Chapter Twelve
We transported the ferryman a few miles downriver to his family, who were all luckily unharmed.
They promised to go back and burn the bodies.
Luckily, the Zhagarn seem to be torturing only those people directly in their path, so the little village was undisturbed.
After that, we crossed the Brazen, warning the ferrywoman at the crossing about what happened to Wyle.
Now, we’re on our way to northern Pyrrh, traveling on paths too small to be called roads, while keeping a sharp eye out for any other bands of Zhagarn or, worse, Zhagarn and Fell.
Elianna says we’ll be in almost as much trouble if we run across any gangs of human bandits.
They don’t necessarily seek to torture, she says, but also don’t bother overmuch with trying to keep the people they rob alive.
My mind is a whirlwind of competing thoughts: death and torture on one side, and the beauty of the countryside on the other. I have blood on my clothes from helping Elianna with Wyle, and I’m driving a wagon through lands filled with glorious fruit orchards, sparkling ponds, and lush fields.
All of it will be destroyed if we don’t succeed.
Andras, after hitting us with his shocking revelation, keeps to himself and rides far ahead on point, scouting for danger.
Neville and Bern ride together at the back of our small procession, with Trick accompanying them.
Chitai and Kaelen range far and wide between the vanguard and the two soldiers, often crossing paths as they check out the terrain and look for enemies to our east and west.
I’m driving the wagon because Elianna curled up in a ball in the back as soon as we started off. When I asked how I could help, she gave me a bleak look, shook her head, and closed her eyes.
“I wish I could sing,” I tell the horses after a couple of hours of driving in silence, since Elianna is asleep now and nobody else is around to hear me.
“The Sisters heard me singing while I worked once, and one of them was honest enough to tell me that my voice is worse than the sound of Sylvan tree toads during mating season.”
One horse makes a chuffing sound, almost like he’s weighing in.
“Yes, I agree that’s probably a horrible sound, but how would she have ever heard it?
She’s a born-and-raised Pyrrhan who never traveled outside the city, as she was proud to remind me on every possible occasion, no matter that I never asked.
And let’s be fair, the sound of a Sylvan tree toad is probably quite musical to another tree toad, especially during mating season. ”
The horse has no response to this, and I shake my head at my foolishness.
My mind loves to come up with silly and unimportant paths to meander when I’m most afraid or in pain.
If I’m thinking about toads, I can’t be thinking about what the Zhagarn did to that poor ferryman. Or how lucky he is to be alive.
Or how much it would hurt to have my scalp ripped off my head.
I catch my hands tightening on the reins again, and I breathe in and out, deeply, three times, forcing myself to relax.
Then I touch the locket through the cloth of my shirt.
We’re safe. We have three warriors, two soldiers, and a sorcerer in our company.
Trick even proved he knows his way around a knife fight.
I’m the weak link, but I can learn. I will learn.
We will retrieve the keys.
When we stop, I plan to ask Chitai to teach me to use a dagger.
As if thinking of her draws her to me, I see her emerge from a grove of Pyrrhan sugar apple trees. She aims her horse at the wagon and canters up to me but doesn’t signal me to pull the horses to a stop. Instead, she falls in next to me and tosses me a couple of apples.
“Is the Air Touched well? Are you?” Chitai’s pale curls are held back from her face with the blue cloth tie she’d worn on her arm.
There’s now an intricately designed gold armband on her biceps in its place.
Her eyes are hard but hold a hint of worry, and I wonder again just who she is and what her story might be.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m fine, too,” Elianna says wearily, climbing onto the wagon seat next to me. “I’ve little skill in healing, so attempting it always tires me out. And this … this was a major task.”
Chitai inclines her head with what looks like grave respect. “We believed he was dead, and we weren’t far off. If that’s what you call ‘little skill in healing,’ then your expert healers must be truly impressive.”
The sorcerer sighs. “Maybe. If I didn’t have that already-activated potion in my bag, there would have been little I could do except make him comfortable while he died.”
“He was lucky you were with us,” I say.
“I agree,” Chitai says, her gaze intent on Elianna. “I never had much use for magic wielders—”
“You and most of this ignorant world,” Elianna growls.
I hold my breath, afraid the warrior woman will take offense, but Chitai just laughs. “But then again, I never knew any were so beautiful. I’m far from ignorant, Air Touched. I love to learn new things. And the subject I’m most interested in right now is you.”
Her slow smile is so hot it makes me blush, but I may as well not be there for all the attention either of them pays me.
Elianna says nothing for a long moment, and then her lips curve in a smile of her own. “This may be an even more interesting journey than I imagined. But protecting our quest is more important than any dalliance.”
Chitai glances at me before returning her attention to Elianna. “We’re at war. There’s no use trying to pretend otherwise. And there’s one thing to remember.”
“What’s that?”
“Being with me could never be a mere dalliance.” Chitai leaps up and lands on her feet on her horse’s saddle in a feat of skill that makes me gasp.
She balances effortlessly while the horse keeps moving, and I don’t know whether to be nervous for her or applaud her skills.
Quick as thought, she reaches out and touches Elianna’s hair, flashes a brilliant smile at us, sits back down on her saddle, and canters off.
I turn to Elianna, my mouth still hanging open. “What was that?”
Her wry expression holds reluctant admiration. “I’m not sure.”
She holds up the hair Chitai touched, though, and I see that a strand the thickness of my thumb was cleanly sliced off halfway up.
“But now she has my hair. If she were a sorcerer, she could cause me great harm with thaumaturgic principles. I’m not exactly sure what the significance is to a desert-born warrior. ”
She stares thoughtfully after Chitai, but I’m still stuck on the part where the woman dared to cut off a hank of a sorcerer’s hair.
“She cut your hair?”
Elianna rolls her eyes. “Try to keep up, Soli. Give me the reins, and I’ll drive for a while. Maybe you could hand me an apple and get us some water? I need to stay hydrated after expending so much energy, and I doubt we’ll stop for lunch today.”
She’s right—we don’t stop for lunch. Or for any breaks, until I tell her we either stop or I’m going to wet myself. I’m not sure why I’m the only one on this trip who needs regular bathroom breaks, but there it is. I’m not a warrior, and I don’t have a cast-iron bladder.
Naturally, the minute Elianna pulls the horses to a stop, everyone but Andras, who’s still far in front of us, converges on the wagon to find out what’s wrong. My face and chest flush with mortification, but Elianna casually waves a hand before I can stammer out a response.
“Using magic makes me need to urinate,” she says flatly. “Any problems?”
Kaelen’s lovely mouth quirks, as if he’s repressing a smile, and he and the others ride off to go back to what they were doing.
Trick rides up next to me. “Are you okay, Soli? You should rest in the wagon. I’ll ride up here near Lady Elianna and watch for danger.”
“I’m good. But you can hold the reins.”
Before he can protest, I toss him the long leather lines, jump down from the other side of the wagon seat, and follow Elianna into a stand of Harlequinberry bushes.
I resolve to pick some of the unusual black-and-white berries for Trick after I take care of urgent business.
They’re a delicacy at court, from what he told me.
He used to go berry hunting on days he wasn’t doing any jobs for the Thieves’ Guild.
The thought reminds me I need to have a conversation with him to winnow out the truth about his place in the Guild. Has he been telling me the truth all these years? Or was Elianna right, and it’s all been a lie?
Maybe he didn’t lie exactly, I decide as I carefully avoid thorns and pluck berries. Maybe he ran into some trouble and was too embarrassed to let me know. After all, I was the naive girl who hero-worshipped him for years. Maybe it was too hard for him to tell me he’d fallen from favor?
I pop a few berries into my mouth and bite down on an explosion of sweetness in sharp contrast to the bitterness of my thoughts, then sigh and trudge back toward the wagon, clusters of berries in both hands.
Maybe I’m making excuses for Trick so I can keep away any unwanted truth about our friendship.
After I follow Elianna onto the wagon seat, Trick smiles at me, his brown eyes warming with appreciation when I give him a handful of berries. I put the rest in a cloth I have in my pocket and carefully wrap them up to share with everyone later.
“Thanks, Soli.” He pops them into his mouth and chews with obvious pleasure. “Even better than citrus candies. Remember the day I brought you a whole bowl filled with these that I’d kept back from the ones I sold to the palace cook?”
“How could I forget?”
“Enough chat. Time to move,” Elianna says, snapping the reins.
Trick gives me a brief salute and rides forward, maybe to catch up with Andras, which makes me wonder about the binding.
“When you bound him, what did that mean? Is there an objective distance away from you beyond which he can’t go? What does magical binding actually involve?”
She glances at me and presses her lips together. For a moment, I think she’s going to ignore my question.
“If it’s a secret, never mind. I didn’t mean to pry into Guild business.”
“It’s not necessarily a secret. It’s just that the parameters aren’t fixed.
It’s a minor magic, though both the magical strength of the binder and the strength of will of the person being bound matter.
Someone with a powerful will won’t be subject to some parts of the binding.
A person accustomed to being subservient will fall more deeply under control.
” She shrugs. “What I know is this: he won’t be able to run very far away from us, and he won’t be able to disclose any information about us that could harm our quest.”
Anger builds inside me with every word. “So it’s a kind of magical imprisonment. You had no right. Release him.”
“Soli, I have every right, and I won’t release him until I’m sure of his loyalty. We’re trying to save Altarra. If you don’t see that now, I don’t know how to get it through to you,” she snaps.
“Here’s what I see,” I tell her coldly. “If you’re resorting to magical imprisonment to control Trick or anyone else, how is that any better than what Corvynne did to her people? And if that’s true—if we’re no better—does our quest even deserve to succeed?”
The silence between us rings so loudly in my ears that I’m suddenly terrified she’s going to smite me for daring to reproach her.
I really, really don’t want to be smited, but I won’t take it back, and I won’t forgive her for this.
After that, we travel on with a heavy silence between us, throughout the long day and into the purple shades of dusk.
That’s when Kaelen rides back to us to say he’s calling a halt. “The horses won’t be able to see the road much longer. I’m fairly sure we’ve not been followed, either.”
“I am so ready to get off this wagon,” I groan, shifting in place on the hard wooden seat. The relief from Elianna’s ointment only went so far.
“Pull into the break in the trees just up there to the right,” he tells us. “We need food and rest. And, even more important, it’s past time we hear Andras’s story. The entire story. I want to know how he was in Pyrrh at exactly the time the king formed this company.”
I agree. But I also know that trying to force a Sylvan high lord to betray a confidence has as little chance of success as trying to teach a toad to fly.
“I know some of it,” Elianna volunteers reluctantly, and the prince and I both stare at her.
“You didn’t think to share that before now?” he asks, his voice hard.
“The Sylvan isn’t the only one with secrets in this group,” she says sharply. “Best you remember that, Prince Kaelen.”