“You don’t know that someone didn’t set that fire.”
“No, I don’t.” He looked over at Thomas and Linnea. “The two of you, on the other hand, are still underage. For now, you will stay at the castle and help here.”
From the look on Stephen’s face, Quinn knew that the request for Thomas and Linnea to stay here had little to do with their ages. Linnea would officially be of age in less than two more moons. Thomas and Linnea were in more danger than Quinn was. Nobody really knew who Quinn was, but Linnea – Tolliver would still like nothing better than to find some way to force Linnea to marry him, thus “uniting the kingdoms” and fulfilling the prophecy he believed in.
As for Thomas – the ordeal he’d been through, and the time the family had spent searching for him, worrying about him, was just too recent. Nobody was prepared to deal with the idea of Thomas in any danger right now.
4. The Stranger
Nathaniel, William, and Quinn went directly to the castle clinic from Stephen’s office. Within minutes, they were digging through the supply closets, and putting together packets of things they would likely need when they got to the emergency encampment.
Ben showed up outside a few minutes later with a wagon, and he began carrying loads out from the clinic. Thomas and Linnea made several trips out from the kitchen with baskets of sandwiches, fruit, and jugs of water.
Quinn was more nervous than she wanted to admit. Growing up in the dry mountain forests of Colorado, forest fires had always been a potential threat, and one that terrified her. A few years ago, a fire had devastated most of a small town only half an hour away from Bristlecone. The first whiff of smoke she’d caught from the fire today had taken her right back to the stress and worry of that time.
More than the fire itself, she was worried about the people they were going to encounter. For nearly two weeks now, they’d been wondering and worrying about how these new batches of Philothean refugees kept finding their way to the base of the bridge Stephen so fiercely protected.
Refugees had been entering the kingdom for many moons now, but most of them had been Friends of Philip – people with families they wanted to get safely out of Tolliver’s reach before returning to Philotheum to continue working to keep their kingdom loyal to its history and traditions.
Nobody knew what might be going on in Philotheum to make those who weren’t Friends of Philip want to escape, but the biggest concern was where they kept ending up. Stephen’s soldiers had been working tirelessly to gently encourage the refugees to settle elsewhere – even though most of them had no idea why the gate was such a sensitive area, but somehow the refugees never quite seemed to disappear. There were always more.
Marcus Westbrook, who was Stephen’s most trusted guard, had confided the other day that he was beginning to suspect it was the same people who kept returning to the area.
Stephen was convinced that there was someone behind it, and was especially worried that someone might know the truth about that bridge – the fact that once every ten days, at dusk, the center of the bridge opened as a gate into another world – the world where Quinn had been born. It was why they hadn’t dared to try to use the gate, and the possible security leaks were why they had all been confined to the castle for the past couple of weeks, ever since they’d discovered that not even all of the castle guards could be trusted.
Quinn agreed with Stephen. There was something else going on here that they just couldn’t see. She hadn’t told anyone yet about the other dreams she’d been having lately – the ones that had nothing to do with Bristlecone. Although she was used to having disconcerting dreams, lately they had grown frightening and vivid again.
There had been a lot of dreams about the decision she was facing – the one that she was beginning to suspect that she’d already made – there had been other dreams, too, even stranger ones. She’d been dreaming a lot about the gate itself – not just about going home, but about traveling between the worlds. Most of the time, she couldn’t remember exactly what had happened in the dreams, but there was an ominous feeling to them. More than once, she’d woken up crying.
Finally, the wagon and the horses were loaded and ready to go. Dusk was looking at her almost smugly. Being walked around the castle paddock a few times a day wasn’t Dusk’s idea of good exercise. She whined excitedly as Quinn double-checked all of the buckles and fastenings of the saddle and bridle, and carefully secured the very-full saddlebags.
“You’re sure about this?” William’s voice, close to her ear, startled her. They’d all been pretty quiet while getting ready – concentrating intently on the task at hand. “Because it honestly makes me a little nervous to think of you out there.”
“I’m sure. What I really wouldn’t be able to handle is sitting in the castle by myself while you’re all out actually doing something. You can’t keep me locked up forever.”
He opened his mouth, and then closed it again. Instead, he leaned in to kiss her on the forehead before he turned away to mount Skittles. She stared after him for a moment, appreciation for him washing over her. He tried so hard to understand what she was dealing with. She appreciated his thoughtfulness in remaining silent on certain things almost as much as his ability to really listen and understand the things she did want to talk about.
She only hoped that she managed to do the same for him.
“You still feel a little warm to me,” he muttered as they started walking. “Tell me if you start feeling bad or something.”
And, then, sometimes he was a bit overprotective, too.
Smoke was thick in the sky as William, Nathaniel, and Quinn rode away from the castle, with Ben following closely behind with the wagon.
Thomas, Linnea, and some of William’s other siblings were there to see them off. Even Howard took a few minutes away from caring for Rebecca and their new baby to make sure they had everything they needed.
They hadn’t even had a chance to have a Naming Ceremony for the baby, yet. William had confided that the ceremony would probably end up being something small and private, just for family, given everything that was going on. Hardly fitting for the first royal grandchild, but they’d make it nice somehow.
Quinn knew her own Naming Ceremony had been very private, even though she was technically the heir to the Philothean throne.
The air smelled strongly of fire – similar, in a way, to the smell of a campfire, which Quinn loved, but with a darker, mustier overtone that made her skin crawl.
The roads were busy. People were heading back and forth between the castle and the capitol city, and even more were heading out past the city to help with the firefighting efforts. She knew that Maxwell and Simon both had been out near where crews were working to dig a fire line between the forest and the first houses outside the city.
It was a short ride to the temporary emergency camp just outside of town. Quinn was pleased to see more people than she had expected working together to set up an enormous tent, and various other shelters. There were crates of vegetables and lots of supplies already, and someone had already pounded stakes in the ground for tying up the horses.
“This was fast,” Quinn said, a little taken aback at how much had already been done and how organized it was.
“It’s not the first time,” Ben said, coming to help William remove Dusk’s saddle bags. “It’s been a mostly dry season so far. Everyone’s been watchful for fires. There was a small one outside of Cloud Valley a moon ago.”
Quinn nodded. It made sense. So the fact that they had an elaborate system already set up wasn’t surprising. But what was surprising to her was the number of refugees in the camp. There weren’t any. Ben helped her and William unload all of their supplies and carry them into the tent that would serve as a clinic, but aside from the crates, boxes, and a couple of cots, it was empty. “Where is everyone?” she wondered.
William shrugged. “No news is good news.”
And no news it was. After all of the stress of getting there, the after
noon passed slowly. The only people who came into the camp for supplies and information were those fighting the fire. Jacob arrived from Mistle Village, though he brought nothing with him. The clinic in Mistle Village was still being rebuilt after it had been destroyed when someone set fire to it. Quinn wondered if fire was always this big a part of life here in Eirentheos.
Jacob and William tended a few patients, but they were mostly blisters from digging fire lines, and a couple of cases of smoke inhalation. The only people who came into the camp, though, were citizens. The refugees seemed to have disappeared.
Most of the reports they heard were good – the fire was still small and staying in the unpopulated wilderness. The main worry was that the refugees were trapped somewhere, but so far nobody had seen any signs of people in the danger zone.
At one point, Quinn actually dozed off on one of the cots in the clinic. She woke with a start at the sound of William and Jacob whispering across the tent from her.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” she said, sitting up so fast that it made her a little dizzy.
“It’s okay,” William said. “You can rest if you need to. I know you said you were tired.”
Nathaniel was chuckling. “We only just noticed that you’d fallen asleep. I think you would have kept sleeping if we hadn’t been trying so hard not to wake you.”
“I came to help,” she said. “Not to take a nap.”
William sighed, but he didn’t argue.
She knew she was probably just being stubborn. There was little to do for the next hour – she could have napped.
Then, just before dusk, everything exploded.
Quinn and William were standing outside, watching the plume of smoke on the distant hill as they filled jars of drinking water from large containers volunteers had hauled over from the nearby wells. The wind, which had been blowing steadily toward the east all day, suddenly stopped, and then picked up again, blowing to the northwest.
Although the fire was still much too far away to reach them, the smoke that filled the camp was almost overwhelming. She watched, terrified, as flames suddenly appeared just at the top of the ridge that separated the river valley from the slope down toward an area where she knew there were houses.
Everything happened very quickly. “The fire might have jumped the line. Those homes haven’t been evacuated!” Maxwell called, running past them on the way to his horse.
Quinn was reaching for Dusk’s saddle when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Startled, she looked up and saw Ben standing there. “No, Lady Quinn. You must stay here.”
“We have to get those people out of there!” She knew how unpredictable fires were. They might only have minutes before the fire raced down the hill toward those homes. All around them, people were mounting horses, and taking off on foot, hurrying to warn those families toward safety. She had never missed telephones as much as she did right now.
“You putting yourself in danger won’t help anybody.”
“He’s right.” William came up next to them. “Besides, we’ll need people here, too. You have to stay where you’re safe, Quinn.”
“Are you going?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “It’s always best for healers to stay where we know we’ll be needed. And anyway, I wouldn’t leave you.”
The feeling that she wouldn’t be helping if she stayed passed quickly. Within twenty minutes, the camp was flooded with newcomers. A new tent was quickly set up to accommodate those who’d had to leave their homes, and Quinn was busy with carrying cots, unfolding blankets, and directing frightened and upset people to the areas that were set up to feed them.
Full darkness had settled over the kingdom when Simon rode slowly into the camp with a wagon she didn’t recognize. “We have an injury here!” he yelled.
Quinn barely had time to wonder what had happened before Nathaniel, Jacob, and William were at the wagon, unloading a man and carrying him gently into the tent clinic. She started to walk that way to see if she could assist, but Simon stopped her before she reached the tent. “He fell off his horse trying to get his family out of the area. His wife and children need help.”
She followed Simon over to the wagon. Inside, a woman and three small children were huddled under blankets.
“Hello,” she said. “Are you all okay?”
“We’re not hurt,” the woman said. “Just worried. The children are frightened.”
Quinn looked over at the oldest child, a boy who was maybe seven cycles. “I’m Quinn,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Lewis.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Lewis. Can you help me get your brother and sister out of the wagon and then we can go get you all something to eat?”
He nodded slowly. “Where’s my father?”
“He’s in that tent right there,” Quinn pointed. “Good healers are taking care of him. Once we have you guys settled, I’ll go find out what’s going on, okay?”
She lifted the three children down to the ground, and then extended her hand to help the woman.
“Thank you,” the woman said. “My name is Celia Maywood. Are you the lady Quinn, Prince William’s companion?”
When she nodded, Celia’s eyes widened for just a second, before she allowed Quinn to lead her across the camp to the shelter tent. She didn’t say anything, but something in the woman’s expression caused a tight feeling in Quinn’s stomach. It was enough to make her wonder just what rumors were circulating in the kingdom about her. Was it a good thing that people knew she was courting William?
* * *
The night didn’t get any easier. More and more families flooded the camp. Though the man who had fallen from his horse was the most serious injury, the healers inside the tent were kept extremely busy with minor injuries and breathing problems from the smoke.
Well into the evening, Quinn found herself returning, once again, to a community well a little way away from the camp. Ben had been following her back there all evening, helping to carry more buckets of water, but when she’d left he had been helping organize some new crates of fruit and vegetables volunteers had brought in for breakfast in the morning. She thought he was working hard enough without asking him to carry more water.
She was way past exhausted herself; she actually had to stop halfway to the well to set the buckets down for a minute while she waited for a wave of dizziness to pass. For a second, she felt hot, and then she shivered.
Should have listened to William and taken that nap while I could, she thought. Then she realized that her lips were very dry, and when she thought about it, she couldn’t remember when she’d last stopped to take a drink. She promised herself she’d remedy that as soon as she got to the well, and she picked the buckets back up again.
The only light was the just-past full moon, but she was familiar enough with the route and the well that she’d left her lantern back at the camp so that she could carry two buckets.
The voice startled her so badly that she nearly dropped the first bucket down into the well.
“Lady Quinn?”
She didn’t recognize the voice, and she spun around to see who it was. An unfamiliar man was standing there, almost too close. There were a lot of people she didn’t know at the camp, but something about his proximity sent a shiver running down her spine. She took a deep breath, trying to stay composed. “Can I help you with something?”
She took a small step backwards, pressing her back against the stone wall of the well, but the man stepped closer. Her heart began to pound furiously.
“I’m here to ask you to come with me, please.”
Definitely not. She stood up as tall as she could, and stepped deftly to the side. “Who are you?”
The man was unfazed; he shadowed her movement, boxing her in, trapping her. “I need you to come with me.”
She watched, in horrified slow motion, as he extended his hand toward her. She opened her mouth, ready to scream. Surely someone would hear her.
“I woul
dn’t do that if I were you,” the man said, in a low, warning tone. His hand stopped a couple of inches from her face, and opened. There was a small object resting on his palm that made her heart stop completely. She recognized the object instantly, though she couldn’t wrap her mind around what it could possibly be doing here.
It was a small carving of a wooden horse, half the size of the man’s palm. She knew that if she examined the details carefully, she would make out a perfect representation of Dusk’s profile. William had carved it himself, sometime after her very first visit to Eirentheos. He’d brought it back to her world to give it to her, as a present for Annie. It had quickly become the little girl’s most prized possession.
It shouldn’t be here. It should be where it belonged – back in her own world, in her little sister’s pocket – Annie had been known to change coats to make sure she had a pocket to put it in – or in the special place on her dresser where Annie kept it while she was sleeping.
She stared at the horse for several long seconds, before the man closed his hand and withdrew it.
“Come on, Lady Quinn.”
5. Missing
William was exhausted. The line of patients coming into the clinic was endless. Fortunately, there hadn’t been many serious injuries yet, and the reports he’d heard seemed to indicate that everyone had been evacuated safely, and that so far no homes had been destroyed by the approaching blazes. But still, the work for him – and Jacob and Nathaniel – kept accruing.
He couldn’t remember there ever having been a wildfire so close to the Eirenthean capitol city. After the evacuation of the homes on the hill, their temporary camp had filled to overflowing, both with evacuees, and with friends and relatives desperately searching for their loved ones.
“William, have you eaten yet?” Nathaniel asked, just as William sent another patient outside after a breathing treatment. “I never saw you go for dinner.”
Blooms of Consequence (Dusk Gate Chronicles - Book Four) Page 4
