Ever the Hunted

by Erin Summerill

  But he’s wrong.

  Tomas’s comment is the truest thing in my life. If I died, nobody would miss me.

  Leif faces front again, and I feel bad for not speaking. Just like I’m guilt-ridden for not having mentioned Cohen’s visit. His arrow is all I’ve thought about today. It’s planted a grain of hope inside, whispering that there’s something to Cohen’s message. A guilty man would not act so.

  It’s nothing but a speck of doubt compared to Lord Jamis’s truth.

  Still, doubt has a way of making quicksand of stable ground.

  We enter the first tavern we find in Fennit and chat with the local drunkards.

  “Yep. I’ve seen him.” The man’s belly rests on the bar like a sack of potatoes. A belch bursts from the man’s mouth. I squelch the need to gag. “Told me he’d give me two silvers for information about a woman named Enat.”

  I advise the captain to visit the clergy first, since they have the best records. If that doesn’t pan out, then the merchants might know something. The captain sends Tomas and Leif to inquire with the local lord. Then he accompanies me to the church.

  “I don’t know where she is.” The clergyman folds his hands over his book of Scripture. “Told the same thing to your friend earlier.”

  “Do you happen to know which way my friend went?” The captain grimaces.

  “To Barton, the stonecutter. He did business with the old woman.”

  The captain snaps a brusque goodbye and leaves.

  My eyes dart to the door, and I hesitate. “Was Enat a member of your congregation?”

  “No.” The clergyman gives me a strange look. “She wouldn’t have been. She’s a Spiriter.” My face must show my confusion because his lip curls as he adds, “One of their Channelers.”

  “I’ve never heard of a Spiriter.” I talk quickly, mindful of the captain’s lack of patience.

  The clergyman’s eyes dart nervously to the door. “A Spiriter is rare. One or two are born to a generation. It’s dark magic,” his voice warns. “That’s all I know.”

  The clergyman, face pale and with rigid shoulders, stands and ushers me toward the door.

  “Can you at least tell me why Cohen is searching for Enat?” Before he pushes me out, a need for answers burns through me. “What does he want from a Spiriter?” I sound desperate now. I don’t care.

  “I don’t know. But there aren’t many reasons a man would go looking for a Spiriter.”

  Before I can ask him to explain, he swings the entry open and shoves me out. The sun is low in the sky, painting the stones of the church a weak shade of ocher. Another day on the way out, and we’ve not found Cohen. I twist around and breathe a sigh of relief when I find the captain interrogating a stranger on the road.

  The moment I reach his side, he turns to me and arches a stern sable brow. “Did you learn anything of value?”

  I contemplate keeping the information a secret, but something tells me the captain will see through my lie. “He thought Enat might be a Channeler.”

  The captain considers my answer, though he doesn’t respond. Perhaps he’s as confused as me about why Cohen would be after a woman from Shaerdan.

  We follow Cohen’s trail to the stonecutter, to the healer, and to an oiler, who tells us that Cohen is at a local inn. Lightning fast, we’re on the captain’s horse and galloping through Fennit.

  When the thatched-roof two-story building comes into view, an awareness of something tugs inside. The back of my neck tingles.

  Cohen’s here.

  The captain’s gaze whips around, and I realize I’ve spoken aloud again. I want to smack myself. Cohen may not even be inside, and the captain will think me a fool.

  Captain Omar growls out, “Mackay,” as he drops to the ground with fierce determination in his eyes.

  Cohen isn’t in sight, though. Disappointment floods me. I want to see him again. To have one more moment with my old friend before . . . and yet I shouldn’t want such things. I’m a traitor to myself. No matter what we were in the past, we are nothing now.

  I slip off the horse to follow when the captain spins back. I slump against the mare’s leg, putting on a show of feeling faint. He frowns, eyes flicking to the inn door. This may be a chance to escape. Never before has he left me with a horse and no guards around—​an ideal situation.

  “You stay here.” A threat laces Captain Omar’s words as he rushes inside.

  Eager for an arrest, the man has left me completely unguarded. As I turn to mount the horse, an arm wraps around my waist, pinning my arms to my sides. I yelp and struggle against the strong hold.

  “You didn’t think I’d let them catch me, did you?”

  The familiar husky voice floods my senses. Cohen. It takes a beat to realize I’m sinking into his warm embrace instead of combating it. To remember the reason I’m here.

  I shove an elbow into his gut. Heel to his foot.

  His grunt breathes warmth over my cheek. “Stop moving or I’ll knock you out,” he growls against my ear. “I swear it.”

  He loses his grip, freeing my elbow, which I throw back into his face. Hot blood spreads against my skin. I spin to find those hazel eyes that I haven’t seen in fifteen months flash, angry and wild. He shifts and manages to get one arm around mine, clamping my swinging limbs against my torso, while one hand smothers my mouth.

  He removes his hand, and I suck in a quick breath and cry, “CAP—”

  Cohen smacks a cloth over half my face, forcing me to inhale a sickly sweet scent that scorches my nostrils. Poison! I squirm, twist, buck. My lungs burn with the desperate need to take a breath.

  “Shh, shh,” he’s saying as spots dance across my vision.

  I gasp for air and the world tilts on its axis.

  “Sorry, Dove. I didn’t want . . .” A fog hides his words.

  Everything fades.

  Chapter

  9

  I HEAR THE CRACKLE AND HISS, THOUGH I CANNOT seem to push off the weighty darkness. It’s been years since I’ve woken like this, half-asleep and conscious at the same time. Somehow I rally enough energy to pry my lids open. A blaze dances in a stone hearth. I try to look around the otherwise dark room, except my vision is spoiled with white splotches of light as dull pain hammers behind my eyes. I blink, making out a straw mattress beneath me. A table by the fireplace. One chair. Curtains over a window.

  The last thing I remember was the captain . . . tracking in Fennit . . . the captain told me to stay . . . and then . . .

  Cohen attacked me.

  I push up against the bedding, needing to stand, and my scars smart from sleeping on my back again. The remaining scabs create the worst kind of itch that’s nearly impossible to reach on my own. Once I’ve managed to sit upright, the vertical position puts a bright burst of pain behind my eyes. An awful sound like a braying of a donkey slips from my mouth, and my fingers clutch my head. Boil me.

  “The sleeping concoction leaves a nasty headache.” Cohen stands just inside the doorway.

  The sight of him knocks the wind from me like the time I fell out of Papa’s walnut tree. It was ages before my lungs could fill with air—​that same aching breathlessness catches up with me now despite my horrid headache. The firelight glances off Cohen’s hair, making his messy brown strands appear sun kissed. His eyes are warm molasses sprinkled with gold dust. His pursed lips . . . The sight unhinges me. What am I doing?

  I open my mouth. Close it.

  Cohen crosses the room and drops into the chair an arm span away. I’m hit with the strangest compulsion to reach out to him.

  “You might want to take it slow.” He props his elbows on his knees. His tunic pulls across shoulders that are broader and more muscular than they used to be. It’s not the only noticeable change. His beard is fuller, his voice deeper. Not that it matters. He killed my father.

  “You put up quite a fight. Not that I expect less from you.” His hand strays toward my face. I sit motionless, staring at his fingers.

&
nbsp; “No,” I croak. “Don’t—​don’t touch me.”

  His fingers curl into his palm, and his frown looks like disappointment as he sets his hand on his lap. I should be relieved. I am.

  My life for his. The deal with Lord Jamis echoes in my head, filling me with doubt and shame. Which makes little sense, considering all the evidence.

  “Let me check your head,” he says.

  I set my feet on the floor. “Don’t touch me. I—​I will kill you.” The words come out because I should be filled with vengeance.

  He leans back in his seat. “Yeah, Dove. But not today. You’re not in any condition to do much damage to anyone. Nor will you be for another few hours. Give or take. Till then, I’ll rest easy.” He winks.

  Anger fires through me. His arrogance and ease are too much. I reach for my boot where the blade is tucked against my leg and end up listing to the side.

  “You’re not even standing and you’re swaying. Lie down, Dove.”

  “Don’t . . . don’t tell me what to do. And don’t call me that!” My voice rises and the hammer in my skull pounds faster. I let my hair fall in my face to hide my grimace.

  “Always stubborn,” he mutters.

  Before I know what’s happening, he’s crouched in front of me, his hands on my arms. His touch makes me spasm. He’s too strong and manages to push me on the mattress so I’m lying down on my side.

  “Please rest,” he says, softly. “At least for a few hours more. Then we’ll talk.”

  To my exasperation, he’s out the door before I can form a protest, and my eyelids are drooping against my will.

  I’m tired of following Papa through the market, tucking myself behind his wide back as he works his trades. It’s tough to stay hidden all the time, but Papa says it’s better for me to stay in his shadow so the traders don’t say something that will force Papa to draw his sword against one of them. It’s a relief to leave the tents of vendors when he steps into the bakery. I hope the baker is in and not his wife. She’s horrid and likes to call me names. Her husband, on the other hand, usually doesn’t notice me.

  Unfortunately, Siobhan, the baker’s daughter, stands at the counter beside a tray of steaming buns. My mouth waters. She recognizes Papa and sends him to the back of the store. He flicks his hand out once. His way of telling me to stay.

  “Did ya steal those off a corpse?” sneers Siobhan when we’re alone.

  I resist the urge to tug my skirt down. At one time the material dragged on the ground, now it’s a hand span too short to hide the boots that are too large for my feet.

  “Only a dead man would be caught in those shoes.” She laughs.

  Last week I made the mistake of trying to talk to Siobhan. She was huddled in the alley behind the shop, tears coursing over her round cheeks. The kids had been teasing her, calling her stupid and piggish. I approached, only speaking two words before she wiped her face, shot me a hateful glare, and stormed off.

  Her laugh is a cackle as I scramble for something to say. The right words never come.

  “Don’t talk to me again,” she says. “I don’t want people thinking I’m friends with a Shaerdanian. Or worse, a traitor—​whore’s daughter.”

  I flinch, though I’ve heard it many times before. People said my parents’ marriage wasn’t real because they married in Shaerdan. Doesn’t matter that it was before the border closure. “Don’t call my mother that.”

  “Your momma hated you so much, she’d rather follow the Archtraitor than stick around to raise you.”

  “Stop!” I lunge at her, knocking her perfect baked goods to the floor.

  Morning finds me balled up on the mattress with a blanket tucked around my body. I shake off the dreamt memory and push the hair from my eyes. The door swings open and Cohen walks in carrying a bowl of steaming—​is that porridge?

  I scramble to my feet, grateful my back pain is nearly gone.

  His eyes flick from my hands to my face. “You’re feeling better.”

  He sets the bowl on the table. The porridge is covered in honey and cinnamon, and—​stars help me—​smells divine. Stop looking at the food. Stop staring at Cohen.

  “Why’d you find me in the woods? Why bring me here? What are you playing at?” The words tumble out. I don’t even care how frazzled I sound. I want answers. “W-what do you want from me?”

  His mouth pulls into a tight line. Against his otherwise schooled features, it’s the only sign that he’s either displeased or he doesn’t have an answer. I’ve never been able to read him when he isn’t smiling.

  “Eat,” Cohen says. “We’ll talk later.”

  “No.”

  After a moment of hesitation, he crosses his arms. I wait for him to explain. Instead he has questions of his own. “Did Jamis send you after me? Or Omar?”

  “Lord Jamis.”

  He scoffs. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have let you find me so easily.”

  A scowl pinches my features, covering my chagrin. Truth be told, it makes sense that the wild-goose chase was his plan. Typical arrogance. Cohen was always a little too reckless. A little too self-assured.

  A small wiggle of my ankle tells me the dagger is still in my boot. Clearly, Cohen’s overconfidence hasn’t changed at all. The fool shouldn’t have left me armed.

  In a snap, my blade’s in my hand and pointed at his sternum. “Why did you kill my father?”

  Chapter

  10

  C OHEN DOESN’T SO MUCH AS BLINK.

  He’s always had a gambler’s face. I could be a mule birthing an immaculately conceived fawn, and he wouldn’t bat an eye. Which is why when his foot snakes out and hooks my ankle, it tips me off balance.

  Bludger.

  I scramble around the bed as he brandishes a knife. On instinct, or years of training together, we both drop into similar fighting stances, circling each other. He kicks the chair out of the way. It clunks against the wood floor. Using the distraction, I rush forward, slicing at his torso. Cohen grunts and jumps back. The best defense against someone Cohen’s size and with his strength is distance. I move away, wobbling while fighting to keep an arm’s reach between us.

  Whatever he drugged me with hasn’t completely faded. My head still aches as though it’s been trampled by a herd of horses. A groan slips out as I attack. Cohen parries each of my blows with ease. My strength is dwindling faster than I could empty a waterskin. I manage to punch his perfectly straight nose, but at this distance it doesn’t do more than draw a little blood. In a flash, he has my arms pinned and my body twisted so my back is held flush to his body.

  “Are you done, Britt?” he says, low and clipped.

  He’s too close, filling my nose with his familiar woodsy scent. I heave to catch a breath. When he steps back to pull me from the corner, I use the amount of wiggle room he’s given me to slam a heel back, aiming for his knee. It catches him off-guard and he tumbles to the ground, taking me with him. With every seed of energy left in me, I wrench out of his grip and twist, falling against his torso with my dagger to his throat.

  “I should kill you right now,” I hiss through labored breaths. Blade to his skin.

  His nostrils flare. Then he relaxes and lies motionless, waiting for me to make a move, face impassive, calling my bluff. He knows I’d never hurt him when he’s lying there, allowing it. My fingers flex and loosen around the handle. Tighten and release.

  I’m a fool.

  I scramble away, sliding back on the floor until my shoulders touch the bed, even though this position makes me vulnerable. I suck in deep gulps of air that smell nothing like Cohen.

  “Why’d you kill him?” The pain I’ve locked away for the last two months quakes through me, clamoring to get free. It burns my eyes and clogs my throat. “Why Papa?”

  I’ve never been good at reading Cohen’s expression, but his daggered glare isn’t complicated.

  “I didn’t kill Saul.” His voice sounds close to a snarl.

  So worked up, it takes a minute for me
to feel his words. Warmth blossoms in my sternum, pools in my gut, and spreads outward to the tips of my limbs. Truth.

  Truth?

  I lower my weapon. “You—you didn’t do it?” My mouth gapes open.

  Cohen’s fingers graze his scar before wrapping around the back of his head to knead his neck. “I had nothing to do with his death.” The warmth in my belly turns into an inferno. Truth. “He was like a father to me. I would’ve given my life for him.”

  The dagger in my hand could be a yoke for how it weighs me down. Relief. Sadness. Guilt. Shame. I fix my sight on the floor where a nail sits too high. Cohen knew me better than anyone, and I knew him just as well. I should’ve seen past Lord Jamis’s claim.

  Cohen’s head dips and his eyes grab mine. “You believe me.” Not a question.

  I nod.

  He slips his blade into the sheath at his waist and stares deep into the fire. “I didn’t think you, of all people, would believe I killed Saul.”

  I flinch, though he hasn’t said anything I don’t deserve. I’m ashamed that Lord Jamis’s words were enough to turn my faith in my friend. Lord Jamis must’ve believed absolutely that Cohen was the murderer.

  “Why didn’t you say something?” It’s hard not to be angry with myself and mad at him for not clearing this up sooner. “You never came back to Brentyn. You missed the wake. You shot at me in the woods. Why?”

  “I figured you would know I was innocent,” he says. “Come on, Britt. You know me.”

  “But why did you put yourself in danger reaching out to me?”

  He groans. “I thought they had something over you. My arrow was a message. So you would know you’re not alone.”

  Not alone. His words slay me.

  He moves to where the overturned table lies and stands it upright. I gather myself off the floor and plunk down on the mattress. I should tell him I’m sorry, but the words don’t feel adequate.

  “Lord Jamis had evidence.” My explanation sounds weak. “Your coat. Your dagger.”

  His neck shows cords of tension. I suspect this information has taken him by surprise.