A Time of Dying (Araneae Nation)

by Edwards, Hailey

  “That explains one thing at least.” He sounded much relieved. “Why you dared an attempt to escape through that bloody high window. It seemed such a fool thing to do. I thought it was more proof of madness. That you didn’t care whether you reached the ground or died in the attempt.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from pointing out the distance from the window ledge to the ground had been several times my height. I was fool enough to try it. I was a competent climber in short distances. There was a chance I might have reached the ground on my own, safely, in one piece.

  Though sick as our descent had made me, I would have bet on Murdoch finding me lying on the grass in a jumble of limbs and hair, freed from my prison in a way neither of us had expected.

  Chapter Eleven

  Days and nights blurred in the mountains. Five days into our journey, mists rolled in and we resorted to tying ourselves with rope to ensure we weren’t separated. Spotting Bram’s camp was a simple matter. They dared to build fires and roast game while our frost-kissed fingers trembled.

  If ever the others despaired of finding us, we saw no evidence of dissent among them.

  Often Murdoch chose the higher trails so we could lie in wait for their passing below us. There we caught snippets of conversation. We heard little, but what gossip they shared heartened us.

  Though Murdoch had warned me against it, I peered over the edge to watch the others reach the spot where he and I had been resting for a half hour. After a while, even Murdoch acquiesced and lay on the rocky outcropping beside me. He was a warm presence at my elbow, and where we touched, contentment blossomed. I leaned against him, and together we watched their procession.

  “I heard the wing was so large it wouldn’t fit through the door to the council chambers.”

  “Think about that.” A sigh. “If it couldn’t fit through the door, how’d Isolde get it in there?”

  “Well, I heard that wing’s not the first. There’s one in Beltania that anyone can ask to see.”

  “Huh.” A thoughtful pause. “Might be worth the trip if that’s true.”

  “It is true,” Bram said with authority. “I’ve seen it. Both of them, actually.”

  From there, interested murmurs erupted. Bram fielded their questions and kept them moving forward. If he knew we rested above him, he gave no indication. The others were likewise blind.

  In the stillness of their departure, Murdoch kissed my forehead. “Time to go.”

  “Do you think we can beat them to the pass?” I had been considering it for a day or so.

  He stood and stretched. “A lame ursus could hobble faster than they’re walking.”

  “I worry if they go first and realize we haven’t arrived yet, they’ll guard the pass against us.”

  “It’s possible.” He shrugged. “I still say it’s worth the risk in case there are guards posted.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t recall anyone showing particular interest to that area, but that might be because our Theridiidae guards held our city so well. Now I’m not sure. If they have been dismissed as Vaughn says, and my clan has no warriors, I can’t imagine finding much resistance for us there. Even the Mimetidae warriors on loan should ignore the foothills since the pass is deep inside the Segestriidae land and they were charged only with guarding the borders.”

  “What’s changed?” He helped me stand. “We had already agreed on a course of action.”

  “It’s a feeling.” I couldn’t put into words. “It’s like the closer we get, the faster I must go.”

  “I’ve noticed.” He rubbed his still-mottled jaw. “Your earring… It’s not humming, is it?”

  “No.” I touched it out of habit. “I would tell you if it was.”

  “The night we faced the harbinger, the nearer I came to her, the more compelled I was to get closer. I shook the compulsion off, and Lleu claims she didn’t affect him at all. What about you?”

  It worried me that my first impulse was to lie and say I was unaffected too. For that reason, I did the opposite and told him the absolute truth. “Her song calls to me. It gets worse the longer I hear it. That’s why, after tracking a few harbingers, I gave it up to do more…preventative work.”

  “We’re a ways from Titania yet. Do you think the harbinger’s call is what has you on edge?”

  “I’m not sure.” It was the best answer I could give him. “I don’t think so. My earring would pick up the sound of her wings if that was the case. It’s not a flawless system, but it hasn’t failed me yet.” Resting a hand over my stomach, I considered another cause. “This will be the first time I’ve been home since I escaped Hishima. It will be the first time I’ve seen the empty streets I’ve walked in other cities. I fear it might be the first time that the crystal city does not shine for me.”

  His arms were around me before I felt the wetness dribbling down my chin.

  “I didn’t think.” He buried his face against my neck. “I’m sorry I asked you to do this.”

  “It has to be done.” I kissed his cheek, then pushed him aside to wipe my face.

  “If you’d rather, we can push through the night and beat the others through the pass.”

  “No.” Fear of the harbinger’s influence had been planted, and now it worried me. “We’ll do as we planned. Reaching the city faster won’t help anyone there. Because it feels fresh to me, I forget it’s been months for everyone else. I’m being impatient, and I’ll no doubt regret it soon.”

  With an understanding nod, Murdoch fell into the plodding gait we maintained to keep Bram at a distance. More bodies required more time to move, but they seemed to go painfully slow for guards on the hunt for an escaped prisoner. I snorted, I meant guest.

  Again niggling doubts made me consider our situation from another angle. Say the harbinger was calling me. Say that was the case, then couldn’t she also be repelling them? They had never heard her song to crave it as I did.

  Again and again my thoughts circled the same weary path. “Murdoch…”

  He turned the corner, and his steps faltered. “Gods above and below.”

  “What is it?” I hurried to his side.

  Here the path narrowed dangerously, and the sheer drop fed into a small valley in the center of the foothills. I had picked flowers there as a child. There was a small stream, spring fed, but it was marshy and no one had ever lived there. In the months of my absence, that had changed. The narrow valley was now littered with tents. No one milled about, and not a single noise was heard.

  It was strange to see evidence of occupation but to find no signs of life.

  Murdoch looked to me expectantly. “I’ve heard no reports of this.”

  “I had no idea the valley was occupied.” I had doubts whether it actually was. The camp was so isolated as to make me think it was abandoned. “This section of the range falls on Segestriidae land. Unless the Mimetidae had cause to patrol it, there was no reason for them to know it was here.”

  After a moment, he nodded. “We won’t be low enough for them to trouble us.” He studied the camp. “Though I don’t see anyone down there to engage us should the need arise. Do you think it could be a plague camp?”

  “The possibility hadn’t occurred to me.” If an aggressive illness swept through a larger city, I had seen it done once before where the well citizens had banded together outside the populated areas until the sickness ran its course. It made sense for our people to seek refuge on our land. It was the stillness of it all that bothered me. As if the wind itself feared howling in that eerie nook.

  “I don’t like this.” Chill bumps rose on his arms. “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “No,” I agreed wholeheartedly. “It doesn’t.”

  A final sweep of his gaze across the tent-strewn valley and he seemed to decide we had seen all we would. Time was too precious for us to waste standing here waiting for the emergence of people who might prove dangerous to confront. While they may have difficulty identifying us as high as we were, it requ
ired only one pair of keen eyes or a nose or ears to uncover our identities.

  “We’re close now.” He turned from the valley with reluctance. “We must remain vigilant.”

  “Will we stop tonight?” I resisted the urge to see the camp once more. “So close to there?”

  He considered his answer. “We slept an equal distance from there last night none the wiser.”

  “And now that we are wiser?”

  “We continue on as planned.” He took the slight incline on our left. “If Bram rests at sunset, he’s decided the camp and its inhabitants are no threat to them—or to us. We’ll follow his lead.”

  “I doubt they saw the camp.” Their trail was lower and wound to the right before ours did.

  “Don’t underestimate Bram,” Murdoch warned. “I would be surprised if he missed anything. He didn’t endear himself to Isolde by being blind to his surroundings or deaf to whispers that the brave mutter outside of her hearing. He’s sly and as full of secrets as she is. No doubt that’s why they enjoy one another’s company so well. Neither of them knows what the other will do next.”

  I recalled how smoothly Bram had abandoned me into Isolde’s care. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

  In this matter, I trusted his and Isolde’s interests aligned with ours. Isolde’s reason was clear to me. She wanted proof to safeguard her clan from a threat her son had not yet acknowledged. It was harder to ascertain Bram’s interest, unless he meant to woo Isolde into accepting his pledge.

  What else did he have to gain by cozying up with the Mimetidae? Unless that too was a part of his oath to the Araneidae, playing peacekeeper between the two newly aligned clans’ families.

  Shoving that tangled web aside, I left Bram to his scheming. I had not the head for intrigue.

  As long as I was not endangered by his and Isolde’s machinations, let him pluck those silken threads of conspiracy to his heart’s content. Should he attempt to ensnare me, well, then I would have to turn to the source. What Isolde wanted exactly was as yet unclear, but I had no doubt that Bram would see she got it, and whether it cost me and Murdoch trouble was an ancillary concern to them if we warranted their regard at all. How simple life had seemed before meeting Murdoch.

  I ought to have known if I did a simple thing long enough it would become complicated.

  I had woken each night, ate if there was food and drank if there was water. If there was not, I did without. I followed rumors of the plague, uncovered burial grounds and did my part to ensure no victims rose once their families laid them to rest. If only all clans burned bodies without such ceremony. But then I suppose I would have been left bereft of purpose and ignorant to the danger facing our clans, our world, because if no cure was found and no actions taken, all would be lost.

  Tendrils of smoke curled in the bleak night air, telling us Bram had made camp. As cold as I was, I wished he had urged his group onward. At least the movement would have kept me warm. Instead, they began dinner preparations while resting comfortably by the modest fire they started.

  “I wish I had gloves.” Flexing my fingers made their joints creak from the cold.

  Murdoch frowned at me. “Who in the southlands owns a pair except when traveling north?”

  “I did, to prevent rocks from cutting my hands.” Scabs I had earned on this trip would scar.

  He made a thoughtful sound in the back of his throat that I recognized as Murdoch solving a problem. I doubted there were gloves in his pack, but I didn’t doubt he would give a substitute consideration. It was what he did. He saw problems in need of fixing and tackled them to the ground.

  I knew. I had spent plenty of time under him myself.

  “Can you set us up for the night?” He was walking, swirling a cup in hand.

  “Of course.” He organized our camp most nights, and I had no problem doing my part.

  After sliding the worn bedroll from his pack, I flicked my wrists to straighten it, then spread it on the smoothest of the available surfaces. My back muscles protested when I bent to unfold an edge that had curled. By the time I straightened, Murdoch stood nearby with a frown that told me plainly he regretted my being here. Oh, I think he found my company to his liking, but I knew he wished he had more to offer than rock-hard bedding, frigid air and dried food. I say that he did.

  His body heat was my favorite provision, but his cheeks went ruddy when I counted that.

  “I was thinking on what you said last night, about the fruit.” He offered me his cup. “Here.”

  “I didn’t mean it as a complaint.” If you ate dried fruit, it was bound to stick in your teeth.

  “I didn’t take it as one.” He swirled the contents as if to mix them. “Try this.”

  I took his cup and put it at my mouth.

  “No.” He grasped the edge and lowered it until he could reach inside. “It’s not a drink.”

  He withdrew a fat berry and put it at my lips. The skin was wrinkled still, but Murdoch must have soaked them overnight to get them so plump. My teeth sank into the soft flesh, and I sighed.

  “How did you manage that?” In so small a camp, we couldn’t turn and not bump elbows.

  “I have my ways.”

  “Clearly.” I took the cup and selected another lush berry, popping it into his mouth.

  “Those are yours,” he protested.

  “They are mine,” I agreed, twisting his male logic. “That’s why I can choose to share them.”

  He accepted a second berry with a scowl less fierce than he intended, I’m sure.

  Together we sat on the bedroll and stared off the mountain into the night. It was clear. Half the moon shone. Stars were a handful of shimmering crystals flung far across the blackened sky.

  It was a good night for hunting.

  The thought chilled me. “Do you think it’s wise to have a fire so close to the valley camp?”

  Murdoch lowered his gaze to the whirl of smoke curling like a beckoning finger.

  “It’s not what I would have done,” he admitted, “but I can’t very well make them put it out.”

  “True.” We were too close to our journey’s end to risk revealing ourselves now.

  We finished the berries, chewed on meat sticks until our bellies were full, and when I looked at Murdoch, he looked back in the way he sometimes did that told me his hunger was in no way slacked. Swallowing was painful when he did that. I drank deeply from my cup to wet my throat.

  “We’ve done all we can today.” I patted the fabric beneath us. “It’s time for bed.”

  “How far is the city from the other side of the pass?” He lay down with a groan.

  “Not far.” I let him settle. “We won’t be gone long from one before reaching the other.”

  I was surprised he had known of the pass, which was not common knowledge to outsiders.

  As if reading my mind, he explained, “It’s been a long time since I had cause to visit Titania. I recall the pass so well because Paladin Vaughn mentioned its precise location to those warriors sent to guard the Segestriidae border in case a fast escape route onto our lands was ever needed.”

  I quirked a brow. “He instructed his warriors to run home at the first sign of danger?”

  “No.” He closed his eyes. “He wanted them to know how best to evacuate the city.”

  “Hmm.” I borrowed his tactic, which succeeded in making one of his eyes crack open. “It seems that Mimetidae are less cruel than I was led to believe.”

  “If your clan was poor or possessed something of lesser value to my paladin, then you would find our reputation is well-founded. When we can afford to be kind, we are, but that is not often.”

  After having met Isolde, I believed him. She was witty and kind, unless you crossed her.

  “It’s my understanding there are no guards left in the city, except for a few Segestriidae that rallied after the Theridiidae’s dismissal.” He gave no concern for them. His quick dismissal stung my pride, but he was right. We were not fighters. “I d
oubt we’ll have trouble reaching the manor.”

  “If any structure is still guarded, his home will be. I know ways around that, though.”

  He grew smug. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  “There are treasures there.” Including a library Murdoch would envy. “He would not forgive their loss. By default, the hidden passageways will also be guarded. We will have to be careful.”

  He folded his arms behind his head. “We will think of something when the time comes.”

  Once he got comfortable, I lay down beside him, placing my head on his chest. It was how I loved to sleep, snuggled close to him, ear to his heart, which beat so steadily it gave me courage.

  “It’s bright out tonight,” Murdoch observed.

  “So I noticed.” I glanced up to find him staring at me rather than the moon.

  I saw his expression, and the longing there made me ache.

  Turning my head, I gave the sky my attention instead. It was safer than facing him just now. It was then I saw a blur darken the waning moon. I propped on my elbow, let my earring swing.

  Gentle vibrations set the wire in my ear tingling. Squinting at the blur, I realized it was not a blur at all. As I stared, the shape took on definition. Female form, wisps of torn gown and wings.

  A harbinger. Here. Flying low across the mountains. Over our camp. What were the odds?

  Forget there was more than one harbinger. This one’s outline was familiar. Too familiar.

  Paranoia made me certain the harbinger from Cathis had tracked us here.

  Cold sweat drenched my back, and I bolted upright. “Look.”

  He did, jerking into a sitting position. “Where is she going, do you think?”

  “Hunting.” I sounded bitter. “Where else?”

  Murdoch said what I had been thinking. “She came from the direction of Titania.”

  My heart clenched, and I nodded.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “Do you think it’s the same one we’re after?”