Seeing is Believing

by Sasha L. Miller

  Ty didn't let himself think about it for too long, distracting himself with the scenery around them. They were following a thin dirt path through the woods, not a main throughway at all. There were signs of wagon wheels long past, their grooves dug into the path's edges.

  He couldn't remember the last time he'd been outside. There was something depressing about that, but Ty ignored it, focusing on the sunlight warm on his back and the soft breeze that ruffled his dirty hair. What he would give for a bath and a proper shave. Not that he had anything.

  Reid's horse moseyed its way forward, walking next to Ty's. There was barely room for both beasts on the path side by side, but Reid didn't seem to notice or care. Ty looked askance at him, annoyed all over again when Reid gave him that damn infuriating, haughty stare that should have been ridiculous, especially with the scar distorting his features.

  Only, defying reason, it wasn't. Ty scowled in return and nearly nudged his horse to go faster. That would mean running into Caj though, and Ty wasn't that desperate to get away from Reid. The man had rescued him. Ty probably should thank all of them, even if he was still feeling like there was some catch he didn't know about yet.

  "Does it run in the family?" Reid asked, blatantly eyeing his hair again. Ty rolled his eyes, utterly conscious again that he was filthy.

  "Surely you've seen another redhead in your lifetime," Ty said slowly, trying to keep his annoyance out of his voice. He rather thought he'd failed though, with the way Reid seemed smug and amused.

  "Not one so…" Reid trailed off, studying Ty thoughtfully. "Dirty."

  Ty glowered, wondering if Ari and Caj would return him to the prison if he knocked Reid off his horse.

  "I apologize for my current hygiene, but I would like to see you spend months in prison and come out clean." Ty snapped each word, clear and succinct. He set his jaw, turning his gaze to focus on the back of Caj's shirt. If he looked at Reid, he might actually push him off his horse, and he didn't think that would do anyone much good, except perhaps Reid—and then only if he hit his head on the way down.

  Reid laughed, loudly enough that Caj glanced back at them curiously. Ty ignored him too, not willing to explain why Reid was so amused.

  "You're upper class," Reid declared when he got himself under control. "Oh, you must have loved prison."

  Ty grit his teeth and ignored him, hoping that Reid would get the hint and fall back again.

  "It explains why you can ride," Reid continued thoughtfully, giving no heed to Ty's obvious displeasure at his continued company. "Though normally they're nicer to the upper class who don't take their suppressants, or they take them for King's Mages."

  He paused, obviously waiting for Ty to explain. Ty didn't bother—he hadn't done anything magical to be imprisoned, but he wasn't going to tell Reid that. The bastard would probably demand to know what he'd done, and Ty wasn't telling anyone that.

  "Hey," Reid said, reaching out and tugging on the sleeve of Ty's prison-issue shirt. Ty startled, nearly unseating himself to Reid's laughter. "You shouldn't ignore me."

  "Why not?" Ty asked angrily, carefully shifting his seat so he wasn't in danger of falling anymore. "You aren't exactly being a pleasant conversationalist."

  Reid snickered and Ty scowled, looking away. He looked back, hearing the shift of clothing, in time to smack Reid's hand away from tugging on his sleeve again.

  "If you are such a simpleton that you cannot entertain yourself, I advise you go talk to Caj," Ty snapped, earning a slow, smug smile.

  "I am entertaining myself," Reid informed him, turning up his nose haughtily, and Ty tightened his grip on his horse's reins to keep him from reaching out and shoving Reid off his horse.

  "Quiet," Caj called over his shoulder, and Reid's smile melted away, replaced with a more solemn expression than Ty would have credited him with. Caj stopped his horse and Reid and Ty followed suit.

  It took him a minute to hear the sound of hooves, fast approaching. Caj twisted around to look at Reid, signaling in a way Ty didn't understand. Reid nodded, frowning in concentration. He stretched out his hand and a shower of sparks, less intense in the daylight, rained down from his fingers.

  Nothing happened, and Ty shifted uneasily. Reid straightened, nodding again to Caj, who turned to Ty and held a single finger up to his lips. Reid raised an eyebrow mockingly, likely remembering Ty's unwillingness to stay quiet when Reid broke him out.

  Ty glared, but didn't say anything, sitting as still as he could. The approaching horses grew louder as they neared, and Reid cursed under his breath, showering more sparks as he did something else. Ty's stomach flipped—wouldn't it be just his luck to be freed for a day, annoyed to death by an infuriating mage, and then dragged back to his cell to spend the rest of his life in a windowless cage where he almost welcomed being roughed up by the guards, simply because it meant that someone still remembered he existed.

  Reid flashed a few sharp signals to Caj, whose lips pressed together tightly. Caj carefully loosed the sword he carried, his eyes focused on the path behind Ty and Reid.

  Another minute and the horses were in view. The riders wore the dark blue of the city guard, except for one prominent exception, a woman in a deep scarlet—a King's Mage.

  The horses thundered to a stop a few feet away, the lead guardsmen studying them intently. Ty waited for them to charge, or demand they surrender, but neither happened.

  "I don't see how they could've gotten through this way, ma'am," the guardsman pronounced. Ty stared, but then, Reid had cast some sort of magic. Glancing at the mage, Ty frowned in concern. Reid was pale and sweating, mouthing curses and gripping the mane of his horse tightly.

  "There's another path near here," one of the guardsmen in the back spoke up tentatively. "They might be on that one instead."

  The King's Mage guided her horse closer, and Ty wondered what she saw when she looked straight at him. She stared at them for a long minute, and Ty held his breath, waiting.

  "Let's go then," she ordered, and their horses were moving quickly again, back down the path the way they'd come. Reid waited until the noise of their passage was almost completely gone before gasping loudly.

  "Go," Reid said wanly, gesturing forward.

  "Are you okay to ride?" Caj asked with concern. Reid was pale, his scar more livid than usual, and he was leaning heavily against his horse.

  "I'm fine. I won't be of any use if they come back." Reid stressed the last, nudging his horse into motion. Ty watched him with concern for a moment—Reid might be a jerk, but he was one of Ty's rescuers, and he wouldn't be sagging so much if it weren't in protection of Ty.

  "We need to catch up to Ari," Caj said after a moment. "Can you two ride any faster?"

  "I can ride as fast as the horses can go," Reid declared, sitting up straighter. He still looked pale, like he might pass out at any moment. "Ty?" He asked slyly, challengingly, and Ty couldn't help but roll his eyes at the blatant attempt to rile him.

  "I can ride as fast as you need me to," Ty said, directing the comment to Caj. He could ride faster—whether he'd be able to walk at the end of it was another matter. At least if Reid had the energy to be a jackass, he likely had the energy to ride faster.

  *~*~*

  Ty all but fell off his horse, not particularly caring that Reid was watching his less-than-graceful dismount. He ached, and though yesterday it had been almost pleasant to feel the strain, today he was over the novelty.

  "There's a stream through those trees," Reid told him, ducking around him to collect his horse's reins. "You should bathe, if you can walk that far."

  Ty would have snapped something in return, but he was too tired to make his brain think quickly. They'd ridden straight through the evening and well into the dark before Ari had decided they could stop.

  Disgustingly, Reid had perked up the further they rode and had spent too much of the ride trying to get a rise out of Ty.

  "I don't think I can walk that far," Ty said after a minute, taking a wobb
ly step. With his luck, his legs would give out as soon as he reached the stream and he'd drown. Sighing softly, because it would almost be worth it to feel even a little cleaner, Ty crossed the clearing slowly, sitting down a few feet away from where Ari and Caj were murmuring softly to each other.

  "That's just going to make it worse," Reid declared from behind him. Ty groaned softly. Why couldn't Reid leave him alone for five minutes?

  "Make what worse?" Ty asked, not making any move to get up. Reid squatted down next to him, his face half-hidden in the dark.

  "You won't be able to walk much tomorrow if you don't loosen your muscles up a bit now," Reid advised, reaching out and poking Ty's shoulder. Ty didn't flinch away for once, and before he could think the better of it, he reached out and poked Reid's shoulder in return.

  Reid promptly overbalanced and fell backwards, to Ty's surprise—Reid's surprise too, evidently. He sat up looking a little less amused, which couldn't be anything but good in Ty's opinion. Ty stared stonily at Reid, not willing to give first. Reid stared back, his lips twitching, and his amusement made a quick recovery.

  "I can help you bathe," Reid offered after a moment. "Wash your back, make sure you still remember what soap is—"

  "Fine, I'll bathe," Ty snapped, wondering if he truly was that offensive. Probably. "But you're not coming with me."

  "Modest?" Reid asked, smirking as he dumped a small towel and a bar of soap in Ty's lap.

  "Sure," Ty muttered, carefully climbing to his feet and ignoring how much it ached to do so. "Which way?"

  Reid pointed wordlessly and Ty trudged in that direction, focusing on the ground and not tripping instead of the eyes he could feel on his back as he made his way through the forest.

  *~*~*

  The stream was freezing. It was late spring, by the temperatures outside, but the spring was still icy cold. Probably runoff from the snow on the mountains melting. Ty was shivering before he'd finished scrubbing his fingernails, but he resolutely pushed on. If he caught a cold he could blame it on Reid.

  He was just scrubbing his hair clean when he heard Reid's voice from the trees.

  "Well, aren't you scrawny," Reid drawled, wandering down the soft dirt streambed. "Didn't they feed you in prison?"

  "Three course meals every day," Ty snapped, turning his back on Reid and focusing on scrubbing the dirt from his hair. What he wouldn't give for a hot bath, with proper soap and the time to soak away a year's worth of dirt and grim.

  "Clean clothes," Reid said after a minute. "I know you'll miss the smelly rags you were wearing—"

  "Go away," Ty ordered, sick to death of hearing Reid's disparaging comments. He hadn't asked for Reid to rescue him. Reid didn't have to be so damn rude.

  Reid laughed, and Ty saw him sit down out of the corner of his eye. "Ari wants to make sure you don't drown," Reid told him cheerfully, sounding far too pleased with himself. "And we can't have you wandering around lost in the woods."

  Ty snorted and tried to work his fingers through the tangles snarling his hair. Giving it up after a minute—perhaps he should just cut it, though a proper bath and an oil treatment might set it to rights—Ty scrambled out of the freezing water and up onto the bank.

  Ignoring Reid's blatant staring, Ty quickly toweled off, nearly falling over a few times when he tried to move in a way his muscles didn't want to go. Reid didn't move from his lazy sprawl, forcing Ty to cross over to where he was sitting to get the fresh clothing.

  Ty did his best to ignore the mage, tugging on the new clothing awkwardly. It was slightly too big, but not as big as Ty had expected. It also smelled strongly of horse, but that wasn't surprising. Everything smelled of horse. Even the soap.

  "Where are we going?" Ty asked as he tugged on the shirt.

  "Melari," Reid answered after a moment. Ty nodded, collecting his discarded prison-issue clothes.

  Melari made sense. It was out of the country, past the closest border, and much more tolerant of mages. There were rumors they actually taught magic to anyone who wanted to learn.

  "Is that where the Vasijile are based?" Ty asked curiously, waiting as Reid climbed to his feet a bit stiffly.

  "Perhaps," Reid replied vaguely, which Ty couldn't really fault him for. The Vasijile were highly sought after by the King's Mages (and therefore, the king). Ty could probably buy his way into the ranks of the King's Mages by delivering Reid, Ari, and Caj.

  Except he hadn't been jailed for a magical infarction, so perhaps he could simply return to his jail cell instead of being summarily executed.

  "It's a three week trip?" Ty asked, trying to remember if he'd ever made a straight trip to the border. He couldn't keep from shivering violently as a gentle breeze ruffled his hair—the stream's water had been freezing and he wasn't much warmer out of it.

  "Three weeks, unless you slow us down more," Reid replied, flashing him that damn smirk over his shoulder as he led the way into the trees.

  "Will you stop?" Ty snapped, itching to kick the bastard. Another shiver made him shake violently, and he obstinately stopped walking.

  "Stop what?" Reid asked, and Ty wasn't fooled for a second. Reid was being an ass, and he was well aware he was being an ass, and Ty wasn't going to put up with it.

  Reid took a moment to realize Ty wasn't following him anymore, stopping a few feet away. He turned back to Ty, the shadow of the tree he stood next to rendering his expression unreadable.

  "There is no call for you to be so rude," Ty bit the words out, despite his best intentions to keep his voice even and calm. He shivered again, clutching the little bundle of dirty clothing closer.

  Reid laughed mockingly, and Ty glowered, wishing he could kick Reid and not worry about being left to fend for himself.

  "Two days? You must really have been coddled in prison. All the other men I've rescued managed at least five days before they tried to take me to task," Reid said derisively, scoffing softly and turning back towards camp.

  Ty hissed out a breath through clenched teeth, wondering why it was so hard to ignore Reid's stupid, condescending, baseless remarks. Reid was walking away, and Ty glared after him for a moment before following. He didn't want to get lost, no matter how much he wouldn't mind the separation.

  Shivering again, Ty sighed and wondered morosely if it wouldn't have been better to be left in the damn jail cell. Certainly it seemed like Reid would prefer it.

  The camp was slightly more hospitable than it had been when he'd left. Caj was already asleep, his bedroll lined up with three others near the horses. Ari was speaking softly into the glowing plate, glancing up only briefly when they entered the clearing.

  Ty was a little curious about the obvious magic, but he ignored it and Reid, who tried to catch his eyes, the ever-present smirk still turning his lips. He crossed the clearing slowly, stuffing his dirty clothes into one of the saddlebags without much care for which one it was.

  He could practically feel Reid's eyes on him as he moved stiffly away from the horses, picking a bedroll at random and collapsing into it. Clenching his teeth against the shivers that kept trying to break free, Ty curled up and tried not to think about how much better off everyone would be if they'd just decided to kill him instead of letting him rot in a jail cell for the rest of his life.

  *~*~*

  Ty woke up completely warm. Strangely warm, because warm didn't make sense with the lumpy bedding beneath him. Ty wasn't going to ruin it by thinking about it too much, though, far preferring to enjoy the warmth while it lasted.

  Shifting a little to get the lump under his hip somewhere less painful, Ty abruptly froze—because while he might have curled up alone last night, he most definitely wasn't alone now. That explained the unexpected warmth, and Ty fervently hoped it was Ari or Caj's arm draped over his side, and not Reid's.

  He'd take a damn prison guard over Reid.

  Opening his eyes, Ty winced at the sunlight, squinting towards the horses. It wasn't Ari, by the blonde tufts of hair sticking out of the bedroll
laid out between him and the horses. Caj and Reid were nowhere in sight, though there was another abandoned bedroll between him and Ari.

  The arm draped over his side shifted suddenly, the accompanying fingers brushing teasingly against Ty's stomach.

  Ty squawked disgracefully, scrambling away in reaction and nearly toppling face-first into the dirt next to his lumpy bedroll. Twisting around indignantly, Ty opened his mouth—only to snap it shut because of course it was Reid.

  Reid grumbled something crankily, his eyes still shut. Ty stared, trying to make sense of it—Reid didn't like him. Reid very obviously didn't like him. Yet, Reid had slept curled up next to him.

  And Reid was, once again, laughing at him.

  Ty reacted without thinking, embarrassed and feeling a little like his honor had been sullied. The smack sounded too loud to his ears, but Reid stopped laughing. He looked rather startled, both eyebrows raised in surprise as he blinked at Ty rapidly.

  Ty blushed furiously, hating it and hating Reid for making him blush. His face always went an uneven, splotchy red when he blushed, and it contrasted horribly with his hair.

  "You're both awake, good," Caj said briskly, making his way quickly around the horses. He rolled his eyes when Reid started snickering again, and Ty scowled, picking himself up off the ground.

  "Get something to eat, quickly," Caj ordered, making a quick hand signal to Reid. Ty sighed, leaving Reid to manage the bedrolls. If the bastard wanted to share Ty's that badly, he could take care of it.

  Caj bent to wake Ari, and Ty wondered what was going on now—surely they were far enough from the city to have left pursuit behind. They'd been riding hard for two days.

  Finding Reid's horse, Ty dug out the sausage rolls. They were wrapped individually and quick to eat, and he didn't think they'd last too much longer if they weren't eaten soon.

  "We'll have to split up if they keep this close," Ari was saying as Ty returned to where he, Caj, and Reid were standing, looking solemn. Even Reid, though Ty pointedly scowled at him when he handed him one of the rolls.