by Amber Argyle
“What do you mean, manhandled her?” Garrot’s shout startled her out of her thoughts.
Hushed murmurs.
“Where is this man?” Garrot grunted.
“I left him in the pit,” West said. “He might be able to walk by now.”
Garrot huffed. “Leave him there. You were right to hide her. I should have commissioned a box for her.”
A pause. The threads of a whisper.
“Well,” Garrot said, “there’s nothing else for it, and West will see to her.”
More whispers, more insistent this time.
“That won’t be necessary,” Garrot said.
“I will not let a bunch of uncouth men around her when she’s vulnerable like this,” Nesha’s voice ground out. She must have been the one whispering earlier. She obviously hadn’t wanted Larkin to know she was here and now no longer cared. Why did she care about what was done to Larkin? They hated each other.
“Really, my dear,” Garrot said. “West apprenticed to healers long before becoming a soldier. He’s more than capable of caring for her.”
“He hasn’t done a great job so far,” Nesha huffed.
An awkward silence. “It won’t happen again, miss,” West said.
Nesha hmphed.
“We will check on her tonight, and you may ask her how she fares,” Garrot said. “Will that satisfy you?”
Tonight? But surely Nesha had just come to say goodbye to Garrot. Surely Garrot wasn’t such a fool as to bring his pregnant wife to a meeting with the wraiths.
“At midday,” Nesha said. “I will help her with her needs.”
A sigh through the nose—probably from Garrot.
“I understand your familial connection, Nesha,” he said. “But you must remember that Larkin is still under the pipers’ enchantment. She is not to be trusted.”
“Of course I remember,” Nesha said.
Garrot hummed low in his throat. “Very well.”
The wagon swayed as someone stepped into the seat. The harnesses jangled, and the wagon lurched into motion. It wasn’t long before Larkin was sick to her stomach. Deciding sleep was better than this, she allowed herself to drift away.
Larkin woke at midday when West pulled away the blanket covering her and dropped the tailgate. He climbed in with her and propped her against a bag of beans, high enough she could see out between some of the crates. They were on one of the roads that connected the cities—either Cordova Road or Landra Road.
Not in the forest, thank her ancestors.
West settled a tray of cooked beans, some buttered bread, and a waterskin on her lap. He tucked a napkin into her shirt. “Can you manage the spoon?”
She glared at it. “Don’t want it.”
West took a spoonful and swallowed. “There. See?”
She stirred the watery beans as he hopped down. Still not trusting it, she took the bowl in her bound hands and threw it out.
Hands on his hips, he stared at the mess, some of it on his pants.
I need him on my side, she reminded herself. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
He gave her a flat look. “So you’re just not going to eat at all?”
“How long do I have?” she asked.
He seemed to understand what she meant. “The pipers are meeting us for your ransom at a bend in the river in three days.”
“Ransom?” There was no ransom. They were turning her over to the wraiths.
His guilty eyes met hers, and she suddenly understood. Denan thought he was ransoming her. He marched into a trap. She must warn him. But first, she must wake up. She must get out of these ropes and escape the encampment.
Her seat bones hurt. She tried to shift, only to flop around like a stranded fish. The movement made her bladder hurt. “I need to pee.”
West blushed scarlet.
“I thought you apprenticed to a healer?” she asked in exasperation.
“None of my patients were pretty,” he muttered.
She rolled her eyes. West scooted her forward. When she reached the edge, he carried her a dozen steps toward the forest.
“Where are you going with her?”
West turned, allowing her to see Nesha riding toward them on a beautiful bay, Garrot loping behind her. “To see to her needs.”
Nesha stared at Larkin, her mouth a thin line. She turned to Garrot. “This isn’t something a man should help her with.”
“Nesha,” Garrot said gently. “She’s not safe to be around.”
“She would never hurt me. And besides, her hands are bound.” He didn’t seem convinced. She smiled sweetly at him. “You’ll be right there if anything happens.”
Garrot nodded. Nesha rode to the edge of the woods, clambered down from the saddle, and handed the reins to Garrot. She pointed into the wood. “There, that log will do nicely.”
Nesha maneuvered Larkin’s skirts so she wasn’t sitting on them as West got her into position with her backside hanging over the opposite side of the trunk. Nesha took West’s place, propping Larkin against her. West backed away. Nesha gathered Larkin’s skirts, exposing her backside. Larkin finally released her bladder.
She sighed in relief. Beneath her cheek, Larkin could feel the baby squirming. She rested her fingertips against the shifting—an elbow maybe? Bane’s baby. A piece of him in the world lived on even after his father had perished.
“The mandala is in the water, not the food.” Nesha slipped a waterskin from a loop at her belt and held it to Larkin’s mouth. “Drink all of it. Now.”
Larkin pushed back, not trusting her sister. “What? Why would you help me?”
“Because even after all you’ve done, you’re still my sister.”
“All I’ve done? I didn’t turn a mob loose on you.”
“Drink,” Nesha hissed.
Larkin drained Nesha’s waterskin. Her sister eased it back onto the loop around her waist. “In ten minutes, act groggy and sloppy, like you were this morning. When they give you water, pretend to drink it but pour it out instead.”
Larkin opened her mouth to ask one of a dozen questions piling up in her head.
“West,” Nesha called before she could. “She’s ready.” Nesha held her skirts so Larkin’s backside was covered, but the hem wasn’t hanging in the urine.
West picked Larkin up. Confused, she watched her sister limp back to her horse and smile brightly at Garrot before riding away.
Larkin stared gratefully at the blanket West had placed over her as the sleep draft and gilgad venom leeched from her system. Little by little, she felt more awake, and her body regained its strength. It was almost painful not to shift against the bruising wagon. To pretend to sleep whenever West looked in on her. She was bored and hot and starving.
They paused around supper time. This time, they offered her applesauce and dry, crumbly biscuits. She wasn’t sure what of any of it she could trust. Perhaps Nesha would tell her. “I need to relieve myself first.”
West got her out of the wagon. Nesha waited to help her, Garrot at her side. They found another log for her, then left her with Nesha to hold up her skirts.
Nesha instantly pushed the waterskin to Larkin, who drank hidden in the fold of her sister’s divided skirts. “They’re giving you a stronger dose tonight. Pretend to be sound asleep, no matter what.”
“Is the food safe?”
“Eat a little and wait to be sure.” She leaned in. “Mama, Sela, Brenna?”
Larkin’s mouth compressed in a thin line. “They were fine when I left them with Denan.”
Nesha shuddered. “Fine until one of those pipers marries my four-year-old sister.”
Larkin’s first impulse was to spout back something hurtful. Her second impulse was to defend the pipers. Neither would do any good. She needed Nesha on her side. “That won’t happen.”
Nesha made a noncommittal noise in her throat.
“Do you know anything about Iniya, Harben, and Raeneth?” Larkin asked.
“Why do you care about any of t
hem?”
“Just answer the question.”
“I saw them released into the forest. That’s all I know.” At least Garrot hadn’t lied about that.
Nesha took a damp rag and cleaned Larkin up, which was humiliating.
“Why, Nesha? You were my best friend. The person I trusted the most in the world. Why did you betray me?”
Nesha huffed. “You were always everyone’s favorite. Mama and Papa. Even Sela. But you couldn’t see it. You wanted your freedom. It’s all you ever wanted. You never saw that you already had it. You could run and dance and marry and escape while I … I could have none of those things. I was the one trapped.”
Larkin had never known this—never known how deep her sister’s jealousy went.
Nesha sniffed. “All I ever wanted was to marry Bane and be a mother to his children.” A sob hitched in her throat. “But you had to take that too. You took everything I ever wanted.”
“So you wanted me dead?”
Nesha’s hands shifted to fists. “I wanted to hurt you. I wanted you to suffer as I had.” She shook her head. “But I never wanted you dead.”
Larkin pulled down the collar of her shirt, revealing the horizontal scar across her neck. “Hunter tried to slit my throat. He would have succeeded if Denan hadn’t killed him, hadn’t saved me from that mob.”
Nesha shook her head as if trying to deny the proof right in front of her. “Garrot swore to me—he swore on his life—he wouldn’t let any harm come to you. Hunter must have been acting on his own.”
“I’m sure Garrot was very sorry the mob got out of control. And very sorry weeks later when he locked me in a room and tried to force me to marry Bane.”
“It was for your own good! You were enchanted!”
“I was never enchanted!”
“Then why keep the pipers’ secrets? For decades, the pipers have terrorized us, and you did nothing but defend them. At least Garrot is trying to stop them!”
“Nesha,” Garrot said from behind her, his brow drawn. He motioned for West.
Nesha hurried to make Larkin decent. West picked her up. Nesha brushed the front of her dress as if rubbing off Larkin’s touch. Garrot saw her wounded expression and pulled her into his arms.
She sank into him, her head tucked in the crook of his neck. “I can’t make her see, Garrot. No matter how hard I try. I can’t get through the enchantment.”
Garrot’s hands stroked up and down her back—the same hands that had wrestled Bane to the gallows and forced the noose around his neck. Bile rose in Larkin’s throat. Bile and hatred strong enough to choke on. Plant the seeds of truth. Wait for them to take root.
“Ask him who killed Bane, Nesha.”
She started and looked at Larkin. “Bane killed seven druids, Larkin. He was sentenced by the courts. Garrot spoke for him, tried to defend him.”
Larkin barked a laugh. “Ask him who put the noose around Bane’s neck and shoved him into the abyss.” Garrot glared at her. She glared right back. Let his own actions condemn him. “And when you’re done with that, ask him who killed our grandfather and all his councilors. Ask him how much blood stains his hands.”
Garrot wrapped his arm around Nesha’s waist and led her back to the horses. “Washerwomen follow the company. I’ll hire one of them to see to your sister’s needs.”
Larkin wanted to fight free of West’s arms, but she forced herself to move slowly, sloppily. “Ask him why he’s turning me over to the wraiths to be tortured, Nesha. Ask him what he plans to do with Bane’s baby once it’s born!”
Nesha’s head came up, and she looked back at Larkin, one arm wrapped protectively around her belly. The first seeds of doubt clouded her expression.
Garrot motioned to West. “Gag her.”
“Garrot,” Nesha protested.
“No,” Garrot said firmly. “I won’t let that woman fill your head with lies.”
West set her down and tried to shove a cloth into Larkin’s mouth, but she bit his hand and spat it out. “The marks on his skin, Nesha. They’re from the shadows! He’s made an alliance with them.”
Cursing, West covered her mouth with his hand. “Stop talking.”
She couldn’t stop talking—not until Nesha knew the truth. “I’m not the one enchanted, Nesha. You are. And Garrot didn’t have to use a bit of magic to do it!”
Another soldier came to help West. He pinned her head while West shoved a rag in her mouth so deep that she gagged. The man tied it down. All of West’s weight was on her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stop gagging.
Garrot lifted Nesha into the saddle. “I will not allow your sister’s lies to ever harm you again. I swear it.” He took the reins in his hand, mounted his own horse, and led her away.
Larkin screamed through the gag. For she finally understood. Garrot’s touch was every bit as poisonous as the wraiths he served.
Straddling her, West waited until Garrot was far out of sight and cut the gag. Larkin rolled to the side and gasped for breath.
“You shouldn’t—” the soldier protested.
“Let her holler if she wants.” West smoothed his mustache. “As long as Garrot and his pretty mistress aren’t anywhere to hear.”
Larkin looked up at him. He watched her, his expression unreadable. “Time for lunch, Larkin. And you’re going to eat all of it.”
He watched as she ate and handed her the water skin. She filled her mouth, then pretended to wipe her mouth while instead spitting it down her sleeves, which dripped onto her skirt. She must have managed to swallow some of it, for she slept sound and deep, waking stiff and sore in the morning. A morning in which they abandoned Cordova Road for the wilds of the Forbidden Forest.
Tucked away in a large tent, Larkin swore she could feel the sun sinking into the horizon. Night was coming. And darkness. Her heart kicked in her chest, and her stomach tightened into a fist. She should be high in the trees. She should have sacred weapons to protect her. Instead, she had West. All he could do was die—or worse.
And for Larkin … Worse waited for her.
Sweat dripped from Larkin’s temple into her eyes, making them sting and burn. Unable to bear it a moment more, she pushed to her feet.
West started. “You’re supposed to be drugged.”
She backed toward the tent flap. “Just let me sleep in the boughs. Please. I swear I’ll come down in the morning.”
West gripped her arm. “Larkin, what are you so afraid of? You’re in the midst of an army. You’re going to drink your draft and wake up perfectly safe in the morning.”
She laughed—a laugh full of sharp, jangled edges. “You don’t have any sacred weapons. You’re as helpless against the shadows as I.”
Not letting go of her, West bent down to a waterskin and held it out to her. “Now. Drink all of it.”
“When they come, don’t try to fight them. You’ll only get yourself killed. Or worse.”
“Larkin, I—”
Wrongness and death swept over Larkin. She shoved West and lunged for the tent flap. Shadows like writhing snakes condensed right in front of her. Ramass had come. As he’d promised.
She staggered back into West and held her bound hands up to him. “Cut me free! It’s your only chance.”
Instead, West drew his sword and shoved her behind him. “Breech! Guards! Breech!”
Ramass solidified, his crown as sharp as the shadow-wreathed blade he carried. Sickly yellow eyes glared down at her, trapped her.
“It is time, Larkin,” came his dry rasp.
“No,” she whimpered.
West stayed firmly between her and the wraith. “My orders are that she doesn’t leave this tent.”
The wraith drew his sword.
“What are you?” West asked.
“Don’t,” Larkin said. “You’re no match for him.”
“I am a wraith. You should have listened to her.” The wraith charged. West tried to counter. The wraith’s sword flicked out unnaturally fast, cutting through We
st’s sword at the hilt like a twig. West collapsed around his bleeding hand, screaming.
The wraith moved toward her, the wrongness growing so thick she choked on it. She couldn’t move away as his hand wrapped around her throat. She fell into that nothingness, dissipating into shadow and chaos. A moth-eaten veil filmed her vision, revealing a tree of solid black, glittering against a turquoise lake.
All her plans, all her efforts had failed.
“No!” a voice shouted.
Ramass released her. She came back from somewhere far away. Crumpled into a boneless heap on the ground. Remembered how to draw breath into her starving lungs.
“She is mine!” the wraith hissed.
Garrot stared at the wraith without freezing, his dark sigils seeming to suck in all light. “Not until Denan sees her, she’s not.”
Denan was being lured into a trap. She coughed. “He won’t risk his men.” Her voice sounded ruined. “Not even for me.”
Garrot’s gaze narrowed at her. “You’d be surprised what a man would do to keep the woman he loves.”
“She’s mine,” the wraith chittered.
“After the battle,” Garrot said firmly.
The wraith made an inhuman, hissing wail. “If she is not in my hands then, Garrot of the Black Druids …”
“She will be.” Garrot gestured back the way they’d come. “Come to my tent. I have maps I want you to look at.”
Ramass stared at her before following Garrot beyond the tent. The sense of evil slowly faded. A strange, metallic taste spread across her tongue—she’d bit her tongue and hadn’t realized it—but she was not taken. Relief speared through her, so sharp she curved her body around it and took a breath. Two.
On the other side of the tent, West moaned. Larkin crawled to his side. He held his bloody hand to his belly.
She pried away the fingers of the opposite hand. “Let me see.”
He finally released his left hand. The tips of the three outer fingers were gone. Already, the wound was black, the poison spreading. Larkin had seen this before—the poison slowly crawling up the victim’s skin. Seen the mutilated pipers who were only alive because their limbs had been removed.
