“Then you’re wasting your time,” I said, smoothing the pain from my face long enough to hold his gaze.
“We’ll see.”
With a silent command, they took me. I thrashed against their hold, digging my heels into the mud, fighting to free my arms. To reach the knife hidden in my boot. My cries fell away empty.
They dragged me past white bark trees and the winding stream. Past traitorous birds singing from high perches, no longer worried or warning.
A single image pushed forward, to the front of my mind. Sparks drifting into a starry sky. And music, soft and light, rising from the old man and his flute.
CHAPTER TEN
ERIS
“Mags can tend her,” said the leader. “Let’s get moving.”
They'd set up camp far from the road. Smoke still rose from a fire pit, with a mingling scent of charred meat. Two horses stood tied to trees, bending to eat grass near their feet. Unaware of the crimes of their masters. Two more stood hitched to a cart. On it sat a large box covered in heavy, black fabric.
The leader walked to the cart and pulled aside the fabric, revealing a cage large enough for a beast. Inside, huddled in the back, was a woman. She drew away from the sudden light, cowering into the shade.
The man opened a door and told me to enter after stripping me of my bracers and boots. I stared into the cage, knowing full well what entering meant. Once the door closed, they’d won.
He grabbed my arm, forcing a cry from my mouth.
Snarling, he hissed, “In.”
I climbed into the cage, onto a floor of old, dirty hay. The bars closed in around me, slamming behind me, and metal shifted against metal...locking. My chest constricted.
From outside, the man grabbed my arm and yanked, pulling it between two bars, slamming my body against the metal. He poured water over the bite marks, then released me and shoved a pouch toward the woman. On a single bar he tied a strip of cloth.
“Fix her.”
I squeezed below the wounds, gritting my teeth. Fiery pain burned to the bone. But the punctures weren’t as deep as I’d imagined. Only a trained creature would show that kind of restraint.
The woman scooted toward me, dragging chains. Metal rings encompassed her ankles, securing her to the cart. She was young like me. Caked in sweat. And thin. A tattered dress hung loose over meatless bones, and her hair was dark like mine.
“Let me see,” she said softly. I drew the arm closer to my chest.
“What will they do with me?” I asked. She frowned.
“That depends on what you have to offer.”
I had nothing to offer. Nothing that I would willingly give.
“What do you offer?”
After a moment, she answered, “He makes me sing for the men.”
“And you do so willingly?”
“There are greater sins than comforting your enemy.”
I thought of the drifters. Of the years I spent healing their sickness. Binding their wounds.
“How long have they had you?”
She touched my arm, and I relented, stretching it far enough for her to examine. My own skin prickled at the feverish warmth of hers.
“Must be a month now,” she murmured. Soft fingers brushed near the bite marks. Stinging, but warm. Soothing. She drew a powder from the pouch and sprinkled a thick layer over each puncture. Pain stabbed like needles.
“An herb,” I said, nodding toward the powder she used. I grabbed my elbow to keep from brushing it away. “From the forest floor. I’ve used this.”
She nodded, pulling the strip of cloth from the bar and wrapping it around the wound. “Yes, I believe so. I only do what he tells me.”
I glanced toward the men. Apart from the leader, two more scurried around, gathering the last of their supplies. Another two entered the camp in a pair, one helping the other, who hunched in pain. It was the brute from the cave, bearing a blood-soaked wound high on his right shoulder. His angry eyes found mine for only a second before they disappeared from sight, then the cart swayed and dipped as they climbed on. I heard his groans. Words hissed in anger. He called for Gideon, and the dog appeared through the trees, running. It leapt, and again the cart shook.
The black cloth was thrown over the cage and pulled tight at the bottom with ropes. I reached my hand through the bars and pressed at it, but I gained nothing.
When the cart rolled forward, I fell back. Darkness surrounded us, only yielding to small strips of light at the bottom that appeared when the fabric billowed. Not enough to see, to study my new traveling companion.
Her words reached my ears like a soft moving brook. It’s no wonder she’s not escaped, I thought. She is too gentle.
“You’re strong. They won’t want to keep you long.”
“Have there been others?”
“Two others. One was sold within days.”
Silence followed, then she whispered, “They killed the other.”
“Why?”
“Too willful. She caused trouble in a village. And Carter, their leader, was angry at the attention she drew.” I heard her swallow. “They killed her in the woods that night. I didn’t see, but she never came back.” A pause. “I know she’s dead.”
The air shifted with her movement.
“What was her name?” I asked.
“They called her Fae.”
“What do you mean? Was that not her real name?”
No answer.
My hands trembled. I gripped the cool, metal bars to stop it.
“They called you Mags,” I said into the dark. “Is that your name?”
Silence again. I gave up on an answer, until she murmured, “It is not what my parents call me.”
“Called me,” she amended, quieter.
I pressed my forehead to the bars, letting it bump and jostle with the movement. Had I fought harder, I could have broken away. I replayed the last hour with a crushing in my chest.
“Will you tell me your real name?”
“My name,” she said with more force, “is Mags. And you would do well to accept whatever name you are assigned.”
I glared at the black cloth shielding my view. “I will not be renamed.”
“Then you will die a quicker death than Fae.”
The cart hit a rut, and my forehead knocked hard against the bars. I moved back. “So be it.”
Mags sighed. “If you take the name, you buy time. Perhaps your freedom, in the end. But don’t tell them what you’re really called. Offer them nothing they can use against you.”
It was my turn to be silent. We sat in the darkness for what felt like hours, the air warm with breath and body heat. Tossed at the mercy of the forest floor. I used the time to try and work out a plan. A means of escape.
The cart came to a sudden stop. Mags fell forward, grasping for balance.
Hooves stomped near our cage, and a low vibration rattled the metal chains.
“Off the road,” Carter ordered. “Push back into the trees.”
The vibrations transformed to a low rumble, then the thundering of a thousand horses barreling past. I loosened myself from Mags and rose to my knees.
I’d seen wild horses once, on a trip to a nearby village. A group of five, with a colt prancing at the back. They were black and brown and painted white, roaming free in a meadow thick with greenery and a rainbow of colors. In my mind’s eyes, I’d ridden with them, leaping to the back of a great gray mare.
But sense told me these horses were not wild. There were far too many. I tuned my ears to the clink of armor. Sharp metal sounds and the snap of thick fabric in the wind.
A few hooves strayed from the uniform pounding, venturing closer.
“What business do you have in these woods?” called a strong voice.
If I screamed over the horses, drew his attention to the cage...
Fear kept me silent, listening. What if these men were no better than my captors?
“I’m commissioned to deliver this beast to a trainer
near the border,” Carter responded. I heard his grin. The smooth arrogance as he lied. “Care for a look? She’s a rare beauty, this one.”
The horseman ignored the offer. “Continue west but return another way. This road is no longer open for travelers.”
“Might I inquire as to why?”
“King’s orders.”
A pang hit my chest. The king’s men. Nehemiah said they’d be near. Surely, even with my heritage, we were in better hands with knights than rogue traders.
I screamed, slamming my palms to the metal. Calling past the cloth in desperate pleas. When my throat dried out, I stopped to listen, heart thrashing against my ribs. In the corner, Mags sat quiet.
“Tell others,” the horseman said, unaffected by my cries. “The army approaches from the east. These woods must be cleared by tomorrow.”
I lifted higher on my knees and shouted again, shaking the bars until pain tore through my arm.
“It’s no use!” Mags cried. “You’ll only aggravate your injuries.”
“Long live the king!” Carter called. Beating carried the horsemen away.
I slumped to the hay, staring at the billowing fabric, dragging in air. Defeat leeched into my heart. As the cart set off again, I asked, “Why do they not help?”
“They could not hear you,” said Mags softly.
I turned, leaning a shoulder to the cool metal, still laboring for breath. “How can that be?”
“The cloth blocks all sound from within. Whatever hides beneath its shadow cannot be heard.”
I stilled.
My throat tried to close, and my chest with it. The air felt suddenly thick and unbreathable.
I had run from a people who could not see me as I was, only to be made invisible.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ETAN
Maledin tore a bite of meat from bone with his teeth. Through a mouthful, he asked, “Any word of your father?”
I shook my head, stabbing a stick into dying embers from where I sat on a flattened stump. Sparks burst from the ashes, disappearing into the evening light. The dense trees loomed around us as sentries. “The physician said an answer may be difficult to come by.”
His swallow was loud, like he took the beast whole. “Perhaps when you return. Simon knows his business. He’ll have found a cure, no doubt.”
“No doubt,” I muttered, gaze holding on the orange glow. A cool breeze wound through the trees, pushing away the warmth. He’d found no such cure for my mother and sister. Or the hundred more who died of illness that month in the citadel. Sorrow squeezed my chest. I’d returned home full of the moments I’d shared with Eris, only to have my joy crushed seeing my mother enflamed with fever not two days later. My sister, Isabel, would die first, just on the eve of adulthood.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Maledin, gripping my shoulder. “But you must have faith in Simon. What happened before was not his fault.”
Sorrow morphed to anger. At once, I recalled the diavok boy’s words, or that of a sorcerer speaking through him.
Long have you suffered because we willed it…
What struck me raised me to my feet. Maledin rose beside me, a leg of meat forgotten in his hand.
“What troubles you?”
My head shook as a theory formed. Still blurry, but not unfounded. Had the boy not alluded to it? Had the voice from his mouth not confessed it?
“Indeed,” I said, astonished that it had taken so long to dawn on me. “Not his fault at all.” I lifted hard eyes to my friend. I couldn’t speak my mind with confidence, because I had no real evidence. Still, I knew in my gut it was true. We’d been helpless against dark power long before the battle in the mountains.
“Speak, Etan,” pressed Maledin. “What is it?”
“Is it not strange,” I began, “that Talemet alone fell victim to a plague, yet nowhere else? It’s the center of trade, and the market brings hundreds of travelers every week. Such an illness should have swept the whole of Omaria before dying off.”
Maledin pondered this. His family had been spared, for their home lay two days north.
“You believe it was a calculated attack on the king’s city?”
“I’m beginning to. But to what purpose? What came of it except to bury grief in our hearts?”
Maledin gave me a sorry look. “Perhaps that alone was the purpose.”
I lowered again to the stump, wondering what the king knew that we did not.
“But enough of this,” Maledin urged. “You are battle-weary and concerned for your father. Let that be enough for tonight.”
I pressed a palm to my eye and rubbed hard, fighting back a growing ache in my head.
“More than enough. I only wish Simon had some notion of the cause. Even as I left, he gave me nothing.”
Maledin tore another bite of meat. “And to that,” he said through a mouthful, “I ask you, would the king employ an incompetent physician?”
I straightened, resigning to his logic. With a deep breath, I admitted, “He would not.”
He slapped my back hard. “See? All will be well.”
I watched amused as he took a long drink from his deerskin. Laughing, I said, “If only life followed your optimism. I’d be at home in bed, and you’d be in the tavern, picking a fight with whatever brute was the biggest.”
Maledin drew his sword, challenging an invisible foe. “Defending the barmaid’s honor.”
“Stealing her affection. Beating her betrothed to win her favor...”
Slowly his blade fell. “How could you think such a thing?”
“Twenty witnesses,” Sir Aldred called from his log without looking. He doubled Maledin in both stature and strength. “Two broken tables. Three chairs. And I carried you out on my shoulder. My wife complained about the blood.”
The sword returned to its sheath in a snap. “Fair enough.”
Maledin tossed me a grin and whispered, “You’d have done the same.”
I silently laughed, moving my gaze back to the fire pit. My thoughts returned to my father. He’d been bedridden when we left, but he wouldn’t allow me to stay back.
You must take care of our king. Keep him safe.
I turned from the fire and stretched my legs. The cost of that safety had been high. And though regret still haunted me, I would do it again. I would not see him fall.
“Sir Etan?”
Cedric, my father’s young replacement as the king’s servant, stood at my right. He was cowering again, his gangly body trembling and bowed.
“What is it, Cedric?”
“Sir Etan, I apologize for this intrusion. It’s only...well your father never instructed me on what to do if His Majesty became despondent.”
“He lost several men last night,” I said. “He’s not despondent. He’s grieving.”
Cedric stuttered over his thoughts for a moment, before quietly saying, “He will not eat.”
I glanced at the men. Madelin sat with Aldred, arguing over who could track a deer the fastest. Laughter had begun to surface again among the knights. I looked to the king’s tent, situated in a clearing on the other side of the road. Lonely and guarded, alone.
My legs ached when I rose. “I’ll go.”
I ambled past clusters of men, catching pieces of conversations. Stealing morsels from their memories. They spoke of the fallen and of loved ones back home. A few hands rose to clasp mine as I passed.
Entering the king’s tent cut off the noise and chatter. The walls created a den of isolation. I found him untucked and disheveled, leaning over a map, knuckles pressed to an old, square table. I stood quiet just inside, searching for words, a way to announce myself without intruding.
His voice drifted softly over. “Have you been sent to reprimand me?”
I waited to be beckoned closer. “That is not my place, Your Majesty. And I don’t believe you’re deserving of a reprimand.”
His Majesty straightened, but he was yet to look over. He smiled sadly. “I’m afraid youn
g Cedric wouldn’t agree. He is anxious that I should eat my dinner.”
“A replacement can be found, sire, if he’s troublesome.”
A soft laugh. “He is efficient. I see no harm in that.”
He peered over the table again and gestured for me to approach. The map showed the whole of Omaria and Sithia, two nations that could not be more different, locked together and hemmed by the sea on all sides. I scanned the Great Forest, where we rested, then slid my gaze to Timorech, Dreonine’s stronghold carved into the side of a mountain. A full day and a half ride past the border. I’d never seen it, but rumors called it impenetrable, with high cliffs folding around the entrance.
“He will greet us with fire and steel,” murmured the king.
My jaw clenched. “And it will not be enough.”
For all the grief he carried in his body, and the trepidation in his words, resolve still glowed in his eyes. My father once told me that feelings were deceitful. That true courage meant allowing oneself to feel what was necessary but choosing to act wisely regardless. The king finally looked up.
“I fear the greatest task lay not with Dreonine’s defeat, but in seeking out all our lost. They will have been sold in a matter of days.” His gaze darkened. “Scattered like chaff in the wind.”
“Master,” I started carefully, “why did we not follow them in? Even with low numbers, we might have overtaken them.”
“They were prepared for us,” he answered. “Lying in wait for our arrival. Chasing them into Sithian land might have led to our swift end. By the time word reached the rest of our forces, only confusion and misleading rumors would guide them.” He looked at me with the weight of his conviction. “Fear not, Etan. The fog is lifting.”
“But are we not playing into their hands? The sorcerer at Bryn suggested—”
“What would you have me do?” His frustration was not at me, but it struck me, for he rarely showed it. “Perhaps I am a pawn today, and I will play my part. But do not think, young knight, that a pawn cannot rise to win the game. We need only the wisdom to outwit our enemy.”
Songs in the Night: Book One Page 8
