“Yes,” I answered for myself, and Harper tensed beneath me. I patted his thigh where my head rested. “I don’t mean—he didn’t get the chance. He did something else. His breath had this odd flavor, and he was always kissing me or breathing on me.” In hindsight, it was a bit creepy.
The crafter agreed. “Few Sereians are as accomplished as the Bernhard line.” He sounded pleased by the fact. “My coven taught the youngest. He would have made a fine priest.”
I supposed if a pupil exhibited marked skill in crafting, then the call to priesthood made a logical next step. I thought of Isabeau and wondered if such a fate loomed in her future. I doubted it. Healers and priests were different animals. Healers used herbs and made medicine. Priests used magic and made darker cures, and I’d heard their power lay in the strength of their glamour.
Confusion tugged at the edges of my thoughts. “You taught Rideal?”
“It’s not unheard of for a second son to be indoctrinated.” He straightened to his full height. “He had talent and power. He required years of tutelage to learn proper control.”
“I had no idea.” I rubbed at my eyes, sleep tugging them lower while Harper stroked my hair. “I guess Sere’s queen wanted in bed with Askara more than she wanted a priest for a son.”
“Not at all.” His voice turned thoughtful. “I brought Rideal with me from Sere for Nesvia’s ascendancy ceremony. I wanted him to see the rites performed before his first attempt.”
My eyes widened. I twisted to better see the crafter, and my stomach hit my knees.
“Prior to its commencement,” he rambled on, consumed by his tale, “Queen Eliya asked her priest, Duran, to sample her wine.” He paused. “It was poisoned.” He sighed, seeming put out with the priest for having the nerve to die. “He didn’t last past the first rites, let alone the application of her inscriptions.” Another pause, this one weighted. “Due to the delicacy of the situation, she polled the room to find other priests who might finish the ceremony. Rideal volunteered, the foolish boy, and I had no choice but to aid him. If he had botched the face of a princess ascendant of Askara, Archer would have stormed Sere and burnt it to the ground.”
I couldn’t believe who he must be. I couldn’t find my voice, so he spoke over me.
“In the end, he completed the rites and refused her suitors access.” He stared up at the sky. “Within hours of our arrival, I lost my protégé, and Askara—Nesvia—gained a consort.”
I bolted upright, and my head spun from the rush. “You said he was a crafter.” My chin hit my chest, but Harper answered. He knew I meant the glare angled at his foot for his eyes.
“I said it was complicated.” He leaned toward me, but I slapped away his hand.
“Crafter?” the wrinkled male blustered. “I surpassed that rank by my tenth year.”
“Aldrich, you’re not helping your case,” Harper warned, and I could have choked him.
I forced my head up and my gaze to Aldrich’s. “You were the priest at Rihos.”
“Yes,” he screeched at me. “Rideal’s talent required I monitor him. His continuing education fell to me. My Queen ordered I vow allegiance to Eliya rather than risk her wrath.”
Struggling onto my knees, I knew standing wasn’t an option when kneeling made me teeter on the edge of falling. Fury crackled through my glamour, slicing it from my skin. I held out my arm, and palest purple writhed over my skin, covering me. “You did this.”
He threw back his hood and stared down his nose at me. “I did.”
I lunged at him, but Harper snagged me by the belt and hauled me backwards. My elbow caught his chin and he cursed, but held on tight. “Killing him won’t change anything.”
“Let her try.” Aldrich adjusted his robe. “She will find killing me is not so easy.”
“He ruined me.” I sank claws in the sand. “He would have done worse if not for you.”
“If not for your precious queenmaker, you would know nothing of worse. You would have fulfilled the duty of your bloodline and been content in doing so.” Aldrich seethed. “If you want to cast blame, hit him with the first stone for welcoming revolution into the heart of this kingdom by deciding tradition wasn’t good enough for you—or your sister. Madelyn DeGray is ruined. She has not ascended. She has not been marked by the royal house. She is outcast.”
“She is happily mated to a male who knows her worth without seeing it inked into her skin.” I managed to drag Harper several feet nearer Aldrich. Swiping with my claws, I missed.
If I hadn’t been so furious, I might have noticed how easily Harper held me. Ravenous, I had no strength left to fight. When he pulled me onto his lap, my nails left furrows in the sand.
He tucked me against his chest, arranging my limbs to suit him. “You need to eat.”
“What I need is to stab that troll between the eyes.” I pushed at him, but he was warm where I was cold and his chest did a pleasant rumbling thing where my ear rested against him.
“Let’s see what’s in those buckets.” He shifted. “Aldrich, will you do the honors?”
After many grumbled complaints, Aldrich delivered my meal, and Harper bent forward. His arms squished me for a minute while he worked at something behind my back. “All right, let’s give this a try.”
He held an orange chunk of vegetable inches from my lips. Its bitter stink burned my nose and his wrinkled at the smell. He must have read the doubt in my expression.
Popping the cube in his mouth, he crunched once and then again. His throat caught as he attempted to swallow. “Not bad.” He gulped. “It smells worse than it is.” He offered me the next piece.
I picked it from his fingers with my teeth, then chewed. He lied. It tasted much worse than it smelled. My eyes poured water. Onions and carrots couldn’t have born nastier offspring. Yet when he carved another slice and held it out for me, I took it, licking the tips of his fingers.
He groaned against my ear, and I reveled in the sound. I basked in the catch of his breath when my tongue brushed his fingertips. When he said, “Enough,” and tilted my head back so his lips covered mine, I sighed into him, at peace and at home for the first time in a very long time.
Chapter Fifteen
Harper had fed Emma his ration of food the night before, and now hunger clawed at him. Reaching the colony by nightfall was doable. Crossing the border—that would be the hard part. With access to the main road, Roland had ample time to send a courier to alert his raiders. Part of Harper groused he hadn’t risked the straight shot back to Feriana, but with Dillon wounded and Emma’s strength waning, he chose the cautious route. They were both too important to risk.
Twisting around, he squinted toward Emma. “How is everyone holding up?”
“Well enough,” she said over the static grind of metal on sand. “Are we stopping soon?”
He checked the sun’s position and decided they had time. “Sure. I’ll head your way.” Pulling his mare up short, he turned her toward Emma. Once he reached the sled, he dismounted. “Here, hold these for me.” He passed her the reins, and tingles coasted along his darkening skin.
“What are you doing?” She wound the strips of leather around a knob on the sled.
“Scouting.” His glamour slipped free and his wings stretched.
“Hurry back.” She glanced over her shoulder where Aldrich huddled in the shade cast by her shadow. “And be careful.”
“Don’t worry.” He saluted her. “I will be.” He jogged up the side of a dune. When hot air scorched his wings, he moaned. Skin snapped taut as his wings spread wide. His tiny claws grabbed at the breeze, testing conditions. His lungs expanded as an updraft swirled around his ankles, and he leapt. Muscles stretching and back aching, flight made him forget the pain.
He looped circles around Emma, limbering up after playing the role of wingless Askaran.
“I thought you were scouting.” One of her pale eyebrows rose as she watched.
He dipped low enough his breeze ruffled her hair. “
I’m on my way now.”
Downward thrusts tested his strength, pushed him higher and higher into the open sky. Eye level with the horizon, he scanned for signs of life. At this altitude, the road to Feriana snaked parallel but outside of his periphery. No movement below. No shade or food, either.
Hovering burned energy he couldn’t afford to waste. He made one more pass, and a streak of motion caught his eye. Tracking the heat-smudged blur, he swooped lower. “A rabbit.”
They didn’t have the time or supplies to hunt or clean a kill, but his discovery might still prove useful. Giving himself another five minutes to burn, he hoped the rabbit’s sprint didn’t dead end at its burrow. Nose quivering, it stopped mid-dash long enough to rear on its hind legs.
In the blink of his eye, it shot off in a different direction, bounding across the loose sand. He watched a minute longer, hoping he would get lucky. Zigzagging from left to right, the rabbit led him to a copse of cactus, then vanished in a hole at their base. Hmm. Burrow indeed.
Harper dove, using his weight and momentum to power a kick he aimed at the top half of the tallest cactus. It snapped clean, hitting the sand at the same time he did. This, he could use.
Pinkish red fruits clung to each paddle. He scanned for other ripe edibles, then tugged his shirt overhead and made a glove so the needles wouldn’t prick him. He tucked the bundle against his chest. Three quick strides later, and he was airborne with his stash.
A few powerful thrusts of his wings brought him to the sled, and he angled downward. When he dropped to the sand at Emma’s feet, hunger lit her face. He offered her his findings.
She didn’t notice. Her attention was on his chest, or his shoulder. Hard to tell which.
He grinned at her slow perusal of him, the way she bit her lower lip, and joyous reds streaked through his wings. Her blush puffed out his chest. Wings, she definitely stared at those.
“Pay attention.” He pretended to fumble the cactus, and she dove to catch it. “This is it.”
Her brow creased when she realized she’d been tricked. “I am paying attention.”
“Put a shirt on,” Dillon’s hoarse voice interrupted. “Don’t wanna go…blind.”
“He’s awake?” Harper jogged to the sled and hung over the edge. Aldrich had ripped Dillon’s pant leg and smeared a brownish glob of herbs over his stitches. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ll live.” He winced. “Where are we?”
“We’re a couple of miles off the main road,” Harper said. “Halfway back to Feriana.”
“Good.” His eyes closed. “That’s good.”
When Dillon began dozing again, Harper asked Aldrich, “How is he?”
“He will recover.” He smeared more of the brown gunk. “As for his leg, it will depend.”
Harper touched Aldrich’s shoulder. “Thank you, for all you’ve done.”
He shrugged away Harper’s hand. “I enjoy my trade.”
Harper checked over his shoulder for Emma. He located her bent over the fruit, using her sharp claws to slice spiked husks and pry juicy meat from the shells. “You could have escaped Rihos at any time.” He drummed his fingers. “Why didn’t you? Was it because of Rideal?”
“I admit a certain fondness for the boy, but no.” His face pinched. “There is a line teachers must decide whether or not to cross when they encounter a rare student. Rideal was such a student, and I made such a decision.” He spread his hands. “Knowledge, once given, cannot be retrieved. And knowledge is a seed, once planted, that often outgrows the planter box where it sprouted. Sometimes, a healthy tree grows. Then, that tree scatters fertile seeds to the wind.”
Harper’s fingers stilled. “I don’t follow.”
“Shared knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Aldrich lowered his voice. “Seeds planted in a fertile mind can have disastrous outcomes. When I shared all that I was with Rideal, he, in turn, shared his vast stores of knowledge with his brother.” His tone sharpened. “Roland is gifted, much like Rideal. The reason his mother refused his tutelage, and rightfully so, is because he has no conscience. Not a spark. Not an ember. Nothing guides him. He wants, and he acquires.”
“He wanted you,” Harper surmised. “He wanted to learn from you as you taught Rideal.”
“Yes.” Aldrich nodded. “And what’s more, Roland wanted all that Rideal had. In his mind, he was entitled to it. As the first born, he should have been chosen as consort to a neighboring kingdom, or been offered a female worthy to assume his mother’s throne upon her death.” He paused. “That his younger brother, who was prepared to embrace a life of celibacy in the priesthood, became consort to the most powerful princess in all of Askara infuriated Roland.”
Sibling rivalry had reared its ugly head. “So how is it you ended up in the dungeon?”
“When I refused to aid Roland in his machinations, he placed a blood curse on the threshold of my room. No one save him entered in or out. I was alone until you and your friend arrived.” His tone went soft. “I think…neither Rideal nor Queen Nesvia know where I’ve gone.”
“If he visited you, then why not take his blood,” Harper asked, “or mine for that matter?”
“Blood was the key.” Aldrich flicked his wrist. “Your invitation made it turn.”
“Did he think I wouldn’t ask you out?” His gamble seemed foolish.
For a moment, Aldrich was silent. “In all honesty, I didn’t think it would work.”
“You would have released us either way?” Doubt laced his voice.
Aldrich canted his head, considering Harper for a moment. “Magic is in the blood, his and mine. He must have thought, as I did for a time, only someone of similar power could free me. I had nothing to lose. I decided to try.” Now the old priest smiled. “And it would have been worth the punishment to see Roland’s face when he realized his prize acquisitions were missing. Yes?”
“Yes,” Harper agreed, smiling. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate Emma and her growing pile of shucked fruit. “Would you like something to eat before we head out?”
He interpreted Aldrich’s shrug as a yes.
“What you said earlier—we’ll reach your colony tonight?” Aldrich asked. “Is it safe?”
“Once we cross the border.” Harper paused. “Getting past the raiders is the hard part.”
Aldrich shifted, digging out a cloth and cleaning his hands. “I’ll think on a solution.”
“Let me know if you come up with one.” Harper pushed from the sled and headed for Emma. If his steps slowed a bit, he couldn’t be blamed. Watching her in profile captivated him.
Every time her slender claw ripped open ripe fruit, she quartered the meat and set it on a cactus paddle she’d raked smooth. She hadn’t spoken to Aldrich all day, and for all her complaints, she knelt there, dividing him an equal share. His Emma was remarkably similar to the prickly cactus in her hands. Sharp and guarded on the outside, sweet and succulent within.
She caught his stare and smiled, and his world was a brighter place for it.
Aldrich at my back had the same chilling effect as an iced dagger poised over my breast. I could tell Harper’s kind heart weakened where the old priest was concerned. I had but to glance at my forearm and read my tattooed-on property tag for any pity I imagined for him to evaporate.
Still, he was a valuable asset. His cloaking trick, the more I thought of it, might be used to ease us across the colony’s border under the raiders’ noses. For that use alone, I would tolerate him. Frowning at his tender care of Dillon, I admitted he wasn’t the ogre I remembered. He was a zealous disciple of the Askaran goddess Zaniah, and so certain in the truth of her doctrines, he never questioned her teachings. I supposed he wouldn’t be her priest now if he did.
How he reconciled her brutal tenets and the barbaric rites of passage she created, with a loving and benevolent deity, I couldn’t fathom. I supposed being born of her chosen race, and enacting ceremonies such as branding females then sacrificing their virgin blood
on his ceremonial staff, made devotion to her become much more appealing. As a halfling, an ex-slave and someone familiar with his ministrations, I didn’t suffer his same delusions. I didn’t believe.
“We’re near.” Aldrich’s voice crackled over my shoulder.
“You can’t know that.” I narrowed my eyes, already doubting myself. Heat wavered on the horizon. Not civilization. Harper’s outline curled in a black-smoke mirage yards ahead of us.
My mare plodded along, thirstier than the water we’d saved for the horses to drink. Two days spent in bursts of golden sunlight, wicking moisture from our tongues as hours passed. My throat ached for something cool and moist. My eyes watered, caking grit in their corners. I blinked a few times, thinking another illusion caused Harper to grow larger, but we grew nearer.
He sat atop a dune and stared. When my horse reached his, I sucked in a grateful breath.
Feriana sprawled across the valley floor. Pops of color, earth-toned building tops and pale tents, made a sloped roof over the city. Drawing air into my lungs, I caught the fragrant trail of food, strained my ears to hear the distant drone of people, and longed for their anonymity.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“That I want a drink, food and a shower, in that order.”
He gave me a strained look. “I meant, do you think it’s safe?”
“We agreed to bypass the city.” Fresh sweat coated my palms. “The colony is safer.”
“We did.” He picked at the leather straps laid across his thigh. “And you’re right.”
I sensed it coming. “But?”
“You saw the mess my healers made of Dillon’s leg. They’re learning, but mastery takes time he doesn’t have. Aldrich is certain he will live, but if he comes with us, his recovery will suffer.” He dragged a hand down his face. “I might as well cut off his leg at the knee myself.”
I winced at the visual. “What about Aldrich?”
“I haven’t asked what his plans are after this.” He turned. “He hasn’t mentioned any.”
“I have none,” Aldrich answered by my ear. “I won’t return to Rihos until I’ve negotiated terms with Queen Nesvia. If Sere’s queen wouldn’t touch me before, she certainly won’t now.”
Evermine: Daughters of Askara, Book 2 Page 13
