Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
I t took Bikkar at least an hour to feel comfortable enough to leave me alone. That came after we had trust each other enough to allow him to apply a healing salve to the wound on my side, and then again to leave me while he washed blood from his hair. After giving the salve to me in the first place, Bikkar gently pressed the ointment against what remained of the wound. Within moments, it was almost entirely healed.
Now, Bikkar had been gone for a few minutes already. He’d left out the front door, but I wasn’t sure where he’d gone or when he’d be back. Maybe I should have run already. No, I definitely should have run by now. But the truth was the longer I remained Bikkar’s prisoner, the less I was sure about running at all.
With the adrenaline gone and with it my fight, I saw things how they really were. My party had fucked up. We should’ve known the Crown’s rulings of peace in the area and not accepted this job regardless of the potential payout. A pretty hefty amount had been promised us.
We’d never see it now. I wondered if I’d ever even see my friends again. If Bikkar didn’t kill me first thing tomorrow—and I wasn’t exactly doing a good job of giving him reasons not to kill me—the citizens of Caiburn could prosecute. I’d be imprisoned.
Would my party come for me then, after they’d had time to recover?
I glanced over at the front door to Bikkar’s cabin. A familiar burst of energy was building in my feet. Not magic, but a desire to move. To run. To escape.
Maybe I could explain myself to Caiburn if I turned myself in. I’d never get the chance if Bikkar brought me there. If he didn’t kill me first.
My jaw set hard. My magic had returned to me in the time since Bikkar had left. It was a give-or-take sort of thing, and I’d exerted a lot of it during the fight with Bikkar and his soldiers. But after some rest, I was sure I had enough power within me to get me out of here. But these ropes…
I shuffled my bound wrists out from beneath the blanket. The bindings kept my hands pressed tightly together. Most spells required moving them if only for a way to push out the magic from within yourself.
Fire, though…
I held my bound wrists before me and spoke a spell for flame. On my next exhale, fire sparked on my lips and followed my breath to the ropes. The tiny embers began burning through the cord. Slowly, though. So much so that I kept glancing to the door, expecting Bikkar to come in at any moment and find me working magic. My heart thrummed in my chest. I forced slow breaths in and out of my lungs, focusing to stave off the panic. I was the thief mage. I could get out of this. I’d been in much stickier situations.
A loud crack sounded from outside the cabin. I nearly bolted out of my skin. The fire magic on the ropes grew larger in response to my fear, burning through the rest of the bindings but also leaping onto my skin. I yelped and patted out the flames with my nearly free hands. Angry, red skin flared in the fire’s wake.
Crack .
It was only then that I recognized the sound. Bikkar was chopping wood for the fireplace.
My heart leapt into my throat. This was my chance. My only chance. He’d just started chopping wood and there wasn’t much left in the cabin. He’d be out there for another few minutes, maybe longer.
I stood and glanced around the room. I knew where I was in relation to Caiburn, but it was still more than two miles away in snow. I grabbed my nearly dry clothes from where Bikkar had hung them and quickly pulled them on. Then my shoes. I wouldn’t need anything else. I couldn’t risk the time to gather anything else.
The only thing I hadn’t quite expected when I reached the front door and window to Bikkar’s cabin was the heavy snow now falling from a white-out sky. The snowflakes fell heavier now, and snow had built up around Bikkar’s cabin at least three feet high. It’d be a pain to wander through the forest, and my tracks would be easy to follow.
Shit.
There was also one other small problem. Bikkar stood less than a hundred yards away. His focus was entirely on chopping wood, but the moment he turned this way, he’d see my path in the snow if I left. He’d roughly moved snow out of the way so he had a path to the barn and where he was now. But everything else was untouched.
I’d have to move fast . Quickly past him while he turned to grab another log to cut, and then even faster through the woods without stopping.
Bikkar brought his axe down again, his bulging muscles rippling with the action. Crack. The massive log snapped in half as though it’d been simply paper. It gave no resistance.
That’d be me next if he caught me. If he decided to say screw it to Yule and to orc tradition. If Bikkar caught me, those hands would snap me in half. But earlier… earlier they’d held me in place on his horse. Earlier, those same massive hands had gently removed my top. I could still feel his hands on me. His body against mine. The warmth of it—hell, even the security of his body being the only thing keeping me, bound, from falling off a huge horse.
As Bikkar grabbed the two pieces of the log and tossed them into a cart with others, I couldn’t stop my mind from wondering what else those hands could do to me. My eyes closed as a fantasy swept through me of Bikkar’s hands on my hips instead of my shoulders, his thumb trailing downward…
Escape , my mind screamed. Not because Bikkar was a threat in that moment, but because my traitorous body was.
Bikkar turned in that moment to grab a new log, one much bigger than the last. I steeled my resolve and slipped out the front door in his moment of distraction. If he hadn’t been watching the door before, there was little to no chance he thought I’d leave the house. I’d have a few minutes’ head start—hopefully. But not much more than that.
I was gone into the nearby treeline before Bikkar turned back. Crack. Another swing of his axe. It hid the sound of me trekking through three-foot-deep snow. By the time his second swing reverberated through the otherwise snowy-silent air, I was yards into the treeline.
Moving through so much snow wasn’t easy. I left a huge and incredibly obvious trail behind me that not even spells could hide. My only course of action was to move fast and hope that the heavy snow falling around me would at least keep me hidden from afar.
After the first few minutes, my body finally felt the cold. A jagged shiver coursed through me, sending my teeth clattering together. I pulled my arms around my middle as I charged ahead, cursing myself for not taking even the blanket with me. If I stopped for any reason or length of time, I’d freeze out here.
I lifted one hand before me and exhaled the fire spell once more. At least I could hold a little warmth as I ran.
The forest was silent in only the way a snowfall could bring—save for the sounds of my trek through it. I focused on the timberland before me, convinced that if I looked over my shoulder, I’d find Bikkar chasing me. But no sounds came—not his heavy footfalls, not birdsong. Just snow and the occasional twig snapping from the weight of it.
No sound.
Bikkar’s woodchopping had stopped.
I froze in place against all better judgement and finally turned around. I wasn’t sure now how long it’d been since I’d last heard Bikkar’s axe fall through wood. The crack of it had been so loud before that this realization and the silence accompanying it had deafened my ears. I strained, listening for any sound of him picking it back up again or coming toward me.
Nothing.
My chest rose and fell. I could see my breath spiraling heavily from my mouth. Gone was the fire between my fingers. Fear did that to magic. Either it powered your abilities or scared it away.
Move , I begged my body, but now that I’d stopped, now that cold was beginning to really set in, I found my feet unwilling to follow commands. Fuck.
That was when I heard the heavy footfalls stomping through snow. Bikkar’s heavy breaths. And then—a roar rattled the snow on nearby trees. Bikkar’s rage-filled roar rose goosebumps on my arms and down my spine. Angrier than this morning. Hurt .
I was a dead woman.
I took off, sprinting through snow as panic swept over my body. Adrenaline pushed my feet onward and warmed my muscles. My pulse pounded in my ears. Between my pulse and the quiet, snowy forest, it was like I couldn’t hear anything else. I had no idea how close Bikkar was. Could he see me now? Would he even try to capture me again or just end this all here?
The fear, the mystery, of it all became a strange sort of thrill as I trudged through the snow. It was the same thrill I enjoyed while sneaking into nobles’ houses and even banks to steal and complete high-tension jobs. I thrived in that space of fear and conflict under the right circumstances. Even now, I found my body craving that tension, being fueled by it. But this was so different and so much worse. Death could await me if Bikkar had decided his honor could survive ending my life.
And yet… I liked it. I couldn’t deny it. This chase was different. Until today, Bikkar’s and my relationship had been straightforward. Our parties had often met in battle and drifted apart to rest and regroup. But then he’d refused to kill me today when I’d lost. He’d taken me in as his guest. He’d cared .
My breath strained my chest. The air was becoming so cold that it hurt to breathe. And I was ever aware that no matter how far and fast I ran, with Bikkar already chasing me, there was nowhere to hide. Even if I climbed a tree. Even if I found a cave. Bikkar would be right behind me.
Running had been stupid. But I had to try to escape.
I wouldn’t face judgement alone for my party’s collective decisions. At least not without a surefire way to guarantee my side of the story was heard.
I stopped with a thick tree at my back, placing the pine between me and Bikkar. I knew it was better to keep going, to force my muscles to never stop working until I was in Caiburn, but my thoughts whirred too quickly and too slowly from the cold at the same time. Adrenaline kept my panic in check, but the snow was freezing me through and through.
“Elysia!” Bikkar bellowed. He was close now, so much closer than I’d thought.
Shit.
“This is foolish!” His voice echoed through the otherwise silent forest, a bit muffled from the snow. “You’ll never reach Caiburn in this.”
But the anger in his tone, the biting undercurrent of rage, didn’t promise an otherwise viable option for me. If I revealed myself now, if I didn’t start running again, he’d make sure I didn’t have another chance to run one way or another. That was the only thing I was sure of at this point.
His heavy footfalls sounded closer. He was twenty feet away now, maybe less. The snow made it hard to tell.
Despite the genuine fear coursing through my veins, it was nearly impossible to deny the thrill of this all too. Of being chased. Of being sure but not entirely confident how this would end. Maybe he wouldn’t kill me.
Gods, why was I like this? Flirting with danger. With death. With risk. That was exactly what had gotten me into this predicament in the first place. Instead of sprinting away from this tree, my body thrummed with excitement.
“Elysia!” Bikkar called again. He was right on the other side of this tree. He’d see the lack of forward tracks any moment now.
My chest still heaved as my adrenaline kicked into overdrive right alongside my excitement. I had no weapons, just magic, and a whole lot of forest between me and help. Not much at all to defend myself with.
One final stand, then.