Chapter Thirty-Two
The sight of mountains normally made Penn’s heart swell after a long trip, knowing he was finally headed home. Now, it filled him with dread. He hoped the mages only wanted to pass through the Desalore Mountains into Denholmstead or Lyberna, to become someone else’s problem.
Penn had chosen a lesser-known road, neglected by travelers, so the carriage bumped and rattled along it. Unpleasant, but manageable—until the sharp point of a dagger drove into Penn’s side, near his kidney.
As he started to look down, Niall growled, “Eyes front.”
“If you accidentally stab me when we go over a rut, your master won’t be happy,” Penn replied, keeping his tone light. In that area, a stab wound probably wouldn’t kill him, but it would make his life more difficult.
“It wouldn’t be an accident.”
Penn’s lips pressed into a firm line, but he kept his gaze forward as ordered. Soon enough, a thin fence and a small hut came into view. The dagger point pressed more firmly into his skin.
The border between Arnsveld and Bellacosta was heavily guarded on the main roads, but on the smaller side roads like the one they’d chosen, security was typically more relaxed. A small guard outpost, a gated fence, and two soldiers blocked their path.
One soldier leaned against the doorway to the hut, facing toward the mountains.
The other stood guard at the fence, a crossbow dangling from one hand.
As the carriage neared, she raised the crossbow, aiming it slightly to Penn’s left to prevent an accident.
“Halt,” she called, her voice strong and confident.
“You are approaching the Kingdom of Arnsveld. The border is closed until further notice.”
Penn recognized the soldier from previous border crossings. He forced his mouth into a carefree smile. “Still on border duty, Berdine?”
The soldier’s stoic expression cracked slightly as she replied, “Someone needs to make sure those Bellacostan bastards stay in their own shithole.” Despite her friendly tone, she didn’t lower the crossbow.
The dagger’s pressure increased against Penn’s side.
If it weren’t for his clothes, it would have already drawn blood.
His shoulder twitched involuntarily, a tiny movement he hoped would go unnoticed.
As much as he didn’t want to smuggle two traitors into his kingdom, he also didn’t want to endanger the soldiers.
Berdine’s dark eyes narrowed before her face smoothed over. “Do you have your travel papers, Penn?”
“Afraid not,” he replied. “I’m supposed to deliver a message from His Majesty to his mother, but I ran into a bit of trouble. Lost my horse, lost the message, even lost half my clothes in a damn fire.”
“But picked up a carriage and some passengers,” she replied, her eyes roaming over first Niall, then the carriage. “You always did have interesting luck. Unfortunately, I can’t let you cross the border without the proper paperwork or until I receive official orders from His Majesty.”
“Even with the new treaty?” Niall asked, leaning around Penn to scowl at the soldier.
Berdine shook her head. “Haven’t gotten news of a treaty, sir. Until I do, can’t let you cross.”
“Understood, Berdine. We’ll find somewhere to stay nearby while we arrange new paperwork.
” Penn started to turn the carriage around.
He braced for pain, expecting Niall to follow through on his threat, but instead the pressure released.
Penn turned his head in time to see Niall pull his hand back, the dagger blade glimmering in the sun.
Berdine swiveled the crossbow around to aim at Niall just as the dagger flew through the air. The blade buried into her shoulder and the crossbow yanked up, its bolt flying an inch over Penn’s head, disappearing somewhere in the distance.
The other soldier scrambled into the hut to grab his own weapon. Griselda would be furious if she learned the soldier hadn’t kept the crossbow on him. Border scrimmages were rare, and the short-lived war had already ended, but they should always be prepared for trouble.
Niall shifted on the driver’s seat, trying to disembark to complete the job. Penn reached for him, but his fingers slammed against an invisible barrier, and the mage slipped his grasp.
Another crossbow bolt flew from the hut’s open window and smashed against the same magical barrier, breaking into a dozen pieces. The soldier made a strangled noise of disbelief and ducked out of view.
Berdine’s crossbow clattered against the ground. Gritting her teeth, she pulled the dagger from her shoulder and shifted into a defensive stance. Despite her own blood staining the blade, her expression remained fierce, her hand steady. She would fight to the death to defend her country.
“Stop!” Penn scrambled down from the seat and tried to block Niall’s path. “You don’t have to hurt her, we can—”
Niall’s hand slipped up his sleeve and he withdrew a thick black bottle. It wasn’t one that Penn had seen before, not one of the ones he’d filled with water. The cork popped off and Niall’s hand pulled back to throw it at the soldier.
Penn tackled him around the middle, shoving him to the ground. The vial’s contents splashed over himself and the mage, sizzling as they quickly burned through their clothes. Niall howled in a mix of pain and fury as his own potion ate through his skin.
“Run!” Penn shouted.
Berdine backed up to the hut, seeking a more defensible position. If she stayed there, Penn could drag Niall back to the carriage—
A second crossbow bolt shot through the window, cutting a line of fire across Penn’s back.
He closed his eyes and waited. Dying at his countrymen’s hands wasn’t how Penn expected his futile attempt to save Val wound end, but if they could take out Niall too—
A wet, choking gasp, followed by the twang of another bolt, shocked Penn into opening his eyes again.
Berdine stood in the hut’s doorway, her eyes wide. An icicle as thick as her arm speared her chest. For a moment, it glimmered in the sunlight, red splashed over the translucent ice. Then it slowly began to melt.
Penn scrambled off Niall just as the soldier collapsed to her knees, barely catching her before she collided with the ground.
“Berdine,” he croaked. His eyes trailed behind her to the other soldier, slumped over another icicle, the weight of his own body slowly dragging him further down the thick spike.
The soldier’s empty eyes indicated there was nothing more Penn could do for him.
He turned back to Berdine. Her lips moved and she took a shuddering breath.
“I’m so … I’m sorry,” Penn gasped. As the ice melted, more blood spilled from her wound. He tried to stanch the bleeding, but the hole was wider than his palm.
Berdine’s eyes slid shut and she went limp in Penn’s arms.
Behind him, Niall shuffled to his feet and grumbled complaints.
“You didn’t have to kill them.” Penn couldn’t take his eyes off Berdine’s face. There was no peaceful illusion of sleep. Blood splattered her cheeks and her mouth hung slightly open.
“They wouldn’t let us through,” Niall insisted.
“We could have left the carriage, walked across the border on foot.” Penn wanted to shout, to rage against Niall’s callousness, but his voice came out faint and dull.
A long silence followed before Niall said, “They were already suspicious. They could have alerted someone. The next shift maybe. You did well to remove them as a threat, Alistair.”
Penn squeezed his eyes shut. That was the truth he’d tried to block out. Unless Niall learned some new magic, he couldn’t manipulate ice. It wasn’t Niall who had killed the soldiers.
It was Alistair.
It was Valerian.
It was Penn.
Berdine and her partner had only died because Penn was protecting Valerian.
A gentle hand landed on Penn’s head, and he flinched away from it. “Don’t touch me.”
The hand hovered in the air for a moment, golden and familiar, except for the scars now covering every inch. “You’re upset.”
“Of course I’m fucking upset,” Penn snarled.
“You killed people I knew. People I—” his voice choked off.
He didn’t know the other soldier’s name, and he couldn’t really call Berdine ‘a friend.’ They only saw each other a few times a year, while he was passing through.
They hadn’t trained together or grown up together, they had no other connection than the service to their country.
It didn’t matter who they were to him, only that both soldiers had died because of him.
Feeling like he didn’t have the right to hold her, Penn slowly lowered Berdine to the ground. He made himself look at both soldiers, memorize the gaping wounds and the melting ice. He would remember exactly what Alistair had done to them.
“They shot at you—”
“For good fucking reason!” Penn lurched to his feet and grabbed the front of Alistair’s shirt, staining the linen with Berdine’s blood. “If you threaten someone, of course they’ll fight back! They were protecting their home! And you—”
Alistair cupped the back of Penn’s head, the fingers of his stolen hand tightening to hold him still. “Perhaps it’s better if you don’t remember this.”
Penn’s eyes widened. He pictured his steel mental shields, trying to reinforce them even as seams appeared in the metal. Fingers pressed through the gaps, long, thin, and ice white. He focused on melting the panels together, cutting up that invasive hand, mutilating it until it matched Valerian’s.
Nothing he did worked. The hand pressed inexorably forward through the mental shields. The fingers closed into a fist and something was ripped away from Penn.
His eyes closed and his whole body went limp. Before he fell into unconsciousness, he heard a soft, familiar voice whisper to him, “Things will be better when you wake.”