Chapter 1 Tobias #2
Tobias brought Her hand to his mouth and kissed it, and pride swelled in his chest when She bit Her lip. He gestured toward their campsite. “Come. We’ve a long day ahead.”
She followed him with ease, hand wrapped in his as they headed down the hillside toward their shaded campsite. My love. A foolish grin threatened to split his face, but his mother and sister waited in the distance scrutinizing their every step, and he set his jaw.
Silence fell over the group, drawing a line between his new life and the old. Leila dropped Tobias’s hand and pressed down the pleats of Her dress. “Naomi, how about I tend to your back?”
She hurried to his sister, the two women speaking in hushed tones paces away. His mother hovered beside the campfire, peeling a potato over a pot of vegetable stew. He took a seat next to her. “Are you all right?”
Her eyes remained on her blade, her lips thin. “As ‘all right’ as one can be on the run in the woods.”
“It’s only temporary. This is the safest option for all of us.”
She sliced the potato into even pieces, dropping them into the pot before picking up another. She pointed her blade at the bowl beside her filled with washed fruit. “Go on. Eat.”
Tobias bit into a red apple, forcing a chuckle. “Even out in the middle of nowhere, you still find a way to make it feel like home.”
Her gaze was set on her work, though the light brown of her eyes had glassed over. She hadn’t spoken much since they’d fled from their cottage, and he could’ve sworn her dark circles had deepened overnight.
“If I’ve upset you . . .” Tobias said. “I never intended to be a burden—”
“You almost died in front of me. More than once.” Her jaw tightened. “I watched you fight, and bleed, and kill.”
Kill. Tobias almost winced, the word somehow more shameful on his mother’s tongue.
“Then you return, and . . .” Her voice trembled, and her gaze glistened.
“I’d prayed for it over and over, but still I never thought I’d see the day.
” She wiped her eyes and straightened. “Then suddenly we’re being chased by soldiers, and then we’re in the Krios Woods, and there’s a godforsaken war. ”
“I’m sorry, Mother.”
“I just need time to think.”
“I understand.” He watched the swift flick of her wrist, the blade carving away at the root. “I’m still the same person. Nothing’s changed.”
Flick. Flick. Another potato dropped into the pot, and she grabbed a third.
“Everything will be fine.” He waited for a response, and when none came, he rested a hand on her back. “Mother?”
“Everything will be fine. I heard you.”
She continued her work, leaving Tobias in silence. Leila was still with Naomi kneading the muscle around her spine, but Her eyes were set on him, ripe with unspoken worries. He swallowed and stood.
“I think it’s time we discuss a course of action.”
All three women looked to him. Leila opened Her mouth to speak, then stopped short. He wished She hadn’t.
“I know this is hard for everyone.” Tobias sucked in a slow breath. “The decision didn’t come lightly. We just didn’t have a choice.”
“We can’t wander out here forever.” Naomi glanced among the others. “We’re in the woods. What if wolves strike? What if it rains?”
“It won’t rain,” Leila said.
“How do You—?”
“Trust Me.”
“For now, we focus on safety.” Tobias squared his shoulders, wrangling all the assurance he could summon. “None of this matters if we’re discovered. It is of the utmost importance we remain unseen. We save the army for another day, once we have a better gauge of Brontes’s plan. Agreed?”
Leila and Naomi nodded while his mother sat still by the campfire, her expression unreadable. He couldn’t fault her reluctance. It wasn’t as though he had a contingency plan, or even a second step. For God’s sake, how does one gather an army?
Focus. One brushstroke at a time, after all. Perhaps he didn’t need to see the end, just the path directly in front of him. If he couldn’t gather an army, he could provide something else of value.
“I’m going to the capital.”
Leila started. “What?” She stood. “You just said our focus is safety.”
“Your safety,” he said.
“And you’ll be off gallivanting in the capital?”
“I’ll be discreet.”
“This is senseless.” She charged his way, wide eyes searching his. “Brontes is looking for both of us.”
“Yes. And we haven’t a clue where, or by what means.”
“We’re hidden in these woods.”
“We’re also blind.”
Leila looked up at him, lips parted, the silent words on Her tongue failing to take form.
“Heralds bring news from the palace to every city square.” He tossed an olive-green cloak around his shoulders and fastened it at his neck.
“And if there isn’t a herald, word has surely spread through other means.
I’ll keep my ears open. See what we’re up against.” He took Her hands. “I’ll only be gone a short while.”
“You begged for us to stay together.”
“And I stand by that.” He ran his thumb over Her knuckles. “A short while. On my life.”
The fear in Her gaze cut deep, sending his heart beating a hair faster. Smirking, he leaned close. “It’s going to take a lot more than this to get rid of me. If Kaleo couldn’t do the job, I don’t know what will.”
A smile flickered across Her lips, then disappeared, replaced with a scowl. “That’s not funny.”
“I’ll be as quick as I can manage.” He threw on his hood, cocking his head at his mother and sister. “Guard them while I’m gone.” He turned to them. “You’ll be all right?”
His mother remained thin-lipped and silent. Naomi glanced between her and Tobias. “We’ll be fine. Just be safe.”
Tobias nodded, strapping a blade to each of his thighs, then sheathing a sword at his waist. Leila’s eyes swept each weapon, racked with worry. He wished he could fix that.
I will fix that.
He lifted the front of his shirt. “Do the honors?”
Leila’s gaze darted from the shiny steel to his abdomen.
With rosy cheeks, She pressed Her palm to his chest. “Give him the gift,” She whispered to someone or something—perhaps to Her light, or maybe to God itself.
Whatever it was, Her hand became a burning ember against his skin. “Let him walk in the shadows. Safely.”
The heat of Her touch turned blazing, a bit too much to bear before it thankfully faded away. When She dropped Her hand, he glanced down at his own chest, expecting to see a glowing handprint radiating from his flesh, but there was nothing.
“My power only glows in the sunlight.” Leila shook out Her wrist, avoiding his gaze. “Think of the capital. See yourself there, and—”
“I know.” Tobias smiled. “I’ll be back soon.”
“How will he get back?” Naomi said.
“The blessing works for as long as it’s intended. I give My light a task, and it obeys.” Leila looked to Tobias, speaking more to him than to his sister. “Until he returns to us, the shadow walking will be at his disposal.”
“Can’t You bless him indefinitely?” his mother added. “Keep him safe for however long?”
Leila’s expression dimmed. “There are limitations. The sun, however bright, eventually sets. My light cannot last outside My touch forever. At some point, it will fade.” Her expression became fierce and focused. “Which is all the more reason for you to make your excursion brief.”
The gravity of Her words weighed down on him. He nodded, turning away before the fear in Her gaze could take root in his belly.
The capital’s shopfronts and raucous crowds filled his mind, painting a picture from memory. Soon after, his chest burned once again, except this time Leila’s light spread everywhere, streaming down his limbs and swirling behind his eyes until the world around him flashed white.
When his sight returned, Leila wasn’t beside him any longer.
Tall buildings of the marketplace—a limestone inn, marble pillars, and a bathhouse made of terracotta bricks—cast shadows over him, barely suppressing the summer heat.
A plaster wall cracking with age blocked his vision, the paved ground beneath him narrow and spattered with questionable fluids.
The watering hole alleyway was just as he remembered—dank and stinking of piss, certainly not a place to lurk in the daytime. He had counted on that.
Masking all but his eyes with his cloak’s cowl, he steeled himself and stepped out of the shadows.
The blazing sun blinded him for a moment before revealing a stretch of beige and yellow—a sandy road littered with shuffling people and lined with bustling shopfronts, their thatched roofs the color of wheat.
The scent of roasted boar carried through the air; a hog hung from a spit outside a butchery, and Tobias was tempted to count the coin in his pocket and return to the woods with a proper meal.
No one can see me. It didn’t matter if he had been nothing to the realm a mere thirty-one days ago. Since that fateful day he’d run to the pool barefoot, everything had changed.
People swarmed the capital streets, huddling around wooden carts and hurrying from shop to shop with goods in arm.
Many faces wore the same frenzied expression as if panic had swept the city, taking everyone in its hold.
A woman in a leaden blue dress ignored the screaming baby in her arms as she spoke in hushed tones with a street vendor.
Tobias came in closer, pretending to eye the sweet rolls as they exchanged words.
“Gone . . . Just gone.” The woman’s voice trembled. “She disappeared.”
The vendor wrapped cheese in cloth, her skin ashen. “Do you think She’s—?”
“Don’t say it. We can’t risk the bad fortune.”
“Do you think he’d do something to Her?”
“Your tongue will be our downfall.” The woman snatched up her purchase. “No such talk. You’ll curse us all.”