by Emily L K
She had no answer for that. She placed the untouched apple on the ground between her feet and absently twisted the sapphire ring around her index finger.
“Did you know he was with them?” She eventually asked. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer, and her stomach twisted when Rowan nodded.
“It’s why I tried to outrun them until now, but they had to be dealt with before we got to Resso. I thought they’d follow me into town, not try to take you.”
Why had he done that? Was he trying to keep her from Quart, or had he been trying to spare her feelings? Would he have killed Quart if they’d followed him to town instead of her to the orchard?
“He told me he loved me,” she whispered. Once more Rowan nodded. His jaw worked.
“He does.”
And Rowan had told her he loved her too. That fact hung in the air between them, begging to be grasped and opened further, but neither of them spoke. Rowan looked away from her and down at the apple in his hand. He made no move to eat it.
Cori gazed up at the sky where the stars were beginning to shine. Hot tears pricked her eyes. She didn‘t know what to think anymore. To know Quart did harbour feelings for her despite his marriage to someone else, and despite the fact she’d almost killed him was too hard to process. She wished her sister was here to talk to. But Saasha wasn‘t here. She didn‘t even know if her she‘d escaped Lautan alive. She took a deep breath and blinked back her tears. Now was not the time to let them fall.
“Why didn’t you use your Hum?” She asked into the quiet of the night to take her mind off her sister. She returned her gaze to the camp place to find Rowan watching her. She could feel his Hum now, clear and musical. He shrugged.
“If I’d immobilised them, then they would have only come after us again. I don’t have enough energy - or time for that matter - to weave a Deathsong and,” he paused then smiled to himself, though it was slightly twisted, “sometimes an old-fashioned Hiram massacre is just what’s needed to cleanse the soul.”
Cori silently agreed with him. And when she thought back on the quick but brutal killing of Daze and his kin, she found she felt strangely content. She allowed herself a small twisted smile of her own.
HER CONTENTEDNESS DIDN’T follow her into sleep that night. She dreamed of Quart at first and her hands around his neck. She squeezed, relishing the snap of his spine. But Quart transformed into Bel and Cori found herself staring into her mother’s dark and vacant eyes. She let go of her throat and watched in horror as she slid to the ground.
“You killed her!” Saasha screeched and chased Cori with the bloody meat cleaver.
“No! I swear!” Cori cried but Saasha transformed, growing large and green and scaled.
The dragon snarled and loomed over her. Cori squeezed her dream eyes closed as the dragon collided with her shoulder and she opened her waking eyes.
She sat up with a gasp, feeling pain shoot through her chest and shoulder. She pulled up her sleeve and watched the bruise bloom down her arm. It wasn’t the worst she’d had but it still hurt. She let the sleeve drop and looked across the fire. She was surprised to see Rowan still up.
He was sitting with his knees drawn to his chest and his chin on his knees. He was looking in her direction but he wasn’t staring at her, rather through her. He had dark circles under his eyes and he was as haggard as if he’d missed a week’s worth of sleep instead of a few hours.
“Rowan?” She asked tentatively. He didn’t respond. She drew her blankets tighter around her shoulders and glanced at the sky; it wasn’t yet midnight. Without thinking, she reached towards him with her Hum. The maelstrom she connected with had her on her feet in an instant.
“Rowan, no!” She scrabbled around the fire towards him. He still didn’t respond but when she knelt in front of him, she could see him tapping a tune with the fingers of his right hand against his left calf. She immediately recognised the song as the one he had occasionally tapped when they had been riding, but now was not the time to ponder its meaning.
“Rowan cut it out. You can’t have a blowout here.” His eyes slowly came to her face, and a smile played at the corner of his lips.
“You said we wouldn’t do it without each other. You promised, remember?” She caught him by the shoulders and gave him a shake. Her Hum pressed against his mind, trying to rouse a reaction from him but her attempts seems futile. She growled in frustration. How could she stop this slow spiral out of control?
“Are you going to leave me alone, Rowan? Are you going to burn out and leave me here by myself? Should I bury you or just leave you in the grass to be pecked at by carrion birds like Daze and his men?” That seemed to get his attention. He blinked and looked at her a little clearer. She hadn’t realised she’d been steadily shaking him until he raised his hands to still her arms.
“Rum,” he croaked.
“Yes!” She dove for the pack, pulling out bits of food and clothing until she felt the flask at the bottom. “Yes, let’s get normal drunk like normal people.” She pulled off the cap and handed it to him. He pressed it to his lips and took three long swallows. He grimaced and wiped his mouth but Cori grinned in relief. Already she could feel his Hum calming. He handed the flask back to her, and she took a swig of her own, relishing the burn down her throat and the warming of her stomach.
They passed it back and forth a few more times, then Cori moved to sit beside him. He leaned against her and she could feel him shaking.
“I don’t like killing people,” he finally said, his voice low.
“No one should like killing,” she responded. She shoved away the memory of strangling Quart before it could fully form in her mind. Rowan dropped his head to her shoulder, and she shifted so he could lie against her comfortably.
“Thank you,” he muttered, his eyes drooping towards sleep.
“What for?” She stroked his hair back from his face and pulled her blanket around so it covered his shoulder as well.
“For being here. For being you.”
Cori stilled, unsure of what to say, but he was already asleep.
Chapter Twenty
Cori was surprised she’d been able to sleep in such an uncomfortable position, but sleep she had and now she was sore and stiff through her shoulders and back.
Rowan was still out cold, his head pillowed on her lap and his blanket pulled up to his chin. His skin was pale and his cheeks gaunt. She wondered if, absorbed in her own grief, she hadn’t noticed his slow deterioration or if it was a result of the day before.
She closed her eyes for a moment, allowing her Hum to touch his, then she fanned it out slowly. She couldn’t tell if she was doing it as discreetly as Rowan could but she had to try. She could feel the pinpricks of life in the nature around them and the larger being that was the horse. As she touched each life force, she carefully detached herself from it afterwards. She searched further until she felt the presence of people. Most of them were human but there were one or two Hiram. She guessed it was the town they‘d stopped by the day before. She withdrew her Hum and opened her eyes.
The clearing they were in seemed overly bright in the rising sun. The fire had burned low and the smoke from the embers wafted away from them on the chill morning breeze. Fog lifted from the water in the stream as the sun hit it and frost glistened in the meadow beyond.
Cori groaned and shifted, trying to stretch her back without waking Rowan but his eyes cracked open and he gazed up at her. He looked exhausted.
“Let’s just stay here for the day,” she told him. “No one is around.”
He gave a single nod of his head and closed his eyes again. She waited a few minutes until she was sure he was asleep again, then she eased her legs out from beneath his head and stood up. She stretched properly, reaching as high as she could then twisting her torso. She surveyed the camp and, because she had nothing else to do, she tidied up.
She stoked the fire and added more wood, then she folded her blanket and their dried clothes from the previ
ous day. She collected up the scattered items of food that she had thrown about during the night in her haste to get the rum. There was quite a bit there; bread, cheese, fruit and some vegetables. There was even a hunk of fresh meat wrapped in a canvas sack which she assumed Rowan intended for their dinner last night before they’d been set on by the Hiram.
Well, it would need to be cooked before it went bad. Cori hunted around under a copse of trees until she found three sturdy sticks that she took them back to the camp. As she worked to spear the meat onto the sticks to make a spit over the fire, she thought about the day before, and Quart in particular. She didn‘t feel the turmoil she‘d experience last night when Rowan had told her Quart still loved her. In fact, when she thought about Quart she felt no love at all, rather a simmering hatred for all he represented. If she was lucky, she‘d never see him again.
There were no herbs or oils to flavour the meat but that couldn’t be helped. She fixed it over the fire then stood back and admired her handy work before taking up the waterskins and her other clothes and heading to the stream.
The chestnut was there, grazing on the fresh green grass along the edge of the water. Rowan took his bridle off each night and set him loose but he never seemed to go far. He was probably enjoying this day of rest as much as she was. Cori paused to let him snuff at her hand then she filled the waterskins and placed them on the bank. Out of sight of the camp, she quickly stripped out of her robes and pulled on the brown leather leggings and the green shirt which she belted into a tunic. She rolled up the leggings and stepped into the stream.
The water was both frigid and invigorating. She waded in a little further, letting the water rush and swirl around her calves. There was a loud splash behind her and she spun to see the chestnut plunge into the stream. He lifted a hoof and pawed at the water, spraying it all over her.
“Hey!” She laughed. He came a few more steps towards her and pawed again. Cori could do nothing except hold her arms up to cover her face.
When he tired of his play, he dropped his muzzle to drink. Cori waded over to him and smoothed her hand over his shoulder. There were splotches of dried blood on his coat and Cori bent to cup water in her hands and wash them away. She moved methodically around the horse, scrubbing away the travel stains as well as the blood but her mind, as it always seemed to be lately, was on Rowan.
She knew he had a volatile temper - he had certainly lost it at her more than once - but yesterday had been different. The cold mask that had come over him when he‘d killed the men, when it seemed like he didn’t even know who she was, had been daunting enough, but it had been his reaction the night before that had really frightened her. He had no control over his magic, and she had almost lost him. She didn’t want to think about what she might have woken up to had she slept through the night. He could have just ended up as another of the dead bodies she seemed to leave in her wake these days.
The almost intoxication the night before had been unlike the night of the ball where they had felt alive with wild delight. Last night had been a storm of emotional anger and fear and her own magic told her that sort of episode was not as easy to recover from. She certainly didn’t want to think of the day she had left him in such a state to go and see Quart. She hadn’t been a very good friend to him that day.
But despite all that she could no longer deny that she was developing feelings for him. He was a constant in her life that she could rely on to always be there, but she wasn’t sure if her feelings for him were the same as his for her or if she simply wanted someone to cling to now that everyone else that she loved was gone. And she was afraid that now she was talking to him again, Rowan might interpret it to be more than friendship. She didn’t know what she would do if he did.
“You could be my companion,” she told the horse softly. He stood with his head drooping towards sleep as he enjoyed his rub down. A flick of his ears was the only sign he was listening to her. “You’re not confusing like humans are. I think we could be happy together, Horse. A shame you don’t have a name.”
“His grooms called him Sunny.”
Cori jumped and looked up at the bank. Rowan was coming towards her. His movement was stiff, and he seemed to be favouring his arm. After the Hiram men had been so quickly killed the day before she hadn’t thought to check if he’d been injured.
“Don’t worry, just pulled muscles,” he told her, correctly reading the concern on her face. He stopped at the edge of the stream and raised his eyebrows at her. She supposed she should stop staring at him and get out of the water.
She made towards the bank and Sunny, curious as to where she was going, turned and followed her. She climbed out of the stream and collected the waterskins and her robes. She made to walk past Rowan - she didn’t really want to talk to him, her thoughts still confusing as they were - but he caught her by the arm and stopped her.
“How’s your shoulder?” He asked. So he had noticed. Without looking at him, Cori pulled up her sleeve and showed him the bruise.
“It’s not the worst,” she told him half-heartedly. He didn’t let go of her and she felt her heartbeat increase. His other hand came up to cup her chin, and he forced her face up to look at him. She thought he would kiss her, but he merely searched her eyes and let his hand drop away.
“Try not to use anymore magic.”
“Easy for you to say,” she retorted, pulling her arm free of his grip. She started back towards the camp.
“Cori, I’m sorry about last night. It won’t happen again,” he called after her. She whirled back to face him.
“Don’t say that, because it will happen again. It’s how you cope, and that’s fine. But just remember that it’s not just you anymore. I’m here too now and you made me like this and you brought me on this quest with you so whether you like it or not you’re stuck with me. Forever and ever,” she added dryly.
He said nothing further, but he followed her back to the camp and accepted the meat and bread she handed him. Cori picked at her own food, not really hungry despite missing dinner the night before and breakfast that morning. She wondered if what she had said would create tension between them again. She‘d needed to say it, and she felt relief at getting it off her chest, but it probably hadn’t been the right time to do it. She glanced up at him through her lashes. Instead of the angry or guarded expression she’d expected, he looked thoughtful.
She didn’t like that either; he‘d obviously taken her words differently to how she’d intended them. As if sensing her gaze, he looked up and met her eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment. He looked tired with the dark circles beneath his eyes and his lips pinched. Even his Hum was quiet and withdrawn. Cori gave him a mental shove and when he visibly winced, she smiled.
“You don’t get drunk often, do you?”
“Normal drunk?” His smile was brittle. “No, not often.”
Cori felt her relief intensify. He wasn’t angry. She took a hearty bite of her sandwich.
“I know you wanted to stay here today,” he said, “but I think we should move on. The river is only a few hours away and we’ll be safer in Resso.”
“I couldn’t feel anyone around this morning,” Cori replied, disappointed that they couldn’t rest for even a day.
“But you heard what Quart said yesterday. There’s a Hearthian army waiting for us and I’d like to give them the slip before they discover the bodies from yesterday.”
“You believe what he said?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. She wanted Rowan to hate Quart as much as she did. She didn’t like this calm acceptance of the boy who had broken her heart.
“I think that a man who has been spared his life only has truth left to give.”
“Fine.” Cori tossed the last of her bread and meat at the fire. “Let’s go.”
“I CAN’T SWIM,” SHE said, panicked.
The river stretched before them, so wide she almost couldn’t see the other side. The sun was still high in the sky and it reflected on
the water, blinding her. She stood on Sunny’s left, her hand knotted in his mane as if the horse alone could stop her going in the water.
“That’s fine,” Rowan replied from Sunny’s right. “There’s a bridge further down.”
“Why didn’t we just go there?”
Rowan leaned around the horse to look at Cori. He smiled, and she knew she wouldn’t want to hear what he had to say next.
“Because there’s only one bridge that crosses into Resso. It goes from this side straight into the capital city, Bandar Utara, and -“
“The army will be waiting there,” Cori finished with a sigh. “Well, I guess we should at least have a look.”
To get to the bridge they had to go back south a way to get around a rocky bluff that was impossible to take the horse over. When they reached the road, they stopped and watched it for a time from a tangle of shrubs.
“An army would be loud, wouldn’t it?” Cori asked, her heart beating fast in anticipation.
“You would think so,” Rowan mused. His hand on her hip tightened reflexively and her heart fluttered for a different reason. She cursed her body’s timing.
Rowan urged Sunny forward, and the horse stepped onto the road as cautiously as they felt. They followed the road almost the whole way back to the river without seeing anyone. When they rounded a final corner and saw the bridge and the glistening water, Cori gasped in awe.
It was the biggest structure she had ever seen; a great stone arch that curved high into the sky over the river to a city of the same make that sprawled along the edge of the water. It was also then that they spotted the army camped in an open field ahead.
They had obviously not expected them to come openly up the road, so when the sentry heralded their arrival, the men who had been sitting around their camps had to scramble for their weapons and horses.
“Hold on!” Rowan said. Cori grabbed a handful of mane and Rowan took the reins with both hands. He put his heels to Sunny’s sides, and the chestnut leaped forward.
