Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27
E leksi stroked Neve’s hair as she slept, running his fingertips from her scalp to the pool of black tresses that spilled across her pillow.
His mind and heart had been cracked wide open. Making love to Neve had been the most magical experience of his life, and it had naught to do with sorcery. They fit each other like fate.
From birth, he’d been raised by his father to believe he was broken and dark. He grew up with the innate understanding that he wasn’t capable of being a loving person. Any nice feeling he had, he ignored out of fear and shame.
Only his grandmother had ever encouraged him, in quiet moments, to feel anything beyond grim determination. Largely he’d rejected her efforts, because the force of shame was greater.
He’d relegated that tenderness so far away that he believed it no longer existed. How could it, when he killed people in cold blood for a living? As an adult, it seemed that he’d fulfilled his father’s prophecy.
But his father was long dead. Perhaps it was time for Eleksi to shake off the grim stain of the man’s memory. Or at least, try to. Old, deep wounds were difficult to heal.
Neve stirred. Her head tilted and she looked up at him with her soulful dark eyes. An intense wave of bliss washed over him.
“Morning,” she said, her voice husky.
“Good morning.”
He touched her chin and kissed her gently on the lips, his blood stirring with warmth. The proximity of her body and soul gave him peace. Her hand reached up and stroked his cheek, making his heart melt.
A knock on the barn door jolted him from his entrancement.
“Hello?” came Clayton’s jolly call. “It’s a beautiful day! Are we up and about yet?”
Eleksi sighed and shook his head. “I suppose we are now.”
He glanced at the window. The sun was bright and birds chirped. They’d slumbered for many hours. Perhaps Clayton was worried, or wanted them gone so that he could be free to work.
“We should be on our way,” said Neve, tracing her fingertips across his bare back, making his toes curl with pleasure.
“Aye. It’s not safe to linger in one place for too long. We best not push our luck.” He touched the tip of her nose. “We’ll surely reach the coastal road today.”
After rising and stripping the bed, they dressed, pulled on their boots, and exited the barn.
“There ye are!” said Clayton from the orchard. He was piling apples into a wicker basket. “I’ve made breakfast. You’ll come and join me, I hope?”
Eleksi raised his brows at Neve, to ascertain her wishes.
She nodded. “We ought to eat before we leave. It’ll save us stopping later.”
He scanned the perimeter of the property out of habit as they walked to the neat little house. Clayton had let all of the horses from the stables and they grazed placidly in the lush green paddocks, a creek running through the middle of two swaying willow trees. In the light of day, the farrier’s home was even more idyllic than at dusk.
As they crossed the yard, Eleksi plucked an apple from a tree, turning it over in his hand. It was polished, uniformly red, and spherical. So perfect that it almost looked artificial.
He took a bite, the fruit crunching loudly under his teeth. But there was something else, too. He looked down and cursed, then spat the fruit onto the ground.
“What is it?” asked Neve, alarmed.
“A worm,” he replied, holding out the bitten apple to show her.
He tossed the apple into the trees.
“Ah, sorry about that,” said Clayton, wincing. “You do get a bad apple now and then. Part of the business of growing fruit.”
Neve and Eleksi removed their cloaks inside the cottage and laid them over the backs of the kitchen chairs. Clayton had set the square wooden table with bread, hard cheese, a pitcher of juice, and a plate of cut fruit. The interior of the cottage was neat, if a little worn, and Clayton hovered over the table, cheerily pointing out the breakfast items.
“Eleksi?” prompted Neve.
He’d been scrutinizing his surroundings so intently that he hadn’t registered the conversation.
“Would you like some fresh apple juice?” asked Clayton, pouring a portion into a brass goblet for Neve. “Made it myself, this morning.”
Eleksi shook his head. “No, thank you.”
“Oh, go on!” He raised his bushy brows, proffering the pitcher at Eleksi.
“No, thank you,” he repeated in the same even tone.
His instincts tingled uncomfortably.
Eleksi stood. “I’ll fetch some water, if you don’t mind.”
“But the juice—” started Clayton.
Eleksi had already moved to the small kitchen, sweeping the area with his keen eyes. Something was off. He could feel it.
Neve watched him with a slight frown as she selected slices of apple sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon from a tray.
As he turned to pour water from a carafe near the sink, he saw it. A sheaf of parchment protruded from beneath a gardening book. His eyes slid to Clayton, who stood clutching the juice pitcher with a peculiar grimace.
Eleksi shifted the book. The parchment had a sketch of Neve’s face, alongside written notice of a reward from the palace for her capture. Fifty gold coins.
Dead or alive.
Knowing he was caught, Clayton plunked down the pitcher and pressed his palms together, his gaze beseeching.
“No, I—” he started.
“Neve, don’t drink that juice,” said Eleksi, interrupting him.
She pushed away the goblet and hastily stood, her jaw tightening.
“What’s in it?” asked Eleksi, crossing to Clayton. “You’ve poisoned it, have you not?”
He moved slowly and deliberately, assuming the lethal poise of a Spider King. But unlike when he was working, this time it was personal. Neve was in danger.
“Answer me,” he said, standing before Clayton. “Were you hoping to take her dead? Or alive?”
“Please, have mercy,” he replied. “I need the coin, and she’s a criminal. I didn’t?—”
“What’s in the juice?” breathed Eleksi.
Neve gripped the back of her chair, her face stricken.
Clayton swallowed hard. “A sleeping dram.”
“Truly?” Eleksi cocked his head. “It’d be easier on you to kill us. You must’ve been nervous, having to subdue the two of us. That’s why you buttered us up first, and had us stay overnight. You knew you couldn’t take us in a fight.” He leaned closer. “You’re sure it’s not a deadly poison?”
“It’s a sleeping dram, I swear it! You would’ve slept for one day. Maybe two. But you would’ve both woken! I promise.”
Without moving his eyes from the man’s face, Eleksi picked up the goblet that Neve had been about to drink.
He held it out to Clayton. “Go ahead.”
His eyes bulged. “No, please. That’s not necessary. I’m sorry, alright? You can leave, and I won’t tell anyone you were here. I swear!”
With his other hand, Eleksi withdrew the slender golden dagger from within his jacket. He heard a muffled gasp from Neve.
“Drink,” said Eleksi in a waspish tone, placing the edge of the blade against Clayton’s neck. “Or I will open your throat like a present. If the juice contains a sleeping dram, as you claim, this will be the easiest decision of your life.”
Clayton blinked, his shoulders shaking. He took the goblet and held it to his lips. Eleksi twitched the dagger blade slightly.
With a defeated sigh, Clayton sipped the juice.
“All of it,” said the assassin.
“But that’s too much,” he pleaded in response.
Eleksi inclined his head at Neve. “Would you have stopped her from drinking too much? Finish it.”
Clayton gulped the juice and dropped the goblet on the floor, where it landed with a clang and bounced away. He swayed on the spot, then stumbled, his brow prickling with sweat. After fighting the effects of the drink for a few moments, he fell to his knees and slumped on the floor.
“Goodnight, Clayton,” said Eleksi, returning his dagger to the inside of his jacket. “Neve, I believe we ought to be on our way.”
She nodded, her face pale, and they hurried to the paddock to retrieve and saddle their steeds. The black horses were rejuvenated to the point of restlessness. Eleksi felt quite the same way, eager to continue their mission.
“We’ve left Meliohr to wreak havoc and sew discord for long enough,” he said as he mounted his horse alongside Neve.
“I quite agree,” she replied, downcast. “I can’t believe Clayton was going to poison us.”
“I can. People do all kinds of things for coin.”
“But he was kind to us.”
“He was false to us.”
She sighed. “You’re right.”
“It’s not a bad thing that you’re trusting,” he replied gently as the horses trotted down the driveway. “It’s a fine trait. The bad thing is the people who’d take advantage of it.”
Eleksi vowed to himself to shield her from all such people, for as long as he drew breath. She didn’t seem to realize it was a small miracle that she didn’t use her abilities for her own greedy ends. Many people would. Many people did , with abilities far lesser.
They rode hard, quickly putting a vast distance between the farrier’s property and themselves. As they drew closer to the coast, the air became tinged with salt. They followed obscure mountain paths and rocky, ill-used tracks to avoid people as much as possible.
“I underestimated how widely Meliohr would send her royal guards and the Spider Kings,” said Eleksi grimly. “We must tread carefully and make no more mistakes.”
“I do hope my mother has managed to stay hidden in Klatos.”
“The queen knows you left the city. She’ll focus her efforts far and wide, not on your mother.”
“Perhaps Meliohr won’t expect us to return to the capital. We might surprise her.”
“Perhaps.”
They stopped only at the hilly tree line on the outskirts of a hamlet that lay between them and the ocean road. Although they couldn’t see the hamlet past the hills, raucous voices and laughter floated over, at odds with the remoteness and diminutive size of the settlement.
“Seems to be some kind of celebration.” Eleksi gave Neve an apologetic look. “We can’t cross that many people. We’ll have to take the long way around.” He pointed to the mountain pass further up the track. “It’ll mean a delay, but we can’t risk it.”
“You’re—” Neve abruptly fell silent and turned her head, listening to the cacophony coming from the hamlet, which included shrieks and peals of laughter. “How on earth . . . ” she whispered. Then, she raised her brows in amazement. “I know that voice.”
Without further explanation, she touched her heels to her mount’s flank and cantered toward the village.