Chapter 49 #2
I didn’t dare look back as I ran, legs pumping hard, struggling to keep up with him. I didn’t need to look to know we were being pursued, my senses tracking dozens of guards closing in on our heels.
I cursed the ward that kept our magic from us.
Sure it had been Lorien who had set up this trap for us.
It was the only reasonable explanation for the fact he had managed to capture Kaeleron.
He must have put it into place and then gone after him, and I had the sinking feeling I had led him to Kael, that I had messed up at some point and made him aware my king was here.
Lorien appeared ahead of us with his friend, revealing he was allowed to teleport within the castle too.
“Fuck,” I muttered and pulled on Kaeleron’s hand, trying to drag him towards the pond as close to two dozen men filed in behind Lorien as he smirked at us.
It was like trying to redirect a bull.
Kaeleron refused to change course, kept running right at Lorien, a grin curling his lips as he readied my dagger.
“We can’t win this,” I shouted as the men behind us closed in, and more joined Lorien. “There’s too many. If we kill him here, we’re as good as dead right after him.”
That sobered Kaeleron up, and he swept me up to perch on his free arm and sprinted towards the pond, stepping up onto the ledge and kicking off at breakneck speed. We sailed over the pond, narrowly avoiding landing in it, and he broke right as he set me down beside him, seizing my hand again.
Racing towards the garden.
He pushed me in front of him as we reached the small archway, and I clung to his hand, afraid he would do something reckless like shutting the door on me and facing Lorien without me, but he stuck close to my heels. I looked ahead of us, searching for the one Meiryn had said we would find here.
I spotted her reclining beneath one of the ancient apple trees, as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
Kaeleron snarled the moment he saw her.
When we made it to her, he reached down and hauled her onto her feet by the front of her dress.
“Do not resist?” he growled.
She shrugged. “I needed you to be captured too so Saphira would live. Without you being captured and contained, both of you would have died. But here you are. Alive. And I even brought your hoard to you rather than steal it for myself. You are welcome.”
She wrenched his hand from her dress, shoved his satchel into his chest, and frowned at something beyond his shoulder.
“You seem to have brought a little trouble with you.” She pushed between us, canting her head one way and then the other as guards raced towards us. “Plans have changed. I cannot carry you out of here. Run.”
She shifted into an enormous silver dragon that consumed most of the space in the garden, her barbed tail narrowly missing us as she threw her head forwards and unleashed an ear-shattering roar.
Kael grabbed my hand again and pulled me with him as Arianell reared onto her hind legs and beat her wings, toppling the soldiers, and then attacked them, sweeping her great paws through their ranks to decimate them.
Searing golden light cut across my field of vision, blinding me for a moment.
Arianell bellowed in pain.
I skidded to a stop and turned back towards her to help her.
“No. Keep moving. The dragon told me she owed you a debt, and this is her repaying it.” He yanked me with him and I was glad he was being a stubborn son of a bitch when Arianell turned, spinning around to whip her tail through the forces now gathered at the far end of the garden.
Sylvan stood upon the battlements of the lower wall, hollering orders at his men, wielding solar light that seared Arianell’s scales but failed to breach them.
“She will be fine,” Kaeleron said as we ran. “No fae magic is powerful enough to slay a dragon.”
I felt it when we were beyond the wards. That rush of power that swept through me was exhilarating. He pulled me into his embrace and teleported us just as Sylvan ordered his men to pursue us.
He would be coming after us.
Arianell would slow him down, but she wouldn’t stop him.
I just hoped she had the sense to get away from the castle before anyone hurt her, because I wasn’t convinced that fae magic couldn’t slay a dragon.
We landed a distance from the castle and I looked at my surroundings as Kaeleron readied himself to teleport again, gripping his arms to stop him as I noticed the mountains.
“We’re not heading east,” I said, looking between him and those towering dark green peaks that gave way to onyx ones. The border with the Black Pass.
“We are heading north. I need to get the rest of our belongings. We are not getting out of this court without a fight, but it would be suicide to head towards the Black Pass. Highborn Grove lies east. The marker for Sylvan’s forces places them between us and the tunnel that would take us to the Black Pass.
So we travel north, towards the Winter Court.
We will have to steal a boat to make the crossing.
I can still feel a ward upon this land. I will not be able to cross the border by teleporting. It has been sealed.”
“I feel it too. The ward. I felt the other one too—the one that seals magic.”
He bit out a low curse. “Lorien. He knew about me. He followed you and he saw us.”
I grimaced. “I was so careful. I tried to be so careful.”
“It does not matter now. The trap was set and he has caught us in it, but that does not mean we shall not slip free of it, little wolf. This snare will not hold us. The further we get from the place the ward was cast, the weaker its hold over us will become.” He sounded confident about that as he drew me back into his arms and teleported again, moving us further north.
And then he teleported again, landing us near a large tree on a hill.
He released me and kneeled before the tree, reaching down into a deep hollow at the base of its trunk, pulling out another satchel and something I was glad to see. His sword.
“Why didn’t you bring that with you to the castle?” I said as he checked it over and then pushed to his feet, holding my dagger out to me. I took it and sheathed it, and unbuckled the belt as he pulled a pair of leathers from the satchel.
I stripped out of my loose pants and pulled them on, and took the blouse he offered, shrugging out of the tunic and handing it back to him. He pulled it on as I tugged on the blouse, and buttoned it as he looked at me.
“The enchantments upon it. They are powerful, and unseelie. I could not risk someone sensing them.” He tied the scabbard to his back, fastening the strap over his chest so the grip peeked over his shoulder.
I shoved my feet into the boots he gave me and tied them, feeling a lot better now I was back in such familiar clothing, ready to face whatever came at us.
“Come, we must move.” He held his hand out to me as he ditched the satchel that had contained my clothes, tossing it back into the hollow.
I took hold of his hand and he swept me up into another teleport, one that landed us near a field.
And had him doubling over.
“Let me.” I placed my hands on his back as he breathed hard. “Wearing yourself out isn’t going to help us. I know you want to get me out of here, but I can help. You don’t have to do it alone, Kael.”
He swallowed hard and nodded, taking a few more breaths before he straightened. “Do not try to teleport too far. Only where you can clearly see. Only short distances.”
I took hold of his hand and stared at a point in the distance, picking one that didn’t look too far and resisting the urge to try teleporting us to the mountain peaks. I teleported us to that place I had picked. And then another.
Teleporting us over and over until I was dizzy.
When I went to do it again, Kaeleron broke contact with me.
“You need to rest.” He weathered my scowl, not bending.
“The northern border is still leagues away. If you continue to teleport without resting, you will pass out and I will have to keep watch over you for the goddess knows how long. Better to rest now than pass out later. Passing out will slow us down more.”
He let his satchel drop to the ground and bent to open it, pulling out another package of jerky.
“Rest. Recover your strength. We shall move if we sense anyone approaching.” He pushed the paper package at me as grey clouds gathered overhead.
Not his doing.
I scented the rain before it began to fall in a steady drizzle.
I took the package and followed Kaeleron as he stalked through the darkening woods like a shadow, looking for something. He found it at the base of a rocky cliff beneath a hill. A hollow just big enough to provide shelter for both of us.
I sank onto my rear inside it, pulling out a piece of dried meat for myself and then one for him as he joined me, watching the horizon as I handed it to him. He watched it too as we ate in silence.
Sure it was only a matter of time before Sylvan found us.