Inside the tent, it was silent. Using her feet, she felt around near the door. At first, she thought it might be completely empty, but as she fumbled around in the darkness, her hands fell on a bedroll, still rolled, and, even better, a leather pouch filled with water. Not knowing what else to do in the darkness, she sat down on top of the bedroll, taking in her surroundings.
She unscrewed the top of the pouch, desperate for the water inside, and was just lifting it to her lips when she heard a shuffling sound on the other side of the tent. Her heart nearly stopped. Someone was in here with her.
Growing completely still, she listened. She could hear breathing – there was more than one person in the tent, though at least one of them was asleep, maybe two. Slow, deep breaths came from the corner opposite of where she was sitting.
Someone was awake, though – had just awakened, probably from the noise of Quinn entering. Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she was surprised she could hear anything at all, but she could. Whoever was across the tent was trying to be quiet – was managing it fairly well, even. She had to strain to hear the soft movements.
The sloshing of water inside the leather pouch alerted her to the fact that her hands were shaking violently.
“Hello?” The whisper from across the tent turned her insides into ice. It was at once terrifying, and achingly, comfortingly, familiar.
“Mom?”
“Quinn?” The voice was no longer a whisper, but a low rasp.
“Yes, it’s me.”
And then there was the sound of shuffling against the ground as her mother nearly ran across the tent to her, pulling her into her arms.
“Ow, Mom. Careful,” she said, loosening her mother’s grip from her aching shoulder.
“Why? What’s wrong?” Megan’s voice took on an edge of panic.
“I just fell and hurt myself on the way here – I’m okay,” she added quickly, although the sudden lightheadedness that overtook her when her mom let go made her think that might not be entirely true. “I’m just going to sit down. I need a drink.”
Megan sank onto the ground beside her as she sat back down on the rolled blankets, and reached for the water pouch.
She drank quickly, nearly draining it before she finally stopped.
“Better?” her mom asked.
“A little.” This was definitely not the truth. She was no longer thirsty, but she realized that she had drunk the water much too quickly, and now nausea rolled through her. “Who else is here?” she asked, more to change the subject than from any ability to feel curious at the moment.
“Annie and Owen are both asleep over there.”
She should have been able to process immediately just how bad that was – just what this could mean, especially if Tolliver was in one of these other tents, but right then, she felt too sick to even understand what was going on.
“Is there any more water?” she asked.
“Yes. I’ll get you some,” Megan whispered, walking away from her.
Quinn used the momentary distraction to reach for the cloth around her leg. It was too dark to see what she was doing, but she did what she could by touch. Removing the bandage, she soaked it with what was left of the cool water in the pouch.
Wincing, she cleaned up her injuries as best she could. Megan returned a few seconds later with another full pouch of water.
“What are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story,” Megan whispered, and Quinn heard, more than saw, her head turn back toward where the two children were sleeping.
“Are you okay?” Her voice was so low that she almost had trouble hearing it herself.
“Yes, we all are.”
“Was it . . .” she could barely bring herself to say the name, “was it Tolliver who brought you here?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
Her whole body sank into the bedroll with the relief of that sentence, although the tension started returning only a few seconds later as she struggled to figure out what that might mean. “Then who did?”
“Some man named Jonathan.”
Jonathan? She could only think of one person named Jonathan – one person who was still alive, anyway.
“Prince Jonathan?”
“I don’t know, Quinn. Why? Do you think it’s William’s brother or something?”
“No. If he’s a prince, it’s not of this kingdom.” Jonathan was the name of the youngest prince of Philotheum – her father’s youngest brother. But why would he be here, and why would he kidnap her family and now her?
As she tried to process that, she realized that the nausea she’d been feeling was growing stronger. Beads of cold sweat broke out on her forehead, and her mouth started watering in a very unwelcome way.
She didn’t even have time to warn her mother before she dashed away, to the farthest, hopefully empty, corner of the tent, and vomited in the dirt. Megan rushed to her side, pulling her braid back out of the way, and rubbing her back while she was sick. When it was finally over, her legs felt like jelly, and she was almost too exhausted to follow her mother back across the tent.
Megan helped her sit down, and she waited, only a few feet from the blankets where Annie and Owen slept, their quiet breathing filling the air in a way that would have been relaxing and peaceful in any other circumstance.
Part of her brain wanted to keep going, to figure out what could possibly be going on here, how her family had gotten here, and why Jonathan – if it was Prince Jonathan – would have taken all of them. But her body would have none of it. As soon as Megan pulled the blankets over to her and unrolled them, Quinn collapsed into them, sucking in a breath at the pain in her leg as she made the mistake of trying to put weight on it while she adjusted herself.
“Quinn, baby, are you all right? Maybe we should get someone to help us.”
“Mom, no!” She didn’t know who these people were, but they obviously knew too much about her already. The last thing they needed to know was how weak she was right now. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I think I just need to get some sleep.”
“Okay,” Megan said, still sounding unsure, but she covered Quinn, and kissed her forehead. “Wake me if you need anything.” Quinn nodded, though right then she couldn’t think about anything except how much her leg was hurting. She lay there, trying her best not to think about how much she wished William was there, knowing that if she allowed her thoughts to even drift in that direction, she would start crying and be unable to stop.
Somehow, though, she’d fallen asleep.
Now, in the early morning light, she tried to get a grasp on her surroundings. Her mother and her siblings were still asleep. Owen was curled up on his side in his blankets, his hand over Annie’s arm. She was sprawled out everywhere, out of the covers, her arms and legs in four different directions, brown hair spread around her head like a tangled crown, completely passed out, her little face reflecting contented dreams.
Quinn was still partially distracted by the memories of her own dream from the night. She couldn’t yet remember all the details of the dream, but parts of it kept coming to her in flashes.
Sitting completely still, she strained to listen for any noises outside the tent that would give her information about their situation, but other than a few birds chattering in the nearby trees, it was silent. No – if she strained there was a low, grumbling sound just outside her tent. Snoring. Someone must be guarding them, perhaps the man who had brought her here, and he was asleep right outside the entrance.
Not wanting to wake him – or anyone else, for that matter, she looked around the tent. It was completely empty, other than the bedroll and the canteen. The tent was made of a heavy, dusty brown material; it was probably something like canvas, if they had canvas in this world. As she’d noted, somewhat gratefully, last night, it had no floor. Although it had been swept clean of rocks and other debris, she was on bare ground.
Bare ground. That gave her an idea.
Quietly, she crawled to the
back wall of the tent, well, limp-crawled – when she tried to put weight on her knee, she was rewarded with a sharp pain that radiated all the way up her leg. Sliding her fingers under the edge of the heavy material, she tried to lift it up far enough to peer underneath, but it was stretched too tightly. She managed to get her fingers underneath, could feel the cooler air outside, but she couldn’t lift it more than about a quarter of an inch. Sighing, she retreated to the bedroll.
It might have only been a few minutes, but the time seemed to stretch interminably, and the tent grew hotter as the sun began to rise. She sat on the blankets, trying to keep herself calm, trying not to think about the pain in her leg. At least her shoulder didn’t seem to be as badly injured as she’d first thought. It was definitely bruised, and hurt if she lifted her arm too far, but it hadn’t bled very much, and was probably going to be all right.
Just as she was about to get antsy enough to actually try peeking out the flap of the tent, she heard a noise that stopped her cold.
A small voice, one she would have recognized anywhere, no matter what world she was in, rang out clear next to her. “I need to go potty!”
The sound of Annie’s voice woke everyone up. Megan bolted upright; Owen was a little slower, but once his eyes fell on Quinn, he was instantly wide awake. In one swift motion, he was out of the blankets and in her lap. She tried not to cry out from the pain of him touching her leg as she shifted his weight to the side, wrapping her arms around him tightly.
“Quinn!” Annie yelled. “Yay! Mama said we were going to see you today!” And then Annie’s arms were around her neck, too.
Her sister’s characteristically loud announcement apparently had an effect outside the tent, too. There were voices now, and shuffling noises in the dirt, although Quinn couldn’t make out anything anyone was saying.
“Mama, I really need to go potty now!” Annie yelled, practically in Quinn’s ear.
“Ow, Annie. Too loud,” Quinn said, wincing and backing her head away from the little girl.
Suddenly, there was a motion at the opening of the tent, and the man who’d brought her here last night poked his head in, making her jump.
Annie, on the other hand, was unaffected. “Levan, I need to go potty.”
The man cleared his throat, looking at Quinn’s mother. “You can take the children out,” he said, “but this one,” he nodded toward Quinn, “needs to stay. Jonathan would like to speak with her.”
Megan opened her mouth, discomfort twisting her face, but then she closed it and nodded. “You’ll bring us right back to her?”
“I’m to bring all of you to Jonathan.”
He held the flap open while Megan, Annie, and Owen quickly put their shoes on, and then followed him out, leaving Quinn alone.
Her heart pounded erratically, and a sudden pain in her hands made her realize that she’d balled them so tightly into fists that her fingers were turning white. She carefully released them, and the blood rushed back in, making her fingers tingle sharply. As painful as that was, though, her leg was worse; the pain above her knee was steadily growing stronger, throbbing with every quick beat of her heart.
But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t just sit here and wait; she knew that – she needed to know what was going on outside that tent. Desperately, she searched the inside of the tent with her eyes. This time she saw it. An extra flap of material halfway down the side wall, secured with a button that was the same color as the tent’s material.
Standing up made her wince again, but she pushed through the stabbing pain in her leg, and made it over to the side of the tent. Carefully unfastening the button, she pulled the material just barely to the side, revealing the corner of a small square window.
Without opening it any further than she had to, she peeled the corner up enough that she could get a look outside.
There wasn’t much to see. This side of the tent faced the forest, not the rest of the tents she’d seen last night, or to wherever Levan had taken her family. If she stuck her hand out, she’d be able to touch two different trees. Taking a deep breath, she pulled the flap the rest of the way open.
Suddenly, there was a soft fluttering sound, and then a whoosh that nearly knocked her over as something came flying through the window. She had to clamp her hands over her mouth to keep from crying out.
After a few panicked seconds, the flapping object landed neatly on the ground in the middle of the tent. It was Raeyan.
The bird stood primly in the center of the tent now, blinking up at her with his bright black eyes, looking awfully pleased with himself. Not that he hadn’t earned it. Quinn had never been so happy to see a bird in her entire life.
“Where did you come from?” She whispered, so quietly she almost couldn’t hear herself.
Raeyan turned his head to the side, giving her a look that was almost disapproving, and she actually had to stifle a giggle. “Okay, then. I guess I have been underestimating you.” Though she was only mouthing the words, he strutted toward her, and pushed his head gently against her leg, in a way that made her almost certain he understood.
Suddenly, there was a stirring outside the tent, and a noise that made all of the blood drain into her toes – quiet footsteps approaching the tent.
What would they do if they found Raeyan inside the tent? There wasn’t time to do anything. All of her muscles were frozen as she waited for the tent flap to open.
* * *
William paced agitatedly in the grass a few yards past the outer boundary of the emergency camp. Skittles, standing next to him, saddled and ready, seemed almost as antsy as he was – every few minutes the horse would tap at the ground with his front hoof and whine.
Logically, he knew Thomas and Linnea had been right. It would have been foolish and inconsiderate to go running off all on their own to look for Quinn. But every minute they spent here at the camp, every moment of listening to reports from guards who were actively searching, mapping out the places where she might have been taken – she had to have been taken by someone, there was no other explanation – every moment of sitting here and not finding her, was killing him.
He couldn’t even listen to it. All of the talking, and the theories, and the possibilities . . . no. There was no possibility other than she was okay somewhere nearby, and he was going to find her today. Five minutes ago at the latest.
Nathaniel had seen it on his face – the fact that at any moment, William was going to lose it, and when he’d stormed out of the clinic, he’d heard his uncle caution his siblings to leave him alone. Or Linnea, anyway. Thomas knew enough to keep his distance when he was like this.
He knew that if Quinn was here, she’d handle it – probably she’d be in there organizing the search for him. If he was the one missing, she’d have found him by now. But that was the problem; she wasn’t here. A shudder shook his body as he tried, unsuccessfully, to banish the thought that she might not come back.
Glancing up at the sky, he offered up a prayer to the Maker, begging for help – for a sign of where they could look, for her to just come walking back into the camp like nothing had happened, for anything that would bring Quinn back.
It was then that he noticed the two birds circling overhead. Aelwyn and Sirian. The sight of them startled him for a moment – it had been quite a while since he’d seen either of them flying freely like that; they’d taken their nesting seriously, both always hovering near the nest rearing their hatchlings. He knew they’d been out more frequently lately, since most of their brood had launched, but with being confined to the castle, William hadn’t seen them. He’d seen more of Raeyan than either of them lately.
Raeyan. He scanned the sky and the tops of the nearby trees quickly, knowing that they would still be taking their one remaining offspring out on longer and longer flights, helping with the training process, but the younger bird was nowhere to be seen. Was it possible?
He whistled to the birds, calling Aelwyn to him. His companion dipped lower, winding in an elab
orate motion over his head, but she didn’t land. She circled twice and then darted toward the north for several hundred feet before turning back and flying overhead for a moment, before turning to repeat the pattern.
William didn’t hesitate; didn’t think twice about going back into the camp and alerting anyone. Completely ignoring the earlier admonitions from his younger brother, he climbed into the saddle, and took off after his bird.
* * *
Quinn really hoped she wasn’t going to have a heart attack. Her heart was pounding so heavily that she was beginning to feel nauseous and hot, even though nobody had entered the tent – not yet, anyway. The footsteps had stopped, and then headed in a different direction, but she was sure she didn’t have much time.
Her fingers were shaking so badly that she could barely work them to open the little silver canister on Raeyan’s leg, but she managed it. She didn’t think she’d ever been this relieved to see a charcoal pencil and rolled up paper as she was right then.
She didn’t have any idea where she was or who she was with, and between the hurry she was in and the way her hands shook, her message was probably going to be both useless and indecipherable, but she hastily scribbled that she was okay and in a tent somewhere northwest of the camp – an hour or so on foot, and shoved the roll of paper back into the cylinder.
“I’m sorry I don’t have anything for you, Raeyan,” she whispered, leaning down and kissing him on the head, “but please, take this to William or Thomas or Nathaniel, or somebody, okay?” Then she pulled the edge of the window open again, and shoved him out. As she sat back onto the bedroll, pain shot through the cut on her leg, making her suck in a breath.
Squeezing her eyes shut, and concentrating on breathing through the pain, she listened to Raeyan’s escape. She could still hear the rustling in the trees as he hopped up, hopefully trying to find a spot where he could take to the air, when the footsteps sounded again, crunching in the dirt back to the tent.
Blooms of Consequence (Dusk Gate Chronicles - Book Four) Page 7
