Chapter 24
VALANCE
Every limb tingled with numbness by the time we came out of the tree. The sun was setting. So many hours had passed, but at least the guards weren’t too close. For now. In the distance, I heard them. They’d sweep back here, not give up until they found me.
The human carefully lifted me free of the trunk, patting me down as he supported me to be vertical with one hand. Tiny bugs scuttled over me. He got rid of them. I’m sure he took great pleasure in it after his experience. Poetic revenge.
When done, he uncoiled the whip and handed it to me. I batted a few more bugs and took it, having no other weapons. My leather armor, normally loaded with tiny back-up blades, had been cleared out of when I’d been shackled, and I’d lost the elven blade when the whip brought me down.
The blade I’d killed my father with…
I took the whip and fixed it on my belt.
Kormac kicked his legs and shook his hands, performing a series of stretches I mimicked to get my blood pumping again.
I still hurt, requiring some salve for my cheek and hands before infection set in.
There was a small village further west in the forest. However, we’d fled erratically from the elves, scrambling my sense of direction.
Rosestar Forest was mostly a dense place with pockets and clearings scattered throughout.
I knew it rather well, yet I wasn’t an expert on its intricacies and hidden secrets like a ranger.
It didn’t help that my head was full and drowning in stagnant soup. I couldn’t think, couldn’t get a hold of myself enough to be practical or even use my magic. I tried, but my mental state wouldn’t let it flow.
I was scared and hurting and lost.
“Do you have any idea which way we need to go?” I asked the human.
He stretched his arms behind his back, squatted, then nodded when he came back up. He pointed behind the tree we’d hidden in and moved.
“You know this forest?” I asked.
He shook his head and pointed. I took that as he knew the direction of Thistle Village or pointing to my doom. A clearing where Lasair and her troops waited for me—possibly in the village itself.
The village wouldn’t work.
I stopped him.
He turned to face me.
“We can’t go to the village,” I said. “Too risky.”
He gestured to my injuries and hunched over, acting out the sneaking move.
“You want to sneak in and… steal some supplies?”
He pointed at me and gave a firm nod.
“That’s impossible. You may be wearing gold armor, but you’re clearly not a guard.”
The human rolled his eyes at me and gestured for me to get moving.
“Kormac…” I stopped. He did look like a guard. What was my problem?
He gestured again for me to move.
What choice did I have but to follow his lead? He was already walking ahead of me, putting too much distance between us. It sent a series of mournful aches through me. I hurried after him.
He slowed down, waited, his face contorted. I had to trust he knew what he was doing or expect death. Either way, I followed this unseelie human because there was no other alternative.
We kept as quiet as possible, clinging to the shadows as night took over. Keeping low, even hiding inside another hollow tree for an hour. Pressed together, breathing all over one another, absorbing each other’s hate and need to be close.
Even considering harming him sickened me. Which sickened me again.
“Where do you think this old woman is?” I whispered as we walked.
He glared at me over his shoulder.
“Oh… Yes…”
I refrained from asking him anything else until we saw fire in the distance.
Large torches were stuck in the ground, spaced apart as sentinels against the night. Most villages lit them at sunset. Beacons and warnings that eyes were watching the trees, that the village knew how to defend itself.
My heart went out to villages, the farmsteads, anywhere not as fortified as Summer City or the palace. As did my pride in them to defend themselves against unseelie scum without the weight of defenses I enjoyed.
Unseelie scum like Kormac.
I reminded myself of who he was. A human aligned to that court, come to these lands to harm with Ren. A man hated me as much as I hated him. Who’d kill me the first chance he got for everything I’d done, and I the same in return.
Only, every time I thought about my hate, I resisted it.
No hurting the human. No hating him.
Kormac stopped, ducking behind a bush. I ducked with him, peering through the foliage. Horses and patrols in the light of the fires. Thistle Village sat a safe enough distance away for us to crouch here temporarily. Any closer and we’d be spotted.
“How are you going to sneak inside?” I queried. “I think the risk is too much. We need to find a different way.” Along with a plan. What were we actually going to do?
He looked down at my hands, then my cheek.
“I feel fine,” I countered his angry gestures. “I have to be. There is a village closer to the coast.”
His eyes seemed to answer with, Because that makes a difference? Because you won’t be hunted there?
“What do we do?”
An open hand, telling me to wait.
I waited, fresh out of ideas.
Movement behind me. We both turned around together. There was no one or nothing there. Probably some forest creature clambering through the undergrowth.
A snapping twig… Further movement. I turned again, spotting the shadow. The silhouette of a body. Two bodies. Three. Four.
Kormac grabbed me to run.
Something heavy hit me in the head.
Everything fell into darkness.