Chapter 31
Theo strippedthe rope off her, alarmed at her shivering.
“What did he do to you?” He tried to pull back, to get a better look, but as soon as her hands were free, Melodie hugged him and he stilled, letting her come in as close as she could.
“It doesn’t matter what he did,” she whispered. “What matters is I got the better of him.”
“Of course you did.” He ran a hand down the back of her head, smoothed her braid between her shoulders.
She chuckled against his chest. “You don’t even know what I did.”
“Whatever it was, it was magnificent,” he said.
“I stabbed him. And I think I found out how we can break free.” She lifted her head at last.
“You stabbed him?” Looking at her in the faint light coming from the window above, he saw blood smeared on her cheek. He wondered what price she’d paid for that, while he sat here, unable to do anything.
“He made me paint something. So I painted a knife and stabbed him with it.”
He had to hold back a sudden shout of laughter. “He didn’t think it was a bad idea to watch you paint a knife?”
“Somehow, not. And I hurt him, but not enough to put him down. And he . . .” She suddenly shivered. “He retaliated. But the main thing is what I got him to say about the stones. Reading between the lines, I think their power is dependent on them being in alignment. That’s why he closed it back up before he took me to the workshop.”
He stared at her, suddenly sick to his stomach about what that retaliation might have entailed, but she fisted her hands on his chest.
“If I understood what he was saying correctly, we just have to push any stone other than the last one out of alignment, and I think the barrier might eventually shut down.”
Eventually could be any time, but he refused to mention it. He didn’t have a plan to escape, so hers was the best they had. “So how do we move one out of alignment?” he asked.
“Let’s go see.” She pulled back. “I have an idea.”
Theo stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed, as she walked along the barrier, studying each of the stones in turn. It was better for them both if he stayed in the shadows and reduced the risk of Marchant seeing him.
She looked toward the house, studying it as carefully as she had the stones, and then gestured to him. “I think he’s asleep, all the lights are off.”
He walked over to join her, and she pointed.
“There’s the line.”
He saw it was a perfect semi-circle, and almost certainly something Marchant had done well before he’d ever kidnapped the children. This was part of his fail safe to keep his prisoners contained, and each stone sat on the very edge of the arch.
Melodie sat down, and then lay flat on her stomach, studying the rock at the apex of the curve. She extended her hand and tried to push it, but her hand bounced back as it encountered an invisible wall.
“Hmm.” She rolled a little on her side, and looked up at him. “Do you have a short knife?”
She looked better than she had a few minutes ago. Beautiful and determined. She could have asked him for anything and he would have given it to her if he could.
“A knife?” she asked again, and he fumbled for the one strapped to his thigh, drew it from its sheath and handed it to her.
She twisted her lips in a grimace. “I’m probably going to ruin it.”
He crouched beside her. “That’s fine.” He reached out and touched the smear of blood on her cheek.
“Thanks.” She began using it like a spade, digging into the ground just in front of the stone, making an angled hole.
“You’re going to try digging under the line?” he asked at last.
“I can see exactly where the spell begins and ends,” she said. “So if I can come at the stone from below, I think I can nudge it out of alignment.”
“But that won’t give us enough room to escape,” he guessed.
“No, but if Marchant was telling the truth about the energy leech, then we should see the strength of the barrier erode over time.” She took a break from digging and looked up at him again. “And if it dissipates quickly enough, we could escape before he comes back.”
“Let me take over for a bit,” he said, lying down beside her.
They took it in turns, watching Marchant’s house when they weren’t digging.
“He thinks he’s been spelled or cursed, you know.” Melodie propped herself up on an elbow as she watched him dig.
Theo stopped. “Wouldn’t he see it?”
She lifted her shoulder. “That’s what I asked him, but he said it was part of the spell that he couldn’t see it. He’s convinced.”
“And is he?”
She quirked her lips. “I don’t think so. But I haven’t told him that.”
He liked the idea of Marchant worrying about being spelled. “What does he think it’s doing to him?”
“Killing him slowly.” She turned onto her stomach and went back to watching his house. “I think he really is sick, but people get sick all the time and no magic is involved. I wonder if he isn’t looking for magical means because that’s his frame of reference.”
Theo didn’t care. Marchant wasn’t going to live long enough to die of illness or old age. He was going to make sure of it.
“I think I need to take over. We’re nearly there.” Melodie nudged him out the way and began angling the knife down and then upward, and Theo saw the stone move, just a little.
When it landed back in place, she set herself right over the hole, elbows holding her up as she scooped the knife down and then up a few more times, and finally the stone shifted just the tiniest bit.
She tried a few more times, but the small move had changed the angle, and she got no more traction.
“Hah.” She lifted up off her stomach, leaning back on her heels, her rapt gaze fixed on something he couldn’t see. “I’d like to have moved it a bit more, but the magic is wafting away. A golden spiral out and upward.”
Her gaze flicked suddenly to the house. “If he looks out, he’ll see it.”
“Then we have to hope he doesn’t look out.” Because there was nothing they could do about it.
She sighed. “Yes. I injured him pretty badly. I think he’s probably resting.” She pushed to her feet, and he joined her.
For a moment they stood in each other”s arms in the darkness, the stars fat and bright above them, the forest whispering around them, the cool air making everywhere they touched warm and comforting.
“What have we got here?” he asked her eventually, voice quiet.
She looked up at him, eyes big. “You need to tell me, soldier. I’m the sweet young woman who has no business with the likes of you.”
He grinned at her repeating the words the trader had said the day they caught up to him. “You keep up just fine.”
“Maybe.” But her eyes cut away. “I’ve been locked away for a long time, Theo. My father was so worried I would be snatched, he hovered over me like a hawk. And then Vinest was so worried he’d lose his very cheap labor that he manipulated me into closeting myself away.” She sighed. “I used to watch the Kassia and Cervantes soldiers in the square, laughing and joking, and feel so jealous. You know how to navigate the romantic waters. I’d just drown.”
“You won’t drown.” He slowly maneuvered them back toward the prison, out of Marchant’s line of sight. “I won’t let you.”
“That feels . . . uneven.” She swung with him as they made it through the door, and he suddenly had her pressed up against the wall.
“Tell me how I can make it feel even.”
She studied his face in the dim starlight that came through the window above her head.
“Do you really want this? I think I’m probably a lot of trouble.” Her voice was so soft, and he thought he caught sadness in it.
“Who made you think that?” He leaned closer and felt a quick stab of desire when she set her face in the crook of his neck, her lips against his collarbone.
“I’m sure Vinest hinted it, but I knew not to listen to him. I think it’s more that there are a lot of complications when it comes to me. If I use my skills, I’m a target. If I don’t use my skills, I’m a rotten person.” She lifted her head. “I’ve been working in the shadows, and not doing everything I could do. I feel like a failure.”
“You were on your own. You have a right to protect yourself. When this is done, come back with me to Kassia and Cervantes, and you can help people with my sword at your back.” He would make the Commander see the benefit of it, or he would leave the army.
She raised her hands and held his face between his palms. “You mean that?”
“I mean that.”
“That’s a lot.” She kissed his cheek and he slid his fingers into the back of her braid, cupping her head.
Then he lifted her up, turned and leaned back against the wall, so she was the one crowding him.
“What’s this?” she asked, and he could see the flick of nerves as she wet her lips, but she pressed against him, and carefully pushed his hair back from his forehead.
“It’s whatever you want it to be,” he told her.
“This is you, letting me even up,” she said. And then she pressed her lips against his.
He hadn’t intended for anything to really happen between them. Marchant was just a field away, and still very much a threat, but her kisses were so sweet, and everywhere she touched stoked the fire in him even hotter.
Eventually, he had to set her away.
“I need to keep my wits about me.” He straightened with a wince and then pulled her back in his arms, unwilling to lose the heat and scent of her. “Let’s just turn it down a bit.”
She snuggled close, and ran her hand up and down his back. “Thank you.”
“What for?”
“For making sure I didn’t drown.” She sighed contentedly.
“Sweetheart,” he told her, absolutely serious, “I’m the one floundering now.”