“No!” I caught her arm.
“Let me go, Sonya,” Genevie said calmly, belying the terror in her eyes. “You know I can’t let him hurt someone else when he came for me.”
She pulled out of my grasp, and I let her. I let her. I didn’t know what else to do.
I watched helplessly as she walked forward, trying not to stumble on the uneven rocks. Her nightgown fluttered on the ocean breeze.
Five of the soldiers who’d brought muskets kept careful aim on the bounty hunter as Genevie neared him.
“Baissez vos armes!” The bounty hunter nodded his chin at our men.
“He wants you to lower your weapons,” Genevie said.
No one budged. The bounty hunter tightened his grip on Kira’s hair, and she whimpered.
“Do as he says,” I told them, dropping my knife. It clattered on the rocks.
Reluctantly, the soldiers set their muskets on the ground.
Genevie took three steps closer to the bounty hunter until she was within his reach. He carefully let go of Kira’s hair, but didn’t remove his dagger from her throat. Instead, he grabbed Genevie’s arm. Dragged her close. Then, in one swift motion, he swapped girls, releasing Kira and bringing Genevie to the edge of his blade.
Kira broke into sobs. She ran for me, and I caught her in my arms. Her fingers dug into my back as she wept. “It’s all right,” I said, smoothing her mussed hair. “You’re safe now.” I swallowed and looked up at Genevie. She wasn’t.
My heart lurched as the bounty hunter dragged her backward into the darkness behind the trees. Her gaze grew hollow, lifeless, defeated. Not only was Genevie in the clutches of a merciless bounty hunter, but she was also going to become the slave of an abusive master once more.
I’m so sorry, I wanted to tell her. She’d helped me in what I’d thought was an impossible situation. She’d given Feliks reason to spare my life and had granted me a chance to regain my power in Estengarde. But here I was. Unable to help her in return.
The bounty hunter pulled her back another step, then froze. I didn’t know why.
A low voice pierced the silence. “Let the girl go.” Anton. My chest surged with hope.
He emerged from behind a nearby tree and pointed a musket at the bounty hunter’s head.
The man hesitated. Anton walked forward and pressed the barrel of the gun against his temple.
The bounty hunter winced and lowered his dagger hand. Genevie immediately fled from him, back into the circle of our regiment.
In the brief moment as Anton watched her go, the bounty hunter ducked and spun, dodging the musket and swiping out his blade for Anton’s legs.
“Anton!” I shouted.
He jumped back and kicked, knocking the dagger out of the bounty hunter’s grip. Anton retrained his gun on him. “Move again and I’ll be forced to shoot,” he warned. “Soldiers, tie him up.” One removed his belt and bound the man’s hands behind his back. “You are under arrest,” Anton declared.
The bounty hunter thrust out his chin. “I have my right to a bounty,” he replied, surprising me by speaking in Riaznian.
“Not in this country,” Anton snapped. “Aside from that, you threatened to kill a child.”
The bounty hunter scoffed. “She’s just an Auraseer.”
Anton’s hands fisted, and Kira buried her head against my stomach. The bounty hunter must have seen or heard her do something that gave away her ability.
“Gag him,” Anton commanded his soldiers. As one stuffed a handkerchief in his mouth, Anton told another, “Run to camp and bring back a strong rope. I want this man tied to a tree and guarded at all times.”
After the second soldier departed, Anton rubbed the back of his neck and glared at the bounty hunter, who managed an oily grin around his gag.
Anton sighed, meeting my worried gaze. What were we going to do, send the bounty hunter back to a Riaznian prison with some of our soldiers or drag him with us to Estengarde? Either option endangered our party.
I looked down at Kira, whose attention had drifted from the bounty hunter. She was watching Genevie and feeling what I couldn’t: my friend’s distress. I saw it for myself as Genevie sat hunched over on a large rock several feet away, turned from the bounty hunter and slightly rocking and mumbling. Moonlight glanced off her wet cheeks.
Suddenly her shoulders perked. Her head rose. She turned to meet Kira’s empathetic gaze. As they stared at one another, I imagined their comfort and relief. Several days had passed since Genevie had been in the presence of another Auraseer—several months for Kira. I ached to be a part of their shared understanding, the peace it must have given them. How I wished I could have given them just as much.
Kira’s doe eyes shifted from Genevie to me. The skin between her brows puckered in confusion. Maybe even fear. “Where are you, Sonya?” she asked. “Why are you hiding from me?”
I sat with Kira at a campfire Tosya had built between the boulders. From here, we couldn’t see the trees where the bounty hunter was bound. Genevie had returned to our tent, but Kira was too hungry to sleep. She’d already eaten two bowls of lentil soup, and now she nibbled on a piece of bread from my knapsack, her fingers trembling.
“Are you cold?” I asked, adjusting the blanket around her.
She shook her head, but her nose was still pink from her continuous crying. Silent tears kept falling from her eyes. “I didn’t even feel his aura,” she confessed, “not until it was too late. I was so excited to find your camp. I only felt the soldiers’ auras.” I nodded with understanding, knowing how blinded by sensation one could be when latched on to the wrong person’s energy. “But I never found your aura. . . .” The crease in her lower lip smoothed as she pressed her mouth closed.
“It’s all right.” I squeezed Kira’s hand. I’d already explained what had happened to me, why I felt dead to her when I was clearly alive. She couldn’t stop staring at me. I tried not to feel self-conscious. I probably scared her more than the bounty hunter had. For Kira, there was no precedent for someone like me; she hadn’t seen Nadia since before the convent fire. “How did you find us?” I asked, striving to act normal, to prove I was the same Sonya, with or without my aura.
Was I?
“Were you riding on horseback before the bounty hunter found you?” I pressed. That was the only way I could fathom how she’d traveled so far from Torchev.
She swallowed another bite of bread. Her chestnut hair, matted as it was, glowed golden in the firelight. “General Kaverin took me from my parents.”
My mouth parted. Hatred burned in my stomach. “Feliks kidnapped you?”
“No. My parents, they—” Kira’s voice broke, and she took a deep breath. “When the general came to ask for my help, they said he could have me for money.” She swiped a hand under her eyes, then rubbed her palm on her tattered skirt. Her parents were poor peasants, but they could have at least patched her clothes. I wasn’t surprised they’d sold her. They’d never loved, only feared, their Auraseer daughter. Ever since Sestra Mirna was forced to return Kira to her mother and father after the empire fell, the little girl had lived in neglect.
“But then you escaped from Feliks?” I asked.
She nodded. “When we got close to Ormina, I heard him talking about you. His aura scared me—I knew he was going to do something bad. So I found a sharp rock, and while his soldiers were sleeping, I cut the ropes they’d tied me up with.”
As I listened to her, I finally understood why Genevie had sensed Feliks was lying. He’d said Kira was in his custody, but by the time he arrived at the convent, she’d already escaped. One stitch of my anxiety loosened. At least Feliks couldn’t threaten her anymore. Still, there were people in Torchev and beyond that must have read Tosya’s poem by now, people who were depending on the sovereign Auraseer for an Esten alliance necessary to defeat Valko. If I didn’t prove myself, Feliks would have me killed.
“Why didn’t you go to the convent?” I asked.
“I did, but the s
oldier at the gate said you’d already gone. He also said Sestra Mirna had . . .” Kira bowed her head, hiccupping with a sob.
I put my arm around her, aching to sense what she was feeling. I felt so alone in my grief, so inept to comfort her.
“I was afraid Feliks might come after me,” Kira continued, “and I knew I’d only feel safe with you.” Guilt seized me as I realized she’d endangered herself because she’d thought I had power. “So I followed your trail.”
I couldn’t believe she’d caught up to us on foot. I supposed we had traveled slowly, picking our way through narrow paths in the woods, but it was still a tremendous feat. “You’re an incredibly brave girl, Kira.”
She cracked a shy smile and shrugged. “I was mostly scared.”
I rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head. “That makes you even braver.”
“Can you spare any men to return Kira to the convent?” I asked Anton a little later that night. We stood with Tosya at the mouth of the two boulders. A few minutes ago, I’d taken Kira to the tent I shared with Genevie and left her in my friend’s care.
“I hate to thin our regiment,” Anton replied, his hair ruffling in the salty breeze. “We only have eleven soldiers. If we’re attacked, we’ll be lucky if we have enough men to defend us. For that same reason, Kira might be safer in our company than if she travels back with only one or two soldiers.”
“You really think we should take her all the way to Alaise?” I asked. Estengarde was a dangerous place for Auraseers.
“How will you explain to the king why Kira is part of your delegation?” Tosya added before Anton could answer.
He gave a rough sigh. “I’ve no idea. For that matter, how will I explain that we’ve arrested an Esten bounty hunter for reasons the Estens don’t understand?” Anton folded his arms. “I wish I could spare the men to take the bounty hunter back to the nearest prison in Riaznin. But that’s in Isker, three days away. Too far.”
“Maybe you need to judge and sentence the bounty hunter here,” I suggested as delicately as possible. In other words, execute him. There were definitely grounds for that in Riaznin; he’d threatened to kill two girls. But when Anton and Tosya turned to me with eyes that said I’d suggested something of the highest injustice, I squirmed. “What? In times of war, surely that’s considered lawful.”
“I can’t rationalize killing a man unless there is no other way,” Anton replied. He turned the collar of his cape up against another chilly breeze and glanced over his shoulder toward the cluster of pines where the bounty hunter was being held captive. “I’ll spare two men to take him back to Isker,” he said at last, resigned but determined, “but not any others. Kira will travel with us. We can’t lose two days taking her back to the convent.”
I nodded, though I feared we were making a mistake by sparing the bounty hunter’s life.
We packed up camp at daybreak. Anton tasked two men to escort the bounty hunter away. They tied him to his saddle and one of their horses to his. When they pulled the handkerchief out of his mouth to readjust the gag, his lip curled at Genevie. “Saluez vos amis pour moi,” he told her. She flinched.
“What did he say?” I asked as the two soldiers rode away with him.
“Say hello to your friends for me,” she replied.
I frowned. “What did he mean by that?”
“I do not know.” Genevie rubbed her arms. “But when he said it, his aura stung me.” Her eyes followed the departing party, and she shuddered. “We are not safe while he lives.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE DRY AUTUMN AIR CHAPPED MY LIPS AND SENT OUR REGIMENT detouring for fresh water far too often. The weather was unnaturally hot for the season, even when the ground began to incline, nearing the Bayac Mountains. I tried to relax. The bounty hunter was gone, and if Dasha and Valko were following us, surely they’d have caught up by now. While we labored to be covert, they could have ridden fast. Still, I couldn’t dissuade the dread trailing me like a living thing, making my stomach lurch whenever something shifted in the landscape.
Our encounter with the bounty hunter had put us all on edge. Anton gave me his brass flintlock pistol to carry, while he took to wearing a musket across his back. One night in his tent, he taught me how to reload the pistol. “Now the musket,” he said, sliding the gun over. “They’re temperamental and like to misfire.”
Settled behind me, he guided my fingers over the ramrod. “Push the ball to the very end of the barrel as quickly as possible. The gun won’t fire if the ball isn’t in the correct spot. But you also don’t want to smash the ball. Lead is soft, and if the ball’s misshapen it won’t hit your target.” Together, we slid the ramrod down the barrel. Anton wiggled it. “There, do you feel that placement?”
“Yes.”
“Feel for that placement every time, and listen carefully for your musket to fire. If guns are blasting all around you, you may miss the sound. If by chance your musket does misfire, don’t reload it until you dislodge the first ball. Soldiers have been found dead with a dozen balls crammed inside their barrels.”
I nodded, withdrawing the ramrod. “I’ll master it,” I said, unable to fight a twinge of resentment. I wouldn’t need to learn how to handle a gun if I’d had my power to bend emotions. If I at least had my simpler ability to sense aura, I could feel out threats at greater distances than Genevie and help us in that way.
Anton’s lips brushed my temple. “Of course you will. I just hate having to teach you all this. Feels like I’m training you both to kill.”
“You are teaching us to protect ourselves,” Genevie said, seated cross-legged in front of us. She’d been practicing with the pistol while I worked with the musket. “There is an important difference.”
Anton and I quieted as we watched the progress she was making. Her hands flew fast, her jaw set in determination, as she loaded the flint, black powder, and ball, then primed the flash pan. The warmth was gone from her eyes, replaced by a cool gleam that made me shiver.
“J’ai terminé.” She held up the gun, awaiting Anton’s approval.
He nodded slowly and reached out to lower the barrel, which was inadvertently pointed at us. “That was . . . impressive.”
Color rose to Genevie’s cheeks, and she looked herself again, though I couldn’t tell if she was blushing with pride or embarrassment. She swallowed, nodding at the weapon in my hands. “May I try the musket?”
Two days later, we arrived at the great watchtowers on the western front of the Bayacs, the border of Estengarde. Here, Anton took no pains to be covert. Better for our presence to be heralded to the Esten king as soon as possible.
He presented his identification papers to the guards, and after a debate that lasted three hours, they finally granted us permission to complete the remaining journey to Alaise, the capital city, which would take eleven to twelve more days if the weather held.
When we passed the border, our regiment’s corset-tight tension unraveled. At last, we were in Estengarde. In Riaznin, we’d had to be careful, not knowing if we’d encounter friends or foes. But here we were guests, protected from our own people. The relief emboldened me. As we made the steady climb up the foothills of the Bayacs, the great teeth of its rocky ridges towering in the distance, I nudged Raina and rode closer to Anton.
His grip on Oriel’s reins let up, allowing pink to flush his knuckles as he waited for me and Kira to catch up. She had been sharing my saddle ever since her encounter with the bounty hunter. “We’re already more than halfway there,” Anton said to us. “The Bayacs will slow us down, but afterward, it’s only a two-day ride to the capital.”
As we pressed forward, he told me and Kira of the wonders of Estengarde, the two lover gods they worshipped, the snails they ate as delicacies, and the white powder they dusted through their hair. Kira giggled. “Are you lying about the snails?”
Anton grinned and spread his arms wide. “Search my aura for any deception. Snails really aren’t that bad.” He shrugged. “Cook
them with enough butter and garlic, and they taste like mushrooms.”
Kira pulled a face. “Mushrooms are disgusting.”
Soon thunder rumbled and rain came. It wasn’t a nuisance until midday. Until then, our regiment pushed through. Most found the moisture a refreshing change from the dry heat. One soldier couldn’t help tipping back his head every minute or two, opening his mouth to drink. But an hour later, the clouds darkened and the water fell in angry sheets. Lightning struck a tree only thirty yards away, and Anton pulled us off the narrow road to shelter under a few trees. But the rain still flooded past the crisp autumn leaves. Beneath us, the ground swiftly turned to mud.
“I know a place nearby where we can go,” Genevie said. She led us across the road, down a slippery gully, and around a rocky outcropping of the foothills. “This is where I last camped with Éliane and Marguerite.” She pointed to the dense spruce forest ahead, and I remembered what she’d told me at the convent: she’d separated from her Auraseer friends to protect them when the bounty hunter had caught her trail.
The rainfall let up as we entered the thick forest. Our surroundings grew dim and quiet as the needle-laden branches closed over us. “There is a level area over here where we can pitch our tents.” Genevie nodded to her left and turned her steed that way. Our horses trailed after her. “Here we are,” she called back, skirting a wide trunk.
As I urged Raina forward, Genevie made a small cry and Kira went rigid in my lap. I jerked Raina to a stop and drew a shallow breath. What were they sensing that I couldn’t? “Is everything all right?” I asked Genevie. I couldn’t see her.
Kira gripped my arm with shaking fingers. “Something is very wrong, Sonya.”
My pulse tripped. “Who’s out there?” All my nerves stood on end.
“No one but Genevie.”
I didn’t understand. Cautiously, I nudged Raina until we finished rounding the tree. A few feet ahead, Genevie sat on her horse with her back to us. She held perfectly still, her head frozen as she gazed upward.
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