by Shae Ford
“On top of the jewelry cart,” she admitted. “Though in my defense, Aerilyn was trying to get me to read some poetry.”
“What’s poetry?”
“Just rhythmic nonsense people write about trees — and about each other. The stuff Aerilyn likes is romantic to the point of being revolting.” She tossed a twig into the fire, probably imagining that it had some offending line about love etched on it.
“If she can read, then why does she want you to read it?”
Kyleigh looked up at the sky, as if she was imploring the stars for patience. “She says — and I quote — that there is a particular subtlety that comes out in the words when one reads poetry aloud.”
She said that last part in a very over exaggerated, high-pitched voice. It did sound a bit like Aerilyn. He couldn’t help himself — he laughed.
She raised her eyebrows. “I thought I’d die before I heard you giggle.”
He turned his smile into a frown as quickly as he could. “Well you aren’t likely to hear it again, so just … don’t go on about it.”
“I think I’ll have Aerilyn sew the date on my handkerchief. Or maybe I’ll write a book about it. You like to read —” She stopped abruptly and peered across the fire. A look of such horror crossed her face that Kael expected a two-headed corpse to rise out of the ground at any moment. “No. Absolutely not,” she said, leaping to her feet.
“What is it?” He squinted, but couldn’t see anything in the darkness.
“It’s too horrible to mention.” She grabbed a low-hanging branch and with one graceful swing, pulled herself up into the limbs.
Kael wondered if he should follow her. On the other side of the camp, he could hear Jonathan playing his fiddle while the men laughed and carried on. They obviously couldn’t sense any danger.
Kyleigh’s whisper came from high in the tree: “Just act as if I’m not here.”
He sat on edge for a moment, wondering if his life was about to end. But then he saw the creature that stalked them, and breathed a sigh of relief: it was only Aerilyn. She skipped towards the fire, a frilly, emerald green dress clutched in her arms.
“You should have picked a better hiding spot. She’s bound to find you up there,” he said out the side of his mouth.
“The only people who think to look in trees are the people who climb them,” was her tart reply.
He was about to say something else when Aerilyn spotted him.
“Good evening, Kael!”
She wore a pale pink dress and had the long waves of her hair curled into neat rings. When she smiled, he was glad the light was too dim to show his blush.
“Yes, evening and … all that,” he said rather lamely.
She was gracious enough to ignore it. “You haven’t seen Kyleigh anywhere, have you? I’ve found the most ravishing dress and she simply must try it on.”
He fixed his eyes on the fire to avoid accidentally glancing at the tree. “You know, I haven’t seen her around,” he raised his voice a little, “but I wouldn’t mind seeing her in a dress.”
An acorn plummeted from the tree and conked him on the head.
“Ouch!” He glared up at the branches. When he turned back, Aerilyn was watching him curiously. “Um, it’s just one of the hazards of sitting under an oak.”
She sighed heavily as she plopped down next to him, her skirts poofing out beside her. “I’m afraid I’ve run out of ideas. I thought that if I found you, then I’d find her. But if she isn’t with you, then I don’t know where she is.”
“Er, well, I just — I don’t know what to tell you. Why did you think she’d be with me?”
She snorted. “The two of you are tight as a sailor’s knot. Everyone can see it.” She plucked a blade of grass and began weaving it onto another.
He didn’t know when everyone had found time to make such wild assumptions. “Well, they’re wrong. We’ve only just met — I mean, it just so happens that we’ve ended up in the same place, is all,” he said defensively.
She giggled, knotting another blade of grass onto the next. “Alright, I do apologize. I suppose being away from home bonds you with another person. Speaking of, are you really from the Unforgivable Mountains?”
He nodded.
“Oh, I’m so jealous! I’ve never been to the mountains, but I’ve heard such terrifying stories.” She leaned forward. “Is it very dangerous? Do people really freeze together if they sit too close?”
“No, I’ve never heard of anyone freezing together. But we do have a river we call Hundred Bones.”
She raised her brows. “And why’s it called that?”
“Because it’s said to hold the bones of one hundred of the King’s bravest knights — all drowned at once.”
She clapped a hand to her mouth and gasped excitedly.
“It’s true,” he said, slightly encouraged by her reaction. “The story goes that old King Fergus wanted his castle built at the very top of the Unforgivable Mountains. He ordered one hundred of his noblest knights to climb ahead of his masons and clear the way …”
Aerilyn was the perfect audience for his tales. When a monster leapt out from the mist, she gasped. If the story got suspenseful, she would lean forward and listen with wide eyes until his heroes made it out of danger. She even laughed at the funny bits. One tale became two, and two became three. Soon there was very little life left in the campfire.
“And that’s why the tops of the mountains are always capped in ice,” he finished.
“Because they quarreled with the sun?”
He nodded, and she clapped.
“Bravo! That was wonderful. You’re quite the storyteller.”
He glanced away from her admiring eyes and scratched his head. “I don’t know about that. Amos was always better than me.”
The words slipped out before he could think to stop them, and Aerilyn latched on. “Amos? Was Amos your father?”
“No — I never knew my father,” he said quickly. He was trying to think of a way to change the subject when she gasped.
“Oh Kael, that’s awful! But I know how you feel: I never knew my mother. Well, perhaps I knew her at one point or another but I was far too young to recall. It’s just been Papa and me for as long as I can remember. We travel across the realm, trying to keep our village fed —”
“Ahoy there! And what are you two little lambs baaing about?” Jonathan said as he sauntered out of the darkness. He had his fiddle propped up on one shoulder and swung his free arm in an exaggerated arc.
Aerilyn scowled at him. “We were just having a lovely conversation. Until you showed up and ruined it all, that is.”
Jonathan ignored her scathing look. “Garron says it’s your bed time, mot. You should get tucked in.”
Aerilyn wasn’t allowed to sleep outside with everybody else. Though she begged and pleaded, Garron insisted that the wilderness was no place for a young lady. He made her set up her bedroll in the garment cart, instead. And Jonathan never passed up an opportunity to tease her for it.
Tonight, she seemed entirely fed up. Her face flushed red as she stood and whipped her skirts about her. “I’ll thank you not to talk to me like a child. I’m a grown woman by anybody’s standards!”
She made to stomp off when Jonathan scooped the frilly green dress off the ground and waved it at her. “Aren’t you forgetting your rather large handkerchief?” He turned it over in his hand. “Oops, looks like I was wrong. It’s a tent, isn’t it?”
She snatched it out of his hand so quickly that it was a wonder it didn’t rip. “It’s a dress, you buffoon! Not a tent, not a wagon cover — a dress!” Then she hiked her skirts up to her knees and stormed away.
“Good night my delicate, dew-covered rose!” Jonathan called after her. Then he muttered: “I think they must make women’s undergarments with a bunch already in them.”
Kael thought he was lucky she wasn’t armed. “You shouldn’t badger her like that.”
“Eh, it’s good for her,” he said, scratching his chin
. “A woman who doesn’t get badgered enough just becomes one, that’s what my mum always says — and she should know. You ought to see the way my pap lights out anytime she walks into a room. Now that’s love.” He tossed his fiddle on the ground and the strings twanged in protest. Then he collapsed on his bedroll, his long limbs splayed out in every direction, and immediately started to snore.
Chaney and Claude were next to wander up. They congratulated him through the thick rings of sauce around their lips and begged him to cook more chicken tomorrow. Only after their chattering turned into snores did Kyleigh drop down from her hiding place.
“Well, I thought that would never end,” she said as she brushed bits of bark off her sleeves.
“It was your idea to hide up there,” he reminded her.
“Well, it was your idea to drag those stories out for ages.”
She wasn’t smiling. In fact, she was standing with her hands propped dangerously on her hips. He quickly got to his feet. “It’s not like I meant for them to go on,” he said, raising his voice over the noise of Jonathan’s snores. “She kept asking for another story. What was I supposed to do?”
Kyleigh crossed her arms. “You might have just told her you didn’t want to.”
“I never said I didn’t want to.” He spoke slowly, as clearly as he possibly could. “I don’t mind talking to her. And if you didn’t want to listen then you should have just come down and tried on the dress.”
Fire blazed behind her eyes. She stepped up to him, but he stood his ground. “Oh? And I bet you would’ve enjoyed that, wouldn’t you? You’d like to see me put in my place. You’d prefer me to prance around like a wind-brained ninny —”
“I don’t care.” It took all of his not-so-considerable patience to keep from shoving her back. “I don’t care what you do. I don’t care what you wear. A dress, breeches, nothing at all — I don’t care.”
The fire in her eyes died to embers. She seemed on the verge of saying something else, but instead she turned and walked away.
“Where are you going?” he called after her.
“I thought you didn’t care.”
When he followed, she broke into a run, and he found himself sprinting just to keep up. It wasn’t long before she outdistanced him. Soon the darkness swallowed her black armor and muffled her footsteps, leaving him with only the noise of his own labored breath.
“Fine! Go on, then!” he shouted into the trees. It felt good to yell at her, even if she couldn’t hear him. He kicked a hapless branch out of his way and headed back to camp — thinking that perhaps Jonathan had been right about women’s undergarments, after all.
Chapter 14
Crow’s Cross
The next day dragged by at the pace of a one-legged turtle. It began extra early, when Garron shook them awake to inform them that they were not to go trapping.
“The bandits are thickest in the woods around the city,” he said, his voice far too loud and commanding for the hour. “I don’t like to have my men spread out all over the place. It makes us an easy target. Stay close, and keep your bows at the ready. Understood?”
“Yes sir!” Chaney and Claude shouted in unison.
Kael mumbled something unintelligible and as soon as Garron was gone, he tried to go back to sleep.
He’d stayed up most of the night, waiting for Kyleigh. At first, he was angry: he wanted her to come back so he could give her a piece of his mind. She shouldn’t have been so snappy, she shouldn’t treat him like her enemy and she certainly shouldn’t go wandering off by herself at night.
Then as the hours changed, so did his feelings. At midnight, he began to worry: what if she was lost? What if she’d been taken by bandits, or eaten by wolves? He got up several times to put more wood on the fire. He circled the entire camp twice; he even walked to the edge of the forest and shouted her name.
Only the crickets answered him.
The first morning hours brought new worries. He began to fear that she’d left him. She didn’t need him, after all, and he had told her to go away several times. So that was it, then. She was gone.
With that horrible realization, a new feeling struck him. The air around him felt empty, like he could reach his hand back for miles and never touch anyone he cared about. The merchants were kind enough, but they didn’t really know him. He couldn’t trust them with his secret. And even if he could, they would still never know him like Roland, or Amos … or Kyleigh.
And he realized quite suddenly that he was completely, incurably on his own. That he was alone.
More time passed: slow, empty time. Then at the darkest hour of the night, just before the sun was set to rise, he felt something. It was a shift in the sky — a fullness that despair convinced him he’d never feel again. He reached behind him and his fingers touched the strange, interlocking material of Kyleigh’s armor. He was too relieved to be angry with her. And when she put her hand on his, he found he was too tired to pull away.
But that had been hours ago. Now the sun was blaring its insufferable light over the treetops, and all he wanted to do was sleep. Horatio had other ideas.
“Wake up, m’boy!” he said as he ripped the blanket off of him. “It’s a long travel day so we’ve got to get lunch packed by breakfast, and dinner packed by lunch.”
“When’s breakfast?” Kael grumbled as he pulled himself to his feet.
Horatio stuffed a roll of bread and a cup of water in his hands. “Breakfast is now!” he bellowed, steering him towards the food cart.
Garron woke the camp with an order that the caravan was to leave in half an hour. Men scrambled out of bed and lined up behind the cook’s cart, squinting out through heavy eyes. Some were still in the process of pulling on their trousers or buttoning their shirts. Some didn’t bother getting dressed past their undergarments. They took the bread and fruit Kael gave them, and muttered curses when Horatio hollered not to forget their lunch sacks.
When breakfast was doled out, they climbed into the wagon and packed sacks for dinner while it rolled. At noon, Horatio arranged a mountain of rations on a large wooden tray and sent Kael to pass them out. It was a dull task, and the only one who gave him any trouble was Jonathan. He would sprint by and grab another sack when he thought Kael wasn’t looking. The third time he did it, Kyleigh stuck out her boot and sent him flying into the side of the jewelry cart.
He didn’t come back for fourths.
When Kael passed the last dinner out, Horatio told him he was through for the day and sent him outside. Having nothing to do forced him to realize just how tired he was, which made the second half of the afternoon all the more torturous.
He was hoping to get a few minutes to himself when Kyleigh found him. She seemed to sense that he was in no mood to talk, and so she walked beside him in silence. He didn’t mind having her around, really. If he didn’t turn to look at her, he never would have known she was there. But then Aerilyn found Kyleigh and the two of them started chatting about market. And then Jonathan had to butt himself into their conversation and add a good deal of rudeness to every topic they covered. Kael’s quiet afternoon went out with the breeze.
“That isn’t true,” Aerilyn said, her brows snapped low. “No one in the Endless Plains dances naked for the harvest.”
Jonathan shrugged. “There’s got to be a reason why the crops grow so tall, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Yes, but it has nothing to do with nudity,” Aerilyn huffed. Then she turned back to Kyleigh. “Have you ever tried desert spice rice?”
“Once, but I haven’t been to Whitebone for years — and I doubt I’ll be getting an invitation anytime soon.”
“I love the desert,” Aerilyn said, her eyes shining. “The culture is so fascinating. And the spice rice is practically to die for —”
“You’ll feel like you died, all right,” Jonathan piped in. “First time I had that stuff, it turned me inside out. I’m beginning to get a little burn now, just thinking about it.”
Aerily
n swatted him with the back of her hand. “You are so rude!”
“Is it really that spicy?” Kael wondered.
“Not really,” Kyleigh said with a shrug.
Jonathan whistled. “Well, you must have a stronger stomach than me. I’ll tell you what, I was burning so bad I thought my —”
“That’s quite enough!” Aerilyn said, smacking him again. “I refuse to be privy to every disgusting detail of your — experiences.”
“Privy is definitely the word I’d use,” Jonathan muttered to Kael.
“Anyways,” Aerilyn said over the top of him, “I was so hoping that we’d get to visit some of the island villages along the coast — they sell the most beautiful jewelry. But,” she sighed, “Papa says it’s still too dangerous.”
“Wait, why is it so dangerous?” Kael said.
She looked at him incredulously. “Because of the pirates, of course! Haven’t you heard?”
He shook his head.
“Well, I’m surprised you haven’t: it’s quite the scandal. Apparently, the pirate attacks have really picked up over the last few years. There’s a rumor going around that Duke Reginald is beginning to suspect his managers have something to do with it — that his men are in cahoots with the pirates. It’s causing all sorts of turmoil and sudden beheadings.”
Kael knew a little about the Duke’s rule from what he’d heard around the caravan. It wasn’t long after he became Duke that Reginald bought up all of the boats in the High Seas. Then he set shipping prices so high that none of the merchants could afford to pay them. When a shopkeeper lost his business, Reginald gobbled it up — slowly turning the seas into the King’s personal highway. And instead of keeping a class of nobles, Reginald assigned managers to his different shops and ships. He paid them a set wage and in return, they made sure the Sovereign Five’s shipments made it safely across the Kingdom.
All he knew about pirates was what he’d read in the Atlas: they were greedy men who would gladly spill blood for treasure. But as long as they were attacking Duke Reginald, he didn’t think he minded. “What’s so odd about that? The Duke is the only one who’s got any coin on the High Seas. He should expect to get plundered.”
