Chapter 15 Sage #4
Little as she wanted to spend the rest of the season in Kingfisher, the thought of her best friend in Bloomfield sends an arrow of regret into her heart.
She wishes she had another spellscroll to turn the compact’s clever but simple sending capabilities into a temporary, pocket-sized portal through which she could see Margot’s face, her kind smile much less guarded these days.
But since she burned that up on her last adventure, and hasn’t gotten her hands on another, Sage digs into her pack to find a good-sized scrap of parchment and a slender stick of charcoal in a small pouch.
She scrawls: Greetings from the Northlands!
Or nearly. We’re setting out soon, but I miss you just as fiercely.
I’ll try my best to make your whimsical village affair, I promise.
She thinks for a moment about telling Margot about the current Clauneck heir, still slumbering and naked in the tent, though she wouldn’t tell that part.
Surely her best friend and Yael would guard the secret of Araphi’s location with their lives.
But maybe that would only worry them both.
Better that it’s the bard’s tale to tell once they return.
So she folds the parchment up and tucks it into the compact, shutting it tight.
Then she waits for Margot to receive the message through her own compact, which is the twin of Sage’s.
A moment later, it chimes again: So late in the season?
I’d ask you to be careful—though if anybody is equipped to take care of themself, it’s you.
Stay safe all the same, Sage. Also Yael says hello, and they hope you’re well, and please come back to bed because they’d like to… Oh wait, that part was for me.
She can imagine the brazen smile stamped across her friend’s face, and can’t help but grin in response.
Margot is blissfully happy, and so Sage is happy for her, if bewildered by the bravery it must have taken for Margot to love the former Clauneck heir—whom Sage has grown unexpectedly fond of—and to let herself be loved by them, despite all that stood between them.
Sage never could have done it.
The message fades and the glass dims until it’s just a mirror again.
The flush of cold across her high cheekbones, which her honey-blond hair has grown slightly past, and the wild look in her amber eyes are reflected perfectly, yet she barely recognizes herself.
With a sigh, she snaps the compact shut.
The outpost is just beginning to stir around her as a weak winter sun crests the tree line, glittering off the frosted gate of Briarwall, through which she’ll soon lead her very first party, including Araphi—an untested adventurer, a barely tested bard, and the woman whose scent clings to her skin even now—into the wild lands where all of the laws and safeguards of Harrow cannot protect them.
Gods, what has she just done?
A soldier emerging from the nearby watchtower blows into his cupped hands as he trudges through the shallow drifts, headed to the barracks to catch some sleep now that his comrade’s replacing him.
But halfway there he spots her, stops, and turns toward the tent.
“Oy there!” he hails, loud enough to wake Araphi and half the campground in the snow-covered quiet of the morning.
Noticing Sage’s grimace—her displeasure isn’t subtle, she expects—he speaks more quietly when he asks, “You’re the leader, aren’t you?
Got a message for you.” From his pocket, he pulls a crumpled slip of parchment no larger than the one Sage used for her compact, along with a scroll tied with a familiar-looking leather thong.
The note on the scrap is written in impeccably inked penmanship.
Sage,
Please don’t worry about me. I’ll stick to the Queens’ Road. Don’t know if I’ll ever leave it again. The world isn’t like in the books, is it? It’s just too big. I’m sorry.
—Tea
Oh no.
Sage looks to the gate—not the looming entrance to the Northlands, but the much simpler gateway out of the encampment, where the Queens’ Road leads due south.
It’s only just daybreak; Tea couldn’t have much of a start on her.
If Sage rides out now, perhaps she can overtake her and bring her back before the rest of the party has risen. And Remy will never have to know…
But as she pivots toward the stables, the soldier shakes his head. “You won’t catch her now, sir’ram. Never fear, though. She left early enough to reach the inn at Emberville before the snow really started at midnight—she couldn’t miss it, even in the dark. Not on the Queens’ Road.”
Sage whips back to face him. “What do you mean, she left before midnight? You’ve had this note all night?” She can hear her own voice rising, pitched toward panic now. “Why didn’t you deliver it at once?”
“Well, the miss said to wait till she’d left Briarwall. And I tried to bring it last night before I started my watch. You were occupied, weren’t you?”
Sage hopes the pink of the cold will hide her glowing cheeks. “That’s none of your concern,” she snaps back.
But the soldier isn’t cowed. He lifts his chin, defiant. “You both made it my business. Could see you two clear as day, with the lamp lit and all.”
“You watched?”
“Always loved a shadow play, haven’t I? ’Sides, not much else to do in Briarwall after dark.” With a final smirk, he heads for the barracks, and Sage considers plunging back into the tent for her bow; she bets she could put an arrow in him before he has the chance to rouse the rest of the camp.
But satisfying as that would be, it wouldn’t solve her problem. They’ve made it to the precipice of the Northlands, just a day or two’s hard ride from the Swallow, and Sage has gone and lost their spellcaster at the critical moment.
Quite a leader she’s turned out to be.