“I do try,” a gravelly voice responded, and I looked up. The musician exited his tent, settling knowing eyes on me. Startling green against old, weathered skin. He wore simple, loose clothing: billowing brown fabrics bound tight at his ankles and wrists. I rose to meet him.
“I’ll have no one left to play for,” he said. It must have been my eyes. Or the wound on my head. Or perhaps he’d always known, always suspected I would leave if the pressure grew too strong.
I dipped my head, my throat tightening. “I want to thank you for your song.”
There was a part of me willing to stay for him. I might have...had he asked. Perhaps he’d never intervened for me, but there’d been kindness still. Warm drinks by the fire when I was young. Smiles of encouragement the first nights I dared to dance. It was after those nights that his music changed, transforming with my movements as if my body wove the tune.
His eyes held on my temple, a scowl pulling sagging skin lower. “Until he leaves his father’s shadow,” he muttered, “that boy will only grow worse.”
He slipped inside again, returning moments later with a poultice. “We are all cowards. And I am sorry for it.”
“Will you be all right?” I asked, accepting the offering. Wincing when I touched it to my temple.
“I’ll not be long in this life, young Eris. I doubt we’ll ever meet again.”
“Perhaps in another life,” I whispered, saddened. “What will the world be without your music?"
“You’ll find another song,” he answered. “And kindness, I think. Somewhere else.”
Gnawing fear ate at my heart. Where could a Sithian find such a thing?
Birds sang in our silence. Behind me, voices rose and fell. I focused on their sounds, zeroing in on inflections and tones. I knew them all. Much better than they knew me.
With Nehemiah still sick within his tent, and fearful rumors circulating that I’d poison the entire camp with magic, I took advantage of their caution and walked boldly toward the horses. The musician followed in my steps.
The gray mare knew me; she always had. We’d shared secret moments more times than I could count, stolen seconds when all eyes were turned. As a young girl, I snuck to her beneath the glittering stars just to press my face against her neck, remembering the night she saved me. Thinking on Ada and my mother and the violence of the raid. It was another lifetime, somehow dimmer as the years had passed. The memories rose only as vague movements and mist, but the pain attached still cut like a knife.
“She knows how you feel,” the old man murmured.
My jaw ached. Did she? Could she really know the longing in me?
As the sun rose high, I returned to my tent and dressed for hunting, slipping a knife into the thick layers of my boot. Another I secured at my waist, and my fingers worked my hair into a braid. Years had passed since my last trip east to the market by the sea and the boy with red hair. And childhood had abandoned me. I had no more reasons to stay.
I turned a circle, scanning for items that would prove useful on a journey. But I had none, except a blanket still bunched on the floor and a simple gray cloak that stopped below my hips. The supply tent came to mind, and I thought I might be able to secure a deer-skinned pouch for water. But my presence loomed over the camp as a shade. To steal from the supply tent meant sneaking past Nehemiah’s tent, where all worried eyes were surely fixed.
“Eris.”
I spun around, shifting my thoughts back to the knife in my boot. To the swift movement required to grasp it. Danior stood in my doorway. He scanned my wounded face and winced.
“Will you forgive me?”
“No.” The word breezed easily from my lips. I held his gaze, daring him to come closer. He’d always been quick to regret. It was the impulses toward cruelty that defiled him. Still, when his eyes caught mine again, a pang of sadness hit my chest. We were friends once. It wasn’t imagined. I pursed my mouth, masking the conflict in me.
He inched closer, passing the boundary into my tent. “I didn’t want to do it.”
I stepped back, and my retreat stopped his approach. His hands hovered before him as if I were an animal, a beast being soothed into a trap.
“Is your father still ill?” I asked, unwilling to entertain his pleas. I turned away, securing the coarse, gray cloak across my shoulders, fastening the large button below my neck.
“He rests now.”
I raised my chin. “How many dead?”
“None.”
“None,” I echoed, a whisper. None dead, and I was left to the wolves, unconscious in the woods for hours in the black of night.
“I’ve been pacing since I woke,” Danior said, begging, “but I didn’t know what to say. How to convince you.”
I spun to face him. “Convince me of what? That you’re weak? Too cowardly to refuse your father’s orders? Or perhaps it was revenge...because I rejected you.”
His face hardened, and I thought again of the knife. He would not touch me again without a consequence.
“I am not weak. My father has rules, and they must be obeyed if we’re to keep order.”
I gaped at his blind loyalty. “Has it never occurred to you that his rules might be wrong?”
He looked, for a moment, like it hadn’t occurred to him. But his answer was simply, “I will not be swayed, Eris. He’s my father.”
Disappointed, I moved to the corner where my bow rested, nestled beside a quiver of arrows. “Then you’re not sorry, and I cannot forgive you.”
His step was so sudden, so long reaching and abrupt, that I braced myself for a blow.
“I’ve offered you regret,” he said in a rush of frustration. “I’ve come to you against my father’s wishes to make amends. Why are you so cold to me? Am I not worthy of forgiveness?”
“And am I not worthy of protection?” Heat swept over my face. “When I did nothing wrong, you dragged me into the woods and struck me at your father’s command.” Tears slipped from my eyes, and I hated them. I grabbed the bow and quiver, slinging them across my shoulder, and made for the exit. Danior took my arm, and I swung around, striking below his right eye. He stumbled back a step, thrown off guard, but he didn’t let me go.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he growled. “Now my father will see it and punish you.”
“You could lie,” I said, lifting my mouth in a dry smile. “But we both know you won’t.”
He leaned close enough that his breaths puffed on my face. In one last attempt, he asked, “Why will you not forgive me?”
I held his gaze, trying to see the boy I once knew. The camp was filled with strangers now. The years had transformed compassion for a lost little girl into contempt. Indifference for my wellbeing. Without warning, all the rage I felt dissolved, making room for something softer. It wasn’t love. I did not love him. But I saw in those seconds something desperate in his eyes.
Such a plea deserved an honest answer.
“You slept,” I said quietly. The tension on his face faded, dropping to surprise, and the soft sensation found its name.
Pity. He was what his father made him to be.
“I was alone, unconscious in the woods by your own doing. And still you slept.”
He let go. Stepped back. Seconds passed in silence, his eyes bouncing from one spot to another. Searching...but he’d find no other answer. His gaze moved over my arms, to the bracers his mother once wore.
“Goodbye,” I said. And I left.
CHAPTER SIX
ERIS
Nehemiah stormed across the grounds. I halted outside my tent, only feet from the shelter of the trees.
His skin was pale and flushed. Deep circles cratered beneath his eyes, but there was also anger. Unspent rage.
“Sithian!” he roared. Everyone paused in their movements, turning to see. Gawking.
My mind screamed to flee. Leave this cruelty, whatever comes. But my body froze...a learned response.
“I swore to my mother I’d give you shelter,” he
raged, stopping only feet away. The size of him loomed over me. “Swore on my life you wouldn’t be cast out.”
I held my head high despite a strong desire to cower. “And I have been grateful always.”
“Have you now?” he said. “I spent the night retching into a bucket. The same night I returned with news of Sithia. Your people.”
Sunlight seared through my eyes, stabbing, and I fought to hold my stare. My voice came out flat, finished. “I did not know the creature was foul.” How many times must I defend myself? Will a day come that they see me as I am?
Nehemiah moved closer, and in a whisper told me, “I don’t believe you.”
A scream barreled up my throat, but I stopped it with a swallow and clenched teeth. “I cannot change what you believe.”
He snarled. “You grow more insolent as the days pass.” His eyes flicked to my tent, then widened. I glanced back and found Danior there, a red bruise forming beneath his eye. My gaze slid back to Nehemiah, and I watched as promises to his mother vanished before my eyes. Restraint dissolved. His hand shot forward, slapping me hard across the cheek before I could react. The impact knocked me to the ground.
“You would dare to seduce my son!”
I dug my fingers into the dirt to keep from cradling my face. To keep from showing pain.
“Father!”
Danior’s boots appeared. I kept my head low, because the world was spinning.
“It’s not as you believe,” he insisted. “She did nothing wrong.”
“She cannot be trusted!” Nehemiah shouted. “You’ve not seen what they’re capable of. Whatever she’s told you, boy, was a lie. Don’t trust her words over mine.”
“But I believe her to be innocent,” Danior insisted. “We were wrong to punish her. She is not responsible for your suffering.”
Gratitude, however minute, burrowed in my chest.
“Is that so?” Nehemiah’s voice turned dangerously quiet. A tone I knew well. “Perhaps you’re bewitched by her sultry dance. You’ve been beguiled. Deception is the weapon of a true Sithian wench.”
Danior’s tone darkened, and I felt a prick of fear for what his courage would later bring. “Sultry? Have we watched the same woman dance?” A hand gripped beneath my arm, helping me to my feet. My vision swam, and I focused on the ground, trying to steady it. “Look at her! She’s lived among us since we were children. You know her ways! She’s beguiled no one.”
“Who’s to say,” came Nehemiah’s calculated words, “that she wasn’t sent here. Children never know what enchantments they carry. They might have cursed her. Driven her away to spread evil in our land.”
“You don’t believe that,” Danior whispered, but his grip on me hesitated. I shoved away.
“I’ll leave then,” I said, adjusting the bow and quiver over my shoulder. My gaze flicked to the gathering crowd.
Nehemiah scoffed. “And let you infect the kingdom? I should kill you where you stand.”
I nocked an arrow and drew the string before another word left his lips. I aimed for his heart. Gasps rose from the people surrounding. Shrieks of shock and fear. Danior said my name, but the word blended with a rushing in my ears. Lost.
“Grant me safe passage from these woods,” I said, “or I shoot you now.”
“My men will catch you before you break from the trees.”
“Swear it!” Tears fell to my chin. I drew the arrow back another inch, proving my words. I would kill him. I had only been a child when I arrived. I couldn’t see him for what he was then. Just as I didn’t see my mother.
The nomad leader’s lip curled. “I never what to see your face again.”
His son leapt between us. “Father, you don’t mean that. This is the only home she’s ever known. I won’t let you drive her away the way you did Mother.”
“Your mother left of her own accord. Let her go, boy. Only distance will untangle you from her grasp.”
“I’ll go with her!”
I took a careful step back. “No. I don’t want you to come.”
Softly, he said to me, “But who will protect you?”
The tone tried to rectify his sins. But I still felt my pulse where he marked me.
“Shut up, Danior,” snapped his father. “Don’t make yourself a fool.”
Don’t be soft. Or kind.
In truth, it was foolish. I stood poised with an arrow to his father’s chest, and Danior pleaded to come as my protector. But he was pathetic then, a lost soul. His father’s pounding and molding hadn’t yet created the man he was supposed to be. A knot jammed in my throat, but he wasn’t mine to help.
Nan appeared at Danior’s side, taking hold of his arm and surveying the scene with wide, innocent eyes. “What’s going on, Dani?”
With a cruel smile, Nehemiah answered, “Eris is leaving, if she can run fast enough.”
Danior shook Nan off, his distressed eyes bouncing from face to face. Hands grabbing fistfuls of his hair. “I can’t let you do this. Eris belongs in our camp, Father. She’s one of us!”
The older man’s piercing gaze never left me. We stood locked in a silent battle, his will against mine. I should have known, by the glint in his eyes, what plans lay buried in that sick mind. I should have seen it then, but I saw only my desperate need to fly.
He murmured, “She was never one of us.”
I thought the pain would cripple me once the words were spoken aloud and the truth acknowledged in the open. But only relief swept in. At last, we were being honest.
I steadied my voice. “Let me leave, and you never have to see me again.”
My arms twitched, so tense that had he shifted even a fraction closer, my arrow would have driven through his chest.
The word barely reached me. “Go.”
I took several steps backward before sprinting into the trees, holding the weapon. Ready to fire if I must. My name carried on the air: Danior’s call...and his father’s reprimand.
My throat ached, but fear made me fast. I’d felt it before, when a wolf pursued me on a hunt. Its presence haunted me; its eyes always seeing. I glanced back, but there was no one.
The trees acted as my guides. I’d foraged those woods all my life. I knew every leaf and scent. I followed a path formed by years of hunting, where the grass and weeds died from repeated beatings, and only stubborn old roots survived, twisted and bulging.
Every clearing held a memory. Laughter and song. Child’s play...and tears. Nan once danced in the spring warmth with me. And Danior stole dry meat from his father’s tent to feed me the first time I was punished.
We grew up in those woods. Now they caged me.
I ran east until my lungs burned, then crouched near a thicket, replacing the arrow and slinging the bow across my chest. I’d run a familiar path for too long and knew that, in order to escape with my life, I’d have to leave it. I scanned the area.
A trail wound downhill toward a steady flowing river. A sure source of water. I could cross and continue on the other side, where the forest started again. But I played in those woods with Nan a hundred times. I thought of the boy by the sea, but I’d never taken that journey alone. I didn’t know the way.
I peered north, where the foliage thickened, and darkness shadowed the distance. Beasts roamed freely in those woods, long since pushed back from drifter territory. On occasion, they wandered near. A wolf or bear. But not frequent enough that I knew how to deal with them. I touched the knife at my side.
Sticks cracked in the silence behind me, and panic stabbed my chest. I lowered and turned, peeking through the bushes. Several hundred feet west, men inched through the trees, slow steps treading over dead leaves and twigs. Hands grasping swords and clubs. Faces I’d known for years, now hardened and scowling. Fueled against me by news of the battle and a night of violent sickness.
Ten feet from my position, tall grass rose like a welcome shelter, the beginning of the northern woods. But between us lay only open air and a trampled path. I dropped to my stoma
ch, sinking low as I left the safety of the thicket.
Sharp rocks pressed into my palms, scraping my forearms. They were nearing; I could hear their chatter. I broke through the grass and rose to my feet, making for the deeper woods. But my boot caught on something hidden, and I tripped, sprawling. Pain shot through my ankle.
A familiar voice shouted behind me. I maneuvered to face them, pressing my body harder into the dirt, trying to make myself invisible. But he’d hear my breaths if he came any closer.
“She can’t have gone far,” Danior told his men. “She’s wounded.”
Did he still feel the impression of my head on his fist? His words felt like a jab knowing he was the cause of my injury. Remembering his pleas only a short time ago, insisting my innocence to his father.
He rattled off orders, sending boots south and east. Through the tall, silky blades, I watched him stand alone, rubbing hands over his sweaty face. A sigh dropped his shoulders, and he turned to the place where I hid. Silence fell over the woods, as if the birds now kept my secret.
My heart pounded against the earth. Drilling desperation into the soil.
He wasn’t looking directly at me, but he knew where I was. I could read his expression from any distance. The eyes were what gave him away. That’s something I couldn’t say for his father. Nehemiah wore stone at all times. But Danior was yet to place a permanent mask. I held my breath, pressing my lips tight as insects crawled over my pulsing skin.
The seconds ticked off in tense beats. All the while, men called out to one another in the distance. Determined to capture and kill me. The longer we lingered in anxious silence, the less sure I grew of his intentions. When his gaze intensified, I slowly reached for the knife at my side. I could easily imagine what had happened after I left. Danior would now be forced to prove his loyalty to his father again.
Slowly, with clenched fists, Danior turned his back to me and crossed his arms. I stared at his broad shoulders and straight spine. At the resolve hardening his body.
Something stung my neck, springing water to my eyes, but I held on Danior. A few men returned, and he talked with them, giving no indication that he knew where I was. They ran off again, and I was left with only one conclusion.
Songs in the Night: Book One Page 6
