Chapter Thirty-Two
“Is it the Zhagarn?” I check the sheath at my waist for my dagger, and Trick races to his saddlebags for his sword.
“No,” Bern says, face grim. “Khyrran bounty hunters. Soli, you and Elianna should hide in the wagon.”
“There’s no bounty on us,” I protest, but then I stop. It’s not exactly true. Khyrran law says bounty hunters have the right to take Grayminds and sorcerers into servitude for our own good.
Because, like Pyrrh, this is a country that tries to sugarcoat oppression beneath the guise of compassion.
Where imprisonment is falsely presented as protective custody.
Where the custody might never, ever end.
Elianna, who raced over to us with Chitai, shakes her head. “I’ll be goddess damned if I hide like a frightened child.”
“No, you’ll prudently remain in the wagon like a sorcerer who lost much of her magic,” Chitai says, her face hard. “I won’t lose you, and if they see your Guild tattoos or Soli’s brand, they’ll kill to get to you both. You’re worth real money.”
“They’d be legally allowed to take me here in Khyrrus,” I say bitterly. “All right. I’m going to the wagon. Elianna, please at least keep me company.”
Chitai’s voice lashes out. “Trick, hide that sword and go stir the stewpot. Bern, sit down and pretend to whittle something.”
When they do so, she pulls out a brush and starts currying her horse. Her entire body language changes from fierce warrior to carefree woman out for an adventure. “Now, Elianna.”
“Fine. I’m going!” Elianna starts to follow me but gives Chitai a hard glance with flashing golden eyes.
I scramble into the back of the wagon and pull Elianna up behind me. We crouch down beneath the canvas cover.
I realize I’m holding the hilt of my dagger so tightly it’s hurting my hand. I relax my grip while peering out to watch for Kaelen’s return.
“I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you alone,” Elianna whispers, her body nearly pressed to my back. “The key and the amulet together clearly have power. Perhaps … perhaps it’s time for me to take custody of them? I would hate for you to get hurt from bearing them.”
I’m shocked enough to momentarily forget the danger riding toward us. “Are you kidding? You picked me—”
“The king picked you, based on the Sister Superior’s advice—”
“The king picked me, and the goddess picked me, and I’m not about to release this burden to anybody else,” I finish hotly, only realizing as the words come out of my mouth that they’re true. Before, I would have been eager to release this burden.
But now? I refuse to do so.
I’ve changed so much, so fast, but now isn’t the time for self-reflection. Not with bounty hunters approaching.
Elianna makes a frustrated sound. “I might recover my magic with the amulet!”
“You’ve been riding with me—with the amulet—all this time. Don’t you think that Artemisen would have restored your magic by now if she wanted to do so?” I flinch at the cruelty in my words, but I don’t hold back. I’m not giving up the amulet now, not after what I went through to get here.
Not after what Artemisen said to me.
If Elianna wanted the amulet so badly, she should have tried to ward it so she could carry it before putting my life in danger.
Before Lil died.
“Soli, I—”
“Shh!” Riders arrive at our camp, with Kaelen and Andras in the lead. They look like any other travelers, if rougher and dressed in shoddier clothes. “How did Bern know they were bounty hunters?”
My question is answered seconds later, when a wagon carrying a large wooden cage, thankfully empty of starving or battered prisoners, rolls in behind the newcomers.
The sight of it buries my curiosity beneath a wave of fear.
These men have the legal right to take me prisoner, all because of the brand on my wrist.
I hear the rustle of cloth and glance back to see Elianna wrapping a shawl tightly around her neck, where the highest tendrils of her Guild markings show.
“You’re welcome to share our fire,” Kaelen calls out to the newcomers in his merchant voice. “We have little in the way of food. We were about to hunt for some game when we met you.”
“Don’t want your food,” an enormous man riding the lead horse says, his voice a harsh rumble. “Won’t mind looking at what else you got. Particularly in that wagon. Must be good cargo to risk a fancy man such as yourself riding through these parts.”
Kaelen urges River into a tight turn and stops, facing the man and blocking his path to the wagon. Protecting Elianna and me.
“I don’t think you want to try that,” Kaelen says lightly. “It won’t go well for you. Why don’t you and your friends move along?”
The man, clad in all black, his shirt unbuttoned over his large, hairy belly, shakes his long, greasy hair out of his face and knees his horse forward. “A pretty boy like you isn’t about to stop me. There’s a dozen of us, and only five of you.”
“Five?” Elianna whispers from right next to me, where she’s peering out a small hole in the canvas.
“He’s right,” I whisper back. “Where’s Sergeant Neville?”
But the man is still talking. “And now you’ve gone and hurt my feelings. I’m afraid we’ll have to take that sweet little thing with us to make me feel better.”
My mouth falls open. Is he talking about Bern? But—
No. This fool just called Chitai a “sweet little thing,” because he’s staring right at her with a sly grin on his scraggly-bearded face.
Chitai smiles, her eyes wide, and then clasps her hands beneath her chin and flutters her eyelashes. “Oh! Will you? I’ve been so longing for a man who stinks like a Khyrran warthog to rescue me from my life of independence.”
It’s not until Andras barks out a laugh that the man realizes she’s mocking him, but then he throws his head back and roars. “Kill them all, men! But keep that woman alive. Somebody in the city will pay good coin for her.”
After that, everything happens at once, and all of it is loud. The warthog man pulls an axe out of a sheath on his saddle and spurs his horse toward Kaelen, who races at him, sword in hand.
Andras fires arrow after arrow at the bounty hunters.
Trick fights hand to hand with one of the men, and Chitai is a whirlwind of flying daggers and gleaming white teeth bared in a joyous expression.
She races to intercept the leader, takes a flying leap into the air, and lands on her feet directly behind him on the horse.
She slams a length of cord down in front of him, pulls it tight around his neck, and twists.
The man bellows and tries to fight her off, but it’s hard to get leverage when a warrior of the Dawn is choking the life out of you with a garrote. The man throws his body to the side, taking them both down to the ground, hard, but Chitai holds on, shouting something in a language I don’t know.
“Soli!” Elianna hisses, and I realize I was so focused on Chitai I forgot to watch for danger coming at us from other directions. A thuggish man with one ear missing and a nasty, nearly toothless grin is climbing into the wagon from the back.
“Stay down,” I tell her, then jump over her to put myself between Elianna and the intruder. My knife is more of a defense than the little magic she still possesses.
My hand shakes, but I raise the dagger and point it at him, so I give myself credit, thinking wildly that Captain Wavedancer would be impressed.
“Don’t even try it,” I tell him, but he laughs at me.
“You—” An expression of profound disbelief crosses his dirty face, and he looks down at his chest, where the tip of a sword protrudes from his heart. He gurgles and chokes, blood spurts from his mouth, and then he falls forward, his eyes going wide and blank.
Behind him, Sergeant Neville holds the sword.
“Are you two all right?”
“We’re fine,” I tell him. “I have my dagger, and—”
“Soli! Sergeant!” Elianna whispers loudly, gesturing. “It’s Andras!”
With that, she nudges the side of the canvas back to show us Andras in close combat with two of the bounty hunters, daggers against daggers.
Elianna immediately tries to form energy balls but hisses in angry frustration when her magic fails her.
Just in case, I duck to get out of her way, but then I see another man sneaking up on the side of the wagon, all his attention on Andras.
I lean away, hopefully out of his line of sight, and look to Sergeant Neville to help, but he’s still at the rear of the wagon.
I take a deep breath and signal to him and Elianna to be silent.
When the man sidles within stabbing distance of Andras, I leap out of the wagon, the dagger clutched in my hand, and land on his back.
We smash to the ground, me on top of him and my blade buried in his spine.
I’m afraid to move, afraid to let him up to kill Andras—or me—so I lie there, my forearm braced against his neck and my dagger still in his body. The spreading pool of blood on his shirt and beneath him, combined with his complete lack of movement, finally tells me he’s truly and completely dead.
“Soli!” A harsh voice. I ignore it.
I killed again.
“Soli!” A frantic voice. I ignore that one, too.
“Is he dead?” I croak, not looking up. If I look away from him, he might jump up off the ground, blade or no blade. “Is Andras okay?”
“Soli?”
This voice is gentler and gives me the courage to look up. Andras crouches next to me. Next to the … body. “He’s dead. I am fine. You saved my life. Please stand up now.”
“Is everybody safe?”
Kaelen kneels next to us and puts a hand on mine. “Solitude. My Solitude. Everyone is safe. Please. Come away from the body.”
I take a deep breath and blow it out, unclenching my fist from around the hilt of the dagger, suddenly not wanting to touch it. Then I take Kaelen’s hand and let him pull me up to stand. When he wraps his arms around me, right there in front of everyone, I almost break down.
But I don’t.
Not this time.
This time, I held my own in the battle, and I won’t let shock or adrenaline make me shaky. I won’t let everyone else see me unsteady on my feet.