Chapter Eight #4
Orblights did their best to light the field, but there wasn’t much to illuminate.
Snow six inches deep covered my boots. Three yards before me were the targets.
On my left side, faeriken soldiers sparred and trained with each other.
On my right, Alisdair leaned against the stone yard fence, testing how quickly Foalan could take away my arrows before they pierced his skull.
“The bow is the best weapon against the Taken,” Foalan explained. “Taken are foul, unnatural creatures born from dark magics we can’t comprehend. They have a strange, deadly effect on those they draw near—filling them with irrational terror.”
I shivered, swallowing hard.
“It’s hard to think, let alone fight close combat when your every instinct is screaming at you to run. That’s why you’ll fight with the bow, my queen,” he said. “You’ll kill them before they get close.”
I just nodded. I wasn’t expecting such a good reason, and that was the best. Killing those horrible things before they closed in on me was most certainly what I preferred to do.
“What are they?” I asked softly.
“I don’t know. They aren’t beget by”—he gestured to his wolf face—“or we wouldn’t be able to speak of them. But they don’t exist anywhere but this land, so we’d be a fool to believe they aren’t related.” He shook his head. “Maybe they’re what’s borne of a broken heart.”
“Have you given up already?” Alisdair called, setting my teeth on edge. “Well, at least watching you flailing around, shooting arrows at the ground, was entertaining.”
“Cease your blathering, beast,” I barked, “or get over here and help me. You and I both know I can’t learn properly when my instructor isn’t allowed to touch me.”
“Very well.” Alisdair hopped over the fence. “Regard me.”
“Wait, what?”
“Foalan, you’re dismissed.” Alisdair grasped my waist and I spun—gasping to find myself crushed to his chest and tucked under his chin. “I fear you’ll regret this, little bird. I’m not nearly so forgiving an instructor as Foalan.”
“You fear nothing,” I said, hating the desperate look I threw at Foalan’s back. “Least of all giving me regrets.”
His chuckle rumbled against my back. “To begin, point your feet away from the target.” We moved as one. Nudging his leg between mine, Alisdair moved my feet shoulder width apart. “Relax,” he ordered. “You’re tensing up before you’ve even touched the bow.”
I sent the call for my muscles to relax, but they didn’t obey. Alisdair had never been this close to me without fucking me senseless, or protecting me from getting pummeled. To have his body pressed to mine in a benign situation, wasn’t one mine understood.
“You’re both pulling back too far, and holding on to the bow too long,” he said. “You’re tiring yourself out before you’ve released, and then the force of it knocks you off-balance.”
I found myself nodding along. What he was saying made sense. “What do I do, then?”
“Relax,” he murmured. “Only pull back to the corner of your mouth, and then release. Don’t hesitate. Don’t overthink. Just let go.”
Nodding, I lifted the bow and—
“Stop,” Alisdair broke in. “You’re overextending.”
He reached out and laid his hand over mine—touch surprisingly cold. Surprisingly gentle. His other slid around my waist, moving me back into the proper position... pressed against his middle.
“You want your elbow slightly bent,” he said, pulling my mind out of rushing thoughts. “Now draw back, anchor to your mouth, and—”
I let go, a small cry leaving me as the arrow sailed away.
Thwack!
The tip burrowed into the target off-center. Very off-center, but it hit the target.
“Ahh,” I cried, jumping up and down. “Did you see that? I did it.”
“Again.”
His warmth left me so fast, I stumbled.
“You will continue until you either hit the bull’s-eye, or your fingers bleed,” he said, returning to his post against the fence. “I suggest you hit the bull’s-eye.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Alisdair was deadly serious.
He made me shoot again and again and again—going so far as to magically glue my feet to the snow-covered ground when I tried to leave.
Dry, cracked fingers pulled, yanked, and gripped the bow until my tears ran and my skin split open—slicking the wood with blood. I tried to draw it again and the string slipped, snapping me across the face. I dropped the bow, hands flying to my face, then crying harder for the pain of my touch.
A shadow fell over me.
“Go,” I shrieked. “You’ve gotten your wish, seeing me bleeding and crying in the dirt, so just leave me!”
“Don’t despair of blisters, little bird.” Hands grasped mine, drawing them away from my face. My breath stopped as cool, tickling magic washed over my skin. “For they become calluses.
“Stronger than they ever were before.”
The open, weeping seams on my fingers healed. Still pink and raw, but no longer bleeding and painful. I touched my cheek, finding its pain gone too. I looked up as Alisdair walked away. “Well done,” floated over his shoulder.
THAT EVENING, I ATE my dinner in our strange, three-walled bedroom. It was the perfect place to keep watch for the orblights to brighten to their maximum—the sole signal that the sun had gone down beyond the dark clouds.
I checked and re-checked my coat, boots, and supplies a dozen times. I mentally ran through my plan a dozen more times. This was it. I was finally going home.
The minute the lights blasted their radiance, I bolted out the door.
Foalan and Aeris were walking past the end of my hallway, deep in a conversation that had them both laughing. They caught sight of me.
“Good evening, Lady Ana,” Foalan said brightly. “Is everything all right?”
“Run,” I shouted, and then launched at him—throwing my arms around and rubbing my body against him in the most obscene hug I’d ever given. “Preferably in the opposite direction.”
“My queen!” Foalan bellowed, throwing himself back much too late.
Aeris’s face went deathly pale. “My lady, what have you done?”
A roar ripped through the castle, rattling it off its very foundation.
I ran.
Racing through the halls, I touched, grabbed, and threw myself at every man I came across, leaving shouts and panic in my wake. Alisdair thought his mark would keep me on a leash, but that’s the thing about leashes. They can also be used to hang the bastard holding the other end.
I made it outside and kept running, holding back the laugh trapped in my throat. Goodbye, Alisdair. All the best with the shortest, most ill-conceived invasion in history. It ends the minute I get home and tell the world about you.
Riordan glanced up when I came sliding across the corner, feet scrambling on the ice-slicked cobblestone.
His weighted-down carriage was waiting right beside the path out of Lumenfell, and filled to the brim with vegetables for market—with one other addition.
Magic aided him in building a wooden roof and compartment for a small, nimble person to hide in, buried under mounds of goods.
“Arrggghh!” A roar resounded over the horizon, chasing birds, rabbits, and all manner of flying creatures out of the trees, and winging away as fast as their wings could carry them.
“That would be my blessed husband,” I said, grinning wide. “Chasing my scent to every corner of the castle.”
“We’ve no time for gloating. My lord will realize he’s been tricked sooner rather than later. Hurry, Lady Ana,” Riordan belted. He tossed me a dura dura. “Get on!”
Dura dura. The most foul-smelling fruit in these lands or any other. Working fast, I held my breath and rubbed the stinky thing over my face, hands, clothes, arms, and everywhere.
Screams went up in the village, telling me it was past time to leave.
Heart thundering out of my chest, I threw my stuff in the hidden compartment, then hopped on.
Riordan took off like the hounds of hell were snapping at his feet, waiting for one trip or stumble to claim their prize and drag him to damnation. The horses surged up the hill—jostling their burden over the uneven, rocky path. It was only magic that kept the vegetables from falling out.
Or maybe it was fear. They had no desire to roll down and face what was coming for me.
Come on, I thought as squawks, screeches, howls, and barks went up in the village. Faster!
We broke over the hill and took off, racing down the snow-covered path.
The first thing I’d do when I got home was hug Mama, Meli, the twins, and baby Savia for five minutes each.
Then, I’d pack our meager belongings, move them into one of the grand mansions on the hill, and then take extra pleasure in watching Kirwan shouting himself purple outside the gates when he discovered that home was his.
My dear husband, Alisdair, made such a show of insisting everything that was or would be was ours absolutely. Binding us as surely as the runes bound our souls. There was nothing wrong in filling my pack with the riches collecting dust on display.
Everything was about to change for me and my family, and after it did, I’d hunt Emiana down in her hiding places, drag her back to Lyrica, force her to give my body back, then throw her to the country she betrayed.
Riordan and I sped away from Lumenfell, leaving it farther... farther... and farther behind.
“Yes!” I cried, brimming with joy. I did it. I couldn’t believe I’d finally outsmarted the great and terrible Lord Alisdair Shadowsoul. This little bird had broken free of her cage.
A shadow appeared in the distance, moving fast across the horizon. I wasn’t certain if it was Shadowsoul or one of the Taken, and I didn’t plan to find out.
“Faster!”
“Ye-ah! Ye-ah!” Riordan bellowed, going harder on the reins.
Glowing orblights swirled around the cart—lighting our way and shining a beacon in the darkness.
No option of diminishing them. It was too dark, and the path too dangerous.
Gnarled tree limbs stretched across the divide, desperately trying to tear him from his seat while dips and rocks sought to overturn the cart.