowing the answer. There was only one reason they would cross without me, just to meet me at the opposite bank.
“You can’t swim the river,” Evera said calmly, “but your fox can.”
“That’s a bold assumption.” My worry tainted my tone with sharpness.
“I’ve seen foxes swim rivers, back in Elrune.”
Huffing, I held her gaze. The woman was stubborn as ever.
“Fine,” I growled, even though the thought of giving power to the fox still frightened me.
Despite my bitterness over how it was handled, it wasn’t a poor plan.
Though I couldn’t control the fox, it was sensible to assume he would go to her.
He always had in the past. The draw of the bond was stronger than any other instinct that drove him.
But Calix … Even if his magic was strong …
I swallowed, images from my dream returning to me.
“This is why you asked about my guard’s uniform?” I removed my boots, trying to focus my thoughts.
“Don’t need you traipsing into the castle naked, now do we?” Her tone was too light for the moment.
I grumbled and raised my eyes to the pair of conspirators once more before pulling my cloak and shirt over my head. An idea came over me with a rush of relief. “My uniform has some of my own blood on it; can you find it, Calix?” I didn’t want him here. Not when I was not in control.
The boy considered for a moment, then nodded.
I was unsure how the sense of smell worked with his kind, only that they detected my blood.
But from how far off? I suspected it was at least a mile from here that I shed the uniform.
At least Astraea would have had no reason to send her boys out in this direction, so it should have remained untouched.
“Off you go, then,” I told him, an edge of command in my voice.
He narrowed his brows but didn’t object. When he disappeared through the trees, I turned my attention back to undressing, working at the ties of my trousers.
My monster will not hurt Evera. My fox would not hurt his mate.
“I’m sorry to force your hand like this,” Evera said, her voice quiet, words almost undetectable beneath the rushing of the water.
“Do not exclude me from your planning in the future,” I said, stepping out of the last of my clothing.
I did not want to fight, nor did I want to stifle her, but it was hard to force the bitterness from my tone.
Did she not see how she worried me? How did the essence of my being seek to protect her?
Capable or not, I wanted to stand at her side, not be left behind without knowledge of where she went or why.
Remembrance of the panic I’d felt when I first woke rose a knot to my throat.
No, this was not entirely her fault. The nightmare was to blame for at least some of my distress.
When she gave no response, I sighed. Quickly, I checked that Sorrel was secured so that Calix or I could find and retrieve her later, then I closed my eyes and released control to my fox.
He took it, and as it had been before, the shift was fluid, painless, and lasted only the briefest of moments.
Again, I found myself trapped within his form, the world muted, lacking color. Sound and scent intensified.
At least the forest calmed him.
When Evera coaxed him forward, my fox swiveled his ears. Two small steps brought him to the river’s edge, the span of water appearing even more daunting from this lower vantage. He whimpered, stepping in place.
Evera crouched. “It’s only a short swim. You can do this.” Was she trying to reason with him? Could he understand her words? I doubted it. Either way, her voice tugged at him, the draw of the bond a physical force.
Panting, he keened, then leapt.