Hunted: Alba's Story (Destined Book 5)

by Kaylin Lee

  “Jason, Mateo, Nicholas. Peter, you too. Climb to the top of these rocks. Provide cover for the scouts on both sides.” Deacon barked out the order, all trace of joking gone from his sober expression. “Marco and Silas, stay down here and watch the slope behind us. They could have been waiting for us to take cover here, so be alert. Alba …” He hefted his crossbow, then aimed it at the hill alongside Marco. “Be ready.”

  I couldn’t answer. The swift return of my panic had already tightened my throat.

  “Up there.” Marco gestured up the slope with his crossbow. The thick tree cover made it difficult to see far. “Deacon, you see that?”

  Deacon frowned. “Smoke?”

  “Could be another camp.”

  “Or something else.” Deacon glanced at me. “Hunker down for a minute. We’ll be right back.”

  Don’t leave me! I released another wave of healing magic to calm my nausea and nodded with a confidence I didn’t feel. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Deacon nodded, and he and the two other men crept up the slope, their crossbows at the ready.

  They were halfway up the slope when a bruising grip took hold of my elbow and yanked me into the ground.

  I landed on top of a body. A large, male hand shot over my mouth, turning my shocked scream into a muffled yelp. Panic flooded my veins.

  We were in an underground cavern, somehow wedged in the space between the large boulders and the slope. A collection of smaller rocks obscured the entry to the cave. I fought the man’s unyielding grip as he kicked several rocks into the opening, blocking out the light.

  “Mmmm! Mm!” I kicked hard at his legs, but his grip remained firm.

  A thick rag replaced his hand. I tried not to breathe in the putrid smell, but when I finally did, the sudden dizziness terrified me.

  Your primary task is to stay conscious, no matter what, my mom had said the previous night, hunched over a coffee at the kitchen table as I sagged onto my elbows and complained that I was too tired to practice any more magic. You can’t use an obcillo crystal to break a curse if you’re knocked out.

  My panic tripled. As quickly as the poison entered my airways, I healed its effects, but there always seemed to be more. As the man clamped my arms and torso with one hand and pressed the rag over my nose and mouth with the other, it didn’t matter that his poison wasn’t working.

  I was running out of air.

  Chapter 8

  “—doesn’t make sense! She was right here. She said she would—”

  “—never should have left her. Come on, Deacon. The commander’s daughter. What’s wrong with you?”

  “—had to check the camp. What if there’d been an attack?”

  “Well, there’s no one here. Everyone, just—” Cole broke off and swore. “See, there’s Bri. Tracker, report!”

  Bri. I stirred, but my attacker’s grip tightened, and he put his hand over my mouth again. No matter. She’d find me even if I couldn’t talk. She’d be able to sense my magic right away, and the Sentinels would make quick work of this Badlander.

  “No mages here,” Bri said. “It’s clear.”

  I heard footsteps, like she was approaching the boulders. Find me, Bri. Find me.

  “What about Alba? Any trace?” Deacon sounded frustrated.

  “I just found her trail leading back the way we came.” Bri’s clear, confident words turned my veins to ice. “Looks like she went back by herself.”

  How— Why— She was the best tracker of our year at the Mage Academy. She had to know I was right beside them! Was Bri lying about me?

  “Why would she go back?”

  “She told me she was getting scared again during our last break. She said she wanted to go back to the fomewagon to wait for us. I thought I’d convinced her to stay with the group, but I guess with all the false alarms, she got scared and ran back.”

  “That idiot mage girl should be locked up.” Eugene’s sour voice this time. “Unless attached healers don’t have to follow the rules like the rest of us.”

  “But no one saw her leave,” Cole said slowly. “And it seems like she would be more likely to stick with the group for safety. If she was planning to run, you should have said something, Bri.”

  I trembled as the man tightened his grip on my torso. Bri was just steps away. She knew I was right here, and yet she was lying through her teeth, convincing the Sentinels I’d left and gone back alone. This didn’t make any sense.

  “I’m sorry, Cole. You’re right,” Bri said calmly. “But you have to remember that Alba’s not a Sentinel. She’s terrified of the Badlands, of anything new and dangerous. She always has been. She should never have been sent out here. She’ll do what she always does when she’s scared—find the last place she felt safe and stay there until someone comes to get her.”

  Tears dribbled down my cheeks and pooled on the man’s hand. How could she sound so confident and trustworthy while lying to their faces?

  Bri’s voice had sounded like it was coming closer as she spoke, but now I heard her footsteps moving farther away.

  No, no, no. Bri, please …

  “Fine.” Cole’s deep voice was resigned. “We’ll go on and clear a little more territory before we turn back and find her at the fomewagon tonight. And tomorrow, we’ll assign someone to stay with her while the rest of us continue the mission.”

  His footsteps followed Bri’s, taking my hope of rescue with them. How could she do this to me? Was I so pathetic she could convince them that quickly?

  I tugged away from the man, but his grip didn’t budge. He leaned down to my ear. “Don’t move,” he whispered. “Don’t make a sound. I’ll knock you out again, and I’ll use the curse this time, I swear it.”

  The curse? My whole body started to shake.

  Boots shuffled outside the cave, knocking dust loose onto us from the rocks overhead. The rumble of voices grew quieter and disappeared in what I remembered was the direction of the upward slope.

  They were gone.

  The man flipped me onto my stomach on the rocky ground, keeping me down with a knee on my back. No matter how I twisted, his weight immobilized me. He pulled my arms behind my back and tied my wrists together.

  “Let’s go.” He kicked the rocks out of the way and pushed me through the cave’s opening, following close behind me, his grip heavy on my arms. “Come on. We’ve got a hike ahead of us. And if you make this too difficult, I’ll use their curse. You won’t have any choice after that.”

  The Sentinels had traveled north, directly up the southern face of Mount Vellus. He pushed me east. I stumbled at first, aching at the thought of diverging from any chance that the Sentinels would find me.

  “I really will use that curse.” His grip forced me forward, propelling me into motion despite my terror. “Don’t doubt me. I’ll do it.”

  Night was falling. The farther we diverged from the Sentinels’ path, the dimmer the woods got. What would the Sentinels do when they reached the fomewagon and discovered I wasn’t there?

  Bri will just convince them I’ve been eaten by a bear or something. The bitter thought made me want to shoot a blast of angry magic at my kidnapper, but he was too close for me to do anything more than throw off his balance with a warm puff of magic. Perhaps that was why he’d kept so close to me this whole time. How would I ever get out of this if the only self-defense move I’d learned required him to be at the same distance as the parlor door from the kitchen table?

  One desperate, hopeful thought kept me from giving way to hysterics as we marched through the woods.

  I didn’t know his name or his face.

  I didn’t know why he’d kidnapped me, where he was taking me, or what would happen when we arrived.

  But I did know he was carrying a curse and that he didn’t want to use it on me unless he had to. Perhaps that small mercy would keep me safe until I could use my magic against him.

  It was a foolishly small hope, but at least it kept the panic at bay
while I focused on storing up as much magic as I could hold. When I finally got the chance to blast him in the head, the rat would be out for days.

  Chapter 9

  We walked in silence until the moon was high overhead. Eventually, we turned north and climbed the slope, which slowed our progress and made my legs burn from exertion.

  “I need a break,” I mumbled after he hauled me up from my fifth stumble. “Please.”

  “We’re not taking any breaks.” He looped his arm around mine, stepping closer to my back and pushing me until I resumed walking.

  “I can’t hike all night.” I wanted to cry again. It felt like I had a blister on every single one of my toes. “We have to sleep sometime, don’t we?”

  He laughed humorlessly. “Well, I’m not sleeping. And if you go to sleep, I’m just gonna pull out a little vial and—”

  “Fine!” I sped up, but he matched my speed and kept close. “Fine. I don’t need to sleep. But can we at least stop to rest?”

  “No.”

  Sure enough, though my feet throbbed with pain at every step and my legs shook with exhaustion, we climbed straight up the slope until dawn.

  When the sky lightened, I chanced a look over my shoulder. I glimpsed a square jaw covered in dark stubble below a set of annoyed, green eyes before he shoved me forward up the mountain.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Where do you think?”

  “I don’t know! If I knew, I’d— I’d—”

  “The Masters want you,” he said sourly. “Or so I’ve been told. And what they want, they get.”

  Though I’d guessed that much when he’d first mentioned the curse, his words still sent a chill down my spine. “But why? I’ve never done anything to them!”

  “I don’t know. But I bet if you think about it real hard, you do. They asked for you by name, Alba Mattas.”

  I’ve never done anything to them. Maybe I hadn’t, but my mom certainly had. She’d killed three of the evil mages when they’d tried to invade Asylia five years ago.

  “Whatever my family may have done to them, you can bet they deserved it. Why would you help those monsters?”

  He didn’t answer. He just propelled me ever upward as the sky slowly brightened and our steps grew slow and clumsy. Perhaps he was nearly as exhausted as I was, but for some reason, he didn’t dare stop. That was a problem.

  A new thought hit me. “Are you under a curse yourself? Are they controlling you?” If he was under a curse, could he even tell me he was? I’d never thought about that.

  “Not likely. They’d have to get their hands on me first.”

  “But you’re helping them kidnap an innocent girl. You must know they’re going to kill me!” I felt his grip on my arm tighten slightly. “That means they already have their hands on you, whether you admit it or not.”

  “Not on me,” he said under his breath.

  We hiked for several more minutes before I realized what he was implying. “Someone else, then.” My heart sank. Maybe that was even worse. “Someone you care about. They’re blackmailing you?”

  He finally stopped. When I faced him, he didn’t push me forward. “Look, I’m not the villain here.” His dark eyebrows lowered in a frown, his square jaw jutting out stubbornly. “I’m not like them. It’s just … sometimes, you don’t have a choice about things. Sometimes you just have to survive, whatever the cost.”

  “There’s always a choice.” I tried to pull my arms out of his hands, but his grip didn’t budge. “You’re just making the wrong one.”

  “You want me to make a choice? How about this one?” He drew a small, crystal vial of silvery liquid from his jacket pocket.

  My legs wanted to melt. Had he guessed I had obcillo crystals hidden in my clothes? Would he knock me unconscious first to be certain I couldn’t break the curse right away? I braced for a blow. “No. I didn’t mean— I’m sorry.”

  He pressed his lips together and dropped the curse on the rocky ground by our feet, then he stomped on it with his thick, dirty boot.

  The delicate shattering sound shocked me into silence. “Are you letting me go?”

  He snorted and grabbed my arms with both hands again, spinning me around and pushing me up the hill. “Of course not.”

  “Then what was that?” Not that I wasn’t grateful.

  “Figured I’d give you a chance. You’re still going to die, but maybe you’ll be able to go down fighting.”

  How comforting.

  The sun rose, burning my tired eyes. The clumsy, uneven rhythm of our steps did not stop again, but it did slow. Perhaps I wasn’t the only one in need of a break.

  No. The man wasn’t simply tired. I focused on his presence and imagined the movements that would create the rhythmic thumps coming from his footsteps. He was limping, wasn’t he?

  How could the Masters convince a lame man to kidnap me from the midst of a team of Sentinels? And who were they threatening to force his cooperation? Whoever it was, he must love them deeply to harm an innocent stranger for their sake.

  I smothered the inkling of pity at the thought. There was no excuse for his actions, and just because he’d thrown out the curse didn’t mean he deserved my pity.

  The man stayed too close as we walked. I’d never be able to use the magic blast my mother had taught me at this range.

  Was there some way I could apply finesse instead of force? Perhaps I could use my healer training against him. I could try thwarting his body’s natural healing processes rather than enhancing them like I usually did.

  I shuddered at the thought, glad he couldn’t see my face. The idea sickened me. Healing magic was never supposed to be used for evil. Even if I didn’t kill him, the act of harming him would mean warping my healer’s training into something destructive.

  How could I live with myself if I did that?

  But if I let him drag me up the mountain, how could I live at all?

  If a moment comes when you have to choose between your life and the life of your attacker, you had better use your magic, Alba Mattas. Every last drop of it. Do you hear me?

  What would Mom do if I didn’t come home from the Badlands? And what would happen to the Sentinels if I didn’t make it back to tell them Bri had lied about me, that she was apparently trying to get me killed?

  Had she known I would be taken ahead of time? Or had she taken advantage of the opportunity when it presented itself? How could she have betrayed me like that? What lies would she tell our parents?

  It was a clear choice. I had to stop this man from delivering me to the Masters. I had to act. And to have any chance against him, I’d need more magic.

  Inhale, and absorb the magic around you. I repeated the exercise from school, letting the familiar process relax me slightly. Exhale, and prepare to release the magic into your patient.

  I continued to breathe in and absorb magic as the sun rose overhead, warming the top of my head. My feet throbbed, and my blisters burned with every step. I didn't dare use any magic on my feet. Every bit had to go into knocking this man out for as long as I could manage it.

  I’d need time to get out of the binding on my wrists, time to get far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to track me. Something told me I’d need a two-day head start from a man like this. He’d fooled a team of Sentinels alone, after all.

  No, he hadn’t worked alone. My sister had played a part. I couldn’t think about Bri right now.

  Perhaps I could simply put him into a long, deep sleep, mimicking the sopor potion the healers used on hospital patients. But would it be enough?

  I could make him dizzy and push him down the mountain.

  I grimaced, barely recognizing the ideas coming out of my own head.

  Who was I? I’d only been in the Badlands for a day and a night, and already I’d turned savage, just like this man. But what choice did I have?

  What choice …

  Hadn’t he said the same to me?

  Inhale, exhale. Inhale again. I w
as close to filling my capacity for stored magic, but if I really pushed myself, I might be able to hold a bit more. Not knowing how close we were to our destination, it was hard to know what to do. Did I risk failing to knock him out long enough, or did I dare wait until we were closer to wherever he planned to meet the Masters?

  “I’m sorry, you know.”

  The sudden noise of his voice startled me. “You’re sorry?”

  “I'm not a villain.”

  The defensive tone of his voice made me clench my fists. He was obviously a villain! Inhale, exhale. I was so close. Almost there...

  “I just …” He sighed deeply. “Forget it. There's no point. It is what it is, and we both have to face it.”

  “Face what?” My voice shook from the effort of holding in so much magic.

  “Face them,” he muttered. “We're almost there.”

  I released the magic instinctively, unleashing a huge wave that poured from my skin directly into his body where he gripped my arms.

  The rush of magic warmed and elated me. I reveled in the feeling of control and finesse as I worked the magic through his bloodstream and his nervous system, mentally mapping the intricacies of his anatomy while pushing the magic toward his brain for the maximum impact—

  No! This is not who I am. Every bone in my body rebelled at the thought of using my magic this way. I couldn't do it. This wasn’t about my survival. It was about taking my power to heal and turning it into its exact opposite.

  Working quickly, I redirected the magic and sent it throughout his body for healing, making sure I used it all so nothing went to his brain as I’d originally planned.

  “Wait.” He stumbled and crashed to his knees. “What are you doing? Why—”

  I sank to my knees, too, and pulled out of his loosened grip, then I faced him, the movement awkward with my hands still bound.

  He rose and hauled me to my feet. “What did you do to me?”

  Chapter 10

  “I healed your migraine, to start with,” I said slowly, woozy from expelling so much magic at once.