Chapter 16
Rowan secured the horses, grabbed her bow and quiver, and returned to the witch hunter’s side. He didn’t look at her, his attention fixed on whatever was moving toward them through the brush.
“Be ready to shoot. Give me room.”
Don’t crowd him. Right.
She backed away to give him space. Nocking an arrow, she raised the bow and waited for a target. There were footsteps. Twigs snapping. Leaves crunching. She tracked the sound, keeping her arrow pointed toward the ground so as not to accidentally hit the witch hunter.
She needed him alive, and he would never believe it was an accident if she put an arrow in his back.
She stretched her senses. The trees were quiet.
No. Not quiet. There was an odd discordant hum coming from the trees to the south.
Whispers too soft for her to make out, slippery and strange.
Like a distant conversation in another language.
She instinctively pulled away from it just as a growl rose from the dense brush.
“Stay near the horses,” Casrian said in a low, even voice. “If I tell you to run, mount Copper and ride as fast as you can back the way we came. I’ll find you.”
His calm steadied her. He knew what he was doing. You could see it in the way he held his sword, in his stance. She was the guide. He was the soldier. It was his job to keep her safe.
Still…
He was one man, and the gashes on his chest had barely healed.
Her heart thudded. Her hands grew damp on the smooth wood of her bow.
A great lumbering shape burst from the brush and barreled toward them. Hulking shoulders. Brown fur. An enormous head full of sharp teeth. Eyes aglow with an amber light.
She drew, aimed, and fired, muscle memory taking over before her mind started working again. The arrow sank into the beast’s chest but didn’t slow it. She reached for another arrow.
The witch hunter moved forward, unhurried, meeting the thing head on. She cursed under her breath, moving to the side for a better shot. She loosed her next arrow. A hit to the muscle above the shoulder. This one was deeper. It sank in and stuck. She grabbed another arrow.
It was a bear. She thought it was a bear.
It was bear-shaped—huge and heavy and strong—but there was clearly something wrong with it.
Its hair was matted all along its left side, bare in spots, where the skin was covered in weeping sores.
There was an open gash on its face where skin hung loose and rotting.
She could see teeth through the hole, many of them broken.
She’d seen crow-picked corpses that looked better.
Casrian cut at its neck and stepped aside, allowing the bear’s momentum to carry it past him. Blood gushed from the wound. When the beast faltered, struggling to turn, he moved in again and delivered another slashing cut.
Every movement was spare and controlled. His expression was coldly brutal as his arm came down again and again.
The bear swung away with a broken cry of pain.
“Out of its path,” Casrian shouted in a crisp order.
Blood matted the fur on the bear’s neck. The shafts of two of her arrows stuck from its flank. It was close enough for her to take its eye. She took the shot.
The arrow hit bone and bounced free, only enraging the beast. Its great, toothy maw opened in a howl, and it charged.
She dove to the side, barely escaping the curved claws that raked the air above her.
She hit the ground hard, her hip taking the brunt of the impact. Pain lanced down her leg, but she rolled, scrambling to get away. The bear skidded to a stop and turned to her with a bellow of outrage. Its front paws, big as her head, lifted off the ground.
She reached for another arrow.
It was going to be too late. She recognized it in an instant of terrible clarity. The bear rising up. Her on her back. She wouldn’t even get the arrow nocked before she was buried under the thing’s weight.
No time to run. Nowhere to go. She was penned in by the trees and the frantic horses, straining at their tethers.
Then Casrian was there, snarling at her to get back. With his teeth bared and blood running down his sword, he was almost as terrifying as the bear.
The bear charged.
Casrian stepped forward to meet it, his sword swinging in a wide arc. He hit its wounded neck and jumped aside, barely avoiding another swipe from that clawed paw.
The bear came to a great, crashing halt, seeming to trip over its front paws as it went down. It tried to stand, though its movements were sluggish. It shook its head and made a pitiful sound of pain that almost made her feel sorry for it.
Casrian backed away slowly. When he reached her, he bent down just enough to grab her by the arm and haul her to her feet. He didn’t look at her. Just gave her a push toward the horses.
“I’ll finish it. Stand guard. Watch for more.”
More? Bears didn’t roam in packs. Why would there be more?
It didn’t seem like a good time to ask.
She pulled another arrow from her quiver, nocked it, and stared into the tree line, hoping to God she didn’t see anything. Her whole body began to shake, starting with tiny tremors that grew the longer she stood there.
Eventually, Casrian judged it safe enough to approach. There was a wet, crunching noise and then silence, except for her breath sawing in and out.
A moment later, Casrian stood beside her. He touched her arm. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t know how to answer that.
It was a bear. Just a bear. It wasn’t the witch or one of her familiars. It wasn’t whatever had made those gouges on his chest. She didn’t know why she was still shaking.
Casrian took the bow from her. She let it slide from her hands.
“It’s done,” he said calmly, like they were talking about a rain shower. “There’s nothing else moving out there. You’re safe.”
“Why would a bear attack us here? They usually leave people alone. They hardly ever come down from the mountains and never so close to Toam.”
Her gaze slid over to the mound of dead bear and jerked back to his face. His hand gentle on her arm, he turned her away, drawing her toward the horses. “The bear is a sign we’ve entered the circle of the witch’s influence.”
“Are you saying that the witch sent a bear after us?”
“Not directly, no. A witch corrupts everything around her. Even the most peaceful animals can turn aggressive. Solitary animals hunt in packs. Night animals hunt during the day and day animals wander the night. It means we’re on the right course. Getting nearer to the witch. It’s a good thing.”
She didn’t think this was a good thing.
“What—?”
He shook his head. “Move now. Questions later. I’ll take care of the bear. You calm the horses.”
She took a step, and her leg nearly buckled. He caught her.
“You said you weren’t hurt,” he said with an accusing frown.
“I fell on my hip. It’s fine.”
His hands were already moving down her leg. When his fingers brushed over her thigh, she flinched. He crouched in front of her, reaching for the ties of her breeches.
She pushed him away. “What are you doing? I told you it’s fine.”
He rocked back on his heels and looked up at her. “It’s clearly not fine.”
“My legs were already sore. It’s just a bruise.”
He looked up to argue, but whatever he saw on her face gave him pause. His expression softened. “Let me tend to your injury as you tended to mine. If you can’t tolerate my hands on you, tell me what else I can do to help. I’m not trying to get into your breeches.”
Of course he wasn’t. Look at him. Even with blood spattered across his face, he was unfairly handsome.
Women probably dropped their breeches the second they saw him.
Or lifted their skirts. He liked women who wore dresses apparently.
In any case, someone like him was never going to be interested in someone like her.
But they were partners. And she would have insisted on helping him if he’d been the one to get hurt.
Releasing a shaky breath, she nodded. She undid the ties to her breeches.
And even though it took too long because her hands were shaking, he didn’t try to do it himself.
She shimmied the fabric down her hips and stared over the top of his head as he bent to take a look.
His fingers drifted lightly over her skin and she tried to ignore the way her attention narrowed to that single point of contact.
“It will bruise for certain, but there’s no broken skin.” His voice sounded strained. He was probably impatient to settle the horses. He looked up. “Can you put weight on it?”
She shifted her weight, testing it. She winced as pain shot down her leg, but it held. “It’s not broken. Only stiff.”
He nodded. “You can’t ride like this. I’ll get the liniment. Don’t move.”
He said it like an order, which was annoying, but she stayed where she was, feeling terribly exposed with her breeches around her knees. He rummaged through his pack for a moment and returned with a small bottle. He dropped to his knees and poured a small amount into the palm of his hand.
He touched her hip, and she flinched.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “Sorry.”
He smoothed the liniment over the bruise with surprisingly gentle hands, despite the calluses on his fingers. He worked the oil into her sore muscles until it began to warm, numbing the area.
She looked down at the top of his head. She didn’t know what to do with this version of the witch hunter. The one who was kind. The one who felt guilty about Jarn and wanted to help her. She wished she didn’t know what his hand felt like on her thigh.
“That’s good,” she said, stepping back and ignoring the pain that shot up her leg at the motion. “We should get going.”
He looked up at her. “You’re sure? We can take a moment to rest.”
She shook her head, pulling up her breeches and yanking on the ties. “The muscles will only stiffen the longer we wait. I’ll rub some more liniment on it tonight.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but then shook his head and climbed to his feet. “You’ll tell me if you need help.”
Another order she didn’t intend to heed. But she nodded because she wanted to be done with the conversation.
When he turned away, she took another step toward the horses and winced as pain flared in her leg. She grabbed her bow off the ground and swung it across her back.
The witch hunter bent down to place a round stone on the bear.
He traced the glyph marked on it and said a word she didn’t recognize.
The stone started to glow, and he backed up a few paces.
The bear caught fire. Orange and red flames ran over the big body, turning blue, then white.
She was a good distance away and it burned hot enough that her face heated.
It wasn’t a natural fire. The flames were concentrated and hungry.
The bear seemed to shrink as the fire consumed it, but the flames didn’t spread to the dry leaves.
Casrian looked up at her, and she raised an eyebrow.
“It’s a relic,” he said.
It was clearly a charm.
“Why are we burning the bear?”
He shrugged. “You said bear attacks are rare in this area. It’s likely this one was infected to some degree by the witch’s corruption. We don’t want it to spread.” He nodded at her bow. “You can put that away. You don’t need it anymore.”
She attached the bow to her saddle and stashed the quiver. She managed to haul herself up onto Copper’s back, which was a feat with her stiff leg. He settled as she murmured soothing words to him and stroked his neck. Kenzi seemed fine, apparently used to seeing worse things than this.
In silence, they watched the bear burn down to nothing.
The last of that strange fire extinguished abruptly.
Casrian plucked the stone out of the ashes and then mounted Kenzi.
She fell in beside him, content to let him take the lead even though she was the official guide.
Which was funny because at the moment she felt like she didn’t recognize the woods at all.
They were like an old friend who’d become a stranger.
That feeling of wrongness persisted. The woods. The bear. The witch hunter who she’d just watched calmly face down an enraged animal twice his size like it was something he did every day. As graceful and savage as one of the big cats that haunted the mountains. She’d never seen anything like it.
She’d thought she was safe with him.
Casrian gave her a long, steady look, his blue eyes clear and assessing.
This time she saw the hard determination he hid behind the heroic facade.
A shimmer of restrained violence. A hint of the ruthlessness she’d seen in him when she was a child.
There was more to him than the city manners and the pretty face. She’d been a fool to forget it.
And how disconcerting was that? She was out here alone in the Black Woods with a stranger she’d made the mistake of thinking she understood.
What happened if he found out what she could do?
“It’s all right, Rowan,” he said softly. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Right. He’d protect her from bears and such.
But what if the thing she needed protection from was him?