Chapter 13
MESSENE
Sonah’s wide-eyed shock took in the broadening smile on Fane’s face. How in hells was he even here? And why was he dressed as a regular soldier and not a Liodari?
Shaking her head, Sonah chanced a glance at the traveler she was to follow, who watched her and Fane with interest. She felt the blood rush back to her cheeks and she could’ve murdered Fane for his ill-timed interference.
Her tongue, too, was scorched and she spoke with some difficulty. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” Fane scoffed, using the napkin he held to wipe the coffee on the table.
When he was done, he palmed it and set his hand on his hip.
“Why are you here? I thought you were in Sparta.” As if that thought had triggered another, Fane tilted his head. “Is Commander Antonius with you?”
“No,” Sonah huffed, throwing furtive glances at the green-robed man. He was no longer looking over at her, having turned his attention back to his companions. Sonah made a frustrated noise and shot Fane a mulish look. “I’m here alone.”
Closing her eyes, Sonah swore under her breath. Fucking stupid.
Fane blinked in surprise. “Alone? No, that cannot be. You’re—”
“Fane,” Sonah whispered, her hand latching onto his vambrace. “Stop talking for a second. Do me a favor and please forget you saw me. I have… business here. Now go about yours.”
Fane frowned and stepped closer.
For the love of the gods…
“I am not going anywhere now,” Fane muttered, his light brown eyes narrowed. “What’s going on? Where is everyone? Why are you alone?”
“Why are you so nosy?”
The Liodari pursed his lips. “I get that way when someone I know is alone and vulnerable and acting suspiciously.” He looked over his shoulder and Sonah followed his gaze to see the soldier he’d been sitting with eyeing them curiously.
“I’m not alone,” Sonah hissed, drawing Fane’s attention back. “I am traveling with… that man. I woke up late, that’s all.”
Fane looked over at the man in question, his frown deepening. “Well, it’s rude of him to ignore you—”
He made to step past Sonah, intent on the traveler, and Sonah’s heart stopped. Without thinking, she grabbed his arm.
“No! Don’t—don’t bother him. He’s with… important people. I am fine waiting. You need not concern yourself any longer. Please.”
Gods, why did she have to run into a nosy Liodari on her very first solo mission?
Fane looked at her with a cocky grin, but Sonah wouldn’t give in. Instead, she crossed her arms. “And where is your uniform, Liodari? Perhaps I’ll tell the commander you were seen…”
The look on Fane’s face made Sonah’s words trail off, and she felt the shame and anger emanating from him as if they lived beneath the surface of his tawny skin. He looked away from her, taking a step back and Sonah felt like an ass.
“Fane?”
His throat worked as he sought to find the words, but Sonah had a feeling she knew what had happened.
“After… after you all left us that… that last time,” Fane started, each word pulled from him, leaving behind a scarlet blush high on his cheeks. “Commander Antonius dismissed me from the Liodari. I was sent down to the infantry under Captain Sedaros.”
“What? Why?” Sonah said, reaching out to lay her hand on his forearm. “Was… was anyone else—”
Fane shook his head. He turned his gaze to look at her, and she felt a pang of sympathy at the agony in his eyes. “No one else was at fault. I alone am responsible for what transpired between your sister and the commander. I spoke out of turn and I deserved the punishment.”
Sonah felt heat flash over her face and chest. She knew what he meant. She’d overheard him that night, while she’d been searching for something to clean up the vomit she’d left in the room. Jason, Fane and Michael had come back to the inn just then and spoke of Lerek’s murder.
That Daris had been the one to kill him.
Knowing now it was a falsehood, Sonah felt even more guilt for her part in the affair. Not only was Lerek not dead, but Fane had been punished for revealing something that never happened. Punished severely, Sonah thought.
Not for the first time, she wondered why they’d lied about Lerek at all.
She hadn’t bothered to question Lerek about it, worried he might use it as an opportunity to ask even more questions of his own.
She’d fumbled the first few attempts he’d made to ask about Terena.
And the way his face had contorted when he’d brought up Daris made her relieved she’d not broached the topic.
Sonah opened her mouth to say something, when the men at the far table—the green-robed man, too—rose and made their way to the door. Panicking, Sonah moved away from Fane, pulling up her hood.
“I must go,” she mumbled, hoping to put an end to the unwanted meeting with the former Liodari.
“Sonah, wait,” Fane called, snapping forward to grip her elbow. Whirling, Sonah slapped at his hand, looking back over her shoulder to see the men were already gone.
“Let go!”
“You can’t go off by yourself!”
“I am not by myself, I already told you,” Sonah whimpered, clawing at his hand to release his hold.
Fane pulled close, his height dwarfing her by a foot as he glared down at her. “I don’t know why you’re lying, or what you’re about, but I will not let you go off with those men. Not alone. If you wish to travel with them, I will go with you.”
Sonah balked. “What? No!”
“Aye,” Fane snarled, his face lowered to within inches. “Because I don’t believe you’re traveling with that man at all. I think you’re following him. Alone. What kind of Spartan would I be if I let you go off after a stranger without protection?”
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, to get him to let her go. Surely, the traveler had gotten far enough away from the inn by now, following him would be that much more difficult. By the time she finished explaining Pytho had told her to follow him, she’d lose the man for certain.
Fane shut her up with his next words.
“We’ll follow him together. You do not need to tell me why or what you’re about. But I will not let you leave without me.”
Sonah put a hand to her waist, hoping that rubbing the cramp forming while she struggled to keep up with Fane’s long-legged strides and the man they were following would somehow make it hurt less.
If anything, it grew worse. She began to see black spots at the edges of her vision and her breaths became more labored.
At her side, Fane swore and put an arm around her waist, half carrying her as he led them around the bend where the men had disappeared.
“How are you this winded after a ten minute walk?” he grumbled as they caught sight of the travelers again. They were now in front of a stable yard, standing in a circle and laughing about whatever they were talking over.
Sonah swallowed painfully as they slowed down. Fane maneuvered them into a small opening between two buildings directly across from the stables. She was grateful for the reprieve, sucking in deep breaths as she leaned against a stone wall and closed her eyes.
“I’ll have you know,” she said between wheezing breaths, “that I trekked across this whole continent with no complaints from my friends. But of course, leave it to a Liodari to take exception at having to slow down a bit to accommodate someone with shorter legs.”
“I’m not a Liodari anymore.”
Sonah blinked. She watched him for a few seconds before apologizing. “Sorry. If it makes you feel any better, you are still a Liodari to me.”
Fane glanced at her and she saw the color high in his cheeks before he turned away. His jaw was working overtime, but he said nothing as he continued to watch the travelers. Sonah closed her eyes.
“Let’s go,” Fane said in a rough voice, lightly tugging on Sonah’s cloak. Blinking, she followed as he took a circuitous route to the stables.
Looking around, Sonah panicked.
“Where—”
“Do you have a horse?” Fane interrupted.
“Uh, no.”
“Two,” he said to the stable hand. Sonah looked after the man as he ran back inside to tack the horses.
“Did you see which way they went?” Sonah asked quietly, leaning close to Fane.
He nodded, folding his arms across his chest. His foot tapped an annoying beat.
“Could—”
“Here,” he said, grabbing her hand and striding toward the man leading two horses, his sweat stained tunic sticking to his chest and biceps.
Sonah frowned as the stable hand led the smaller of the two horses over to her, a grin splitting his homely face as he proudly presented the animal to Sonah.
She stared at it suspiciously.
Not that she hated horses; she liked them fine. She didn’t believe they liked her back, which was the issue.
Before she could voice a concern over the way the horse stared at her, she yelped when large hands spanned her waist and hoisted her onto the saddle.
Sonah made a grab for the reins, still in the stableman’s hands.
The man chuckled, sharing a look with Fane that made her curse them under her breath.
Fane, of course, mounted his horse gracefully and led them out of the yard, trotting down the street in what she hoped was the direction the traveler in green had headed.
They caught sight of them every once in a while.
When they did, Fane would slow, dropping back so that they would remain undetected.
Hours later, after crossing into Ibros, Sonah began to despair.
They’d lost their quarry. She was about to admit defeat when she spotted the trio of men fifty feet in front of them, coming into view at the bottom of a hill.
Fane must have spotted them as well, for he reached back and made a clicking sound. Sonah’s horse stepped close to his side and he grabbed her reins as he turned back to where the travelers were.
“We’ll stay well behind them to remain unnoticed,” Fane muttered.
Sonah sat for a moment in silence before Fane made another clicking noise and their horses set off. She hastily tightened her grip on the reins and the horse let out what seemed to Sonah an affronted snort.
“Do you not need to be somewhere?” Sonah asked after a few minutes of riding in silence. “Doing… soldier things?”
“Leventis, the soldier I was with, knows to tell our captain I was called away. He’ll cover for me until I can send word again.”
“Huh,” Sonah narrowed her gaze at his back. As if he felt her eyes on him, he glanced over his shoulder. “Seems like a very lax team, or whatever.”
“My squad is not Liodari, but we’re not lax, either,” he grumbled, shooting Sonah a scowl before turning forward.
“Do you still talk to any of the others?” Sonah fished, trying to inject some boredom into her tone. “Michael? Or… Jason?”
Fane winked at her.
“What?”
“I know.”
Shouts sounded ahead, and Fane whipped his head around a moment before he and his horse took off. Sonah barely held on as her horse bolted after him, holding her breath as panic washed over her.
Fane had his sword out of its scabbard as they neared the travelers, two of them on the ground with arrows sticking out of their chests and the green-robed man crawling, an arrow jutting out of his calf.
Sonah’s mount reared as an arrow whistled past her ear.
She tumbled from her horse and onto her back.
The breath knocked out of her—she couldn’t move, she couldn’t breathe, and her ribcage was suddenly too tight.
Grabbing at her tunic, Sonah’s eyes shot around, but all she could see were legs rushing to and fro.
Finally able to pull in air, Sonah turned over.
Scrambling to her knees, she grunted as a muscular arm banded around her waist and yanked her up into the air.
Sonah screeched, her hands clawing at her captor’s arm.
Pitching forward, her legs flailed as she fought to get on the ground.
Barely finding her footing, Sonah went still at the press of a cold blade at her throat.
“Halt, Spartan!”
Sonah winced as the shout rang through her ears. Her wild eyes found Fane off to her left, bloodied but fighting off a soldier wearing Heylisian colors. Her heart dropped when she realized who had attacked them.
Rivermen.
When he heard the command, Fane did a double take upon seeing Sonah. The soldier he’d been fighting caught him with a punch to his jaw and Fane stumbled. His eyes filled with rage and fear as his gaze darted between Sonah and her captor.
Finally raising his hands in surrender, Fane stood still as another soldier grabbed his sword out of his hand and threw it near Sonah.
“What is a Spartan doing this far north, I wonder?” The man holding her chuckled, his nose nuzzling her throat. She jerked away, hissing. He laughed some more, the throaty sound rumbling through her body as the man held her tight to his chest. “And with such a lovely companion.”
“Let her go,” Fane snapped, earning him a shove from one of the Rivermen.
“I don’t think I will,” the man at her back said. He tightened his arm at her waist. Sonah chanced a look behind Fane and almost vomited when she saw the green-robed traveler lying on his stomach, blood soaking the bulk of his cloak over his back.
“You’d like to stay with us, wouldn’t you, love?” the man whispered, his voice low and rough and seductive. Bile rose in Sonah’s throat.
“I cannot allow that,” a new voice said, the deep baritone making Sonah cry out in relief.
Every head whipped around toward the voice. Melanos stepped forward, his oversized frame domineering. The god wore the same long tunic and sandals he’d worn in the cave a few months ago when she and Terena had helped break the curse keeping Melanos confined inside.
The man holding her yelled to his men and they burst into motion, rushing at Melanos as she was dragged away. Fane barreled after her, but the Riverman at his side was faster, kicking the back of Fane’s knee. Sonah screamed out to Melanos and Fane as the Rivermen surrounded them.
She kicked and spat, twisting and almost freeing herself, when the soldier holding her stumbled against her momentum.
Suddenly free, Sonah ran.
She’d not gotten far when she was snatched around the waist and thrown over the man’s broad shoulder. His armor punched the air out of her lungs. When she regained her breath, Sonah screamed again, watching through tears as her friends continued fighting off the Rivermen.
Thrown over a saddle, Sonah immediately tried to slide off. The soldier leaped onto the horse and grabbed the back of her cloak, pulling her back. She clawed at her throat where the cloak fastenings were choking her.
With the little remaining air left in her lungs, Sonah feebly called out as the horse raced away from her friends. And any chance of escape.