by Trudie Skies
She nudged Luna and didn’t dare look back. Alistar and Garr flanked her like two sorrans.
“You’d be a fool to trust him, Sword Dancer,” Garr muttered under his breath.
Mina waited until she cleared the city gates and kicked Luna into a gallop.
Garr whistled and Mina slowed Luna’s pace to allow him to catch up.
“We’re being followed.”
She hissed a curse and glanced over her shoulder to the trees. They’d travelled far enough from Myryn to join the northern point of the Emerald Forest. Plenty of thick woods for assailants to hide in. “Are you sure? Did you see them?”
“No, but I have a nose for these things.”
Alistar dropped to their pace. “I don’t see anything. You’re being paranoid.”
“Am I? They let us go too easily, and they didn’t want to, trust me. Hartnords are skilled hunters. They’re tracking us.”
“Why would Hartnords be tracking us?”
Garr’s crooked smile was grim.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We keep riding, but watch your backs.”
Rahn sank behind the trees, but no Hartnords burst from behind them. She’d kept a hand on Hawk’s hilt the entire ride, and Alistar kept his bow strung, ready to fire if needed. Why would Prince Wulfhart send his men after her when they were on the same side?
They came to a stop within a clearing. No matter where they camped, they would be surrounded by trees. Together, they pitched three tents, though they jumped at every noise Gai made in the woods.
Garr gathered firewood.
“You’re lighting a fire?” Alistar asked. “Won’t that attract our hunters?”
“I’d like to see the man who guts me.” Garr arranged wood into a pile and then clapped dirt and splinters from his hands. “My dagger, Sword Dancer? I’m off for a little hunting.”
“With a dagger?” Alistar scoffed. “What kind of game are you after?”
“The kind that thinks it’s the hunter and not the prey.”
Alistar stole a glance at the tree line. “Oh.”
“How do you expect to hunt them?” Mina asked.
“I don’t. They’ll come to you, and I’ll be waiting. No one notices a rat unless it’s on fire.”
Alistar frowned. “We’re bait?”
Garr winked. “Your words, not mine.”
She pulled the dagger from her saddlebag. If Garr was planning on murdering them, he’d had ample opportunity to do so before now. “Don’t die.” She tossed the dagger at him.
Garr caught it in one hand. “Didn’t know you cared. Build that campfire high, oh mighty Priestess. It’ll draw them out.” He stalked into the trees and she debated following him. Instead, she held her palm over the wood and waited for Alistar to leave. He didn’t.
“Do you want to check the horses? I’m going to light the fire.”
Alistar sat cross-legged on the ground. “I—I want to watch you.”
She kept a respectable distance and let heat flow from her palm. The wood burst into flame, and Alistar’s breath hitched. Maintaining control wasn’t easy when he stared at her like some dam about to break. The last thing she wanted was to add to his fears. She chewed her lip. I am the master of my own self.
There was more to her power than killing. Why couldn’t everyone else see that?
The campfire roared to life and glowed with warm orange amid their shelter of green. She shook her flames away and settled beside Alistar. The fear in his eyes had gone, and they were shadowed instead with grim determination.
“I’m trying.” Alistar forced himself to watch the campfire as it flickered and danced. “It’s… hard to overcome instinct. But I’m trying.”
She offered her hand. “I won’t hurt you, Ali.”
He pressed his palm into hers, and his breath whooshed over her in a single exhale. “You’re still warm.”
“Sandarians are always warm.”
His emerald eyes held a depth she’d never read as Malik, as though becoming Mina allowed her to see it. Or, it allowed him to shine.
Would Princess Aniya see it, too? He may not know it, but Mina was training Alistar to become more comfortable with his betrothed, not with her. The thought doused her inner embers. “Why would your father risk angering the Council when you’re betrothed to the Princess?”
Alistar let go of her hand and tugged the braid dangling by his neck. “If the Three-Pointed Star won’t send their ships to Sandair’s aid, there won’t be any betrothal.”
“You could always marry a Hartnord.”
He spluttered a laugh, and the beads in his braid clinked. He always tugged his braid when nervous, but the sound came alive when he was happiest. In truth, she liked his braid. Most men braided their beard, not random strands of hair, but that’s what made Alistar different. Bosan, she supposed.
She lifted her fingers to his braid with a sudden urge to tug it.
His laughing slowed as her fingers brushed close to his neck.
“I, ah, I want a braid like that,” she said. “With silver and purple beads.”
“You need something to braid first.” His fingers reached up her scalp and traced a line where her hair should be, sending a jolt of sky fire down her neck and into the pit of her stomach. “Don’t drink Wulfhart’s potion.”
“It would stop my blood fire. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
His palm rested on her nape, close to her fluttering pulse. “What I want doesn’t matter. You can’t let others dictate your life when you’re the one who has to live it.” There was a bitter edge to his tone and she wasn’t sure who he was talking about. “The fears of dung-headed fools aren’t your problem.”
“Those dung-headed fools keep making it my problem with their laws and their war.”
She bit her lower lip. Back in the Emerald Forest, she’d been close to making her wish. The only wish that mattered in this moment.
For their friendship to survive no matter what the gods threw at them.
He smiled, though it wasn’t any she’d seen him wear in the Academy with Raj, or with his own people in Myryn. It was a smile just for her. “I’m not scared of you, Mina. How could I be? Your eyes are made of stars.”
When had he stopped calling her Arl? When had she become Mina to him?
Something flickered in the campfire. Tira was waving her arms and pointing to the trees. Mina scrambled to her feet.
Alistar let out a sigh. “What is it?”
“Trouble.” She drew Hawk and snapped her attention to the woods.
No movement. No sound. Nothing but the stirring leaves in the wind and the crackle of burning wood, but she couldn’t shake off the feeling that someone was watching her.
“Get to the horses,” Alistar whispered. He grabbed his bow, but had left his quiver of arrows by his saddlebags.
A glint of silver shone beneath a branch.
“Wait—”
Something shot through the air with a single fwip.
Alistar yelped and crumbled to the ground.
“Ali!”
Blood ran down his leg and an arrow shaft protruded from his thigh. “Behind you,” he gasped.
Mina spun round, lifting Hawk into the Solaran stance in one quick movement.
Five men emerged from the woods. They were dressed in black from head to toe and carried Sandarian scimitars. From this distance, she couldn’t see their eyes to confirm if they were truly Sandarian.
At least one more man sat in a tree, with another arrow nocked and ready to fly.
Where was Garr?
“Run,” Alistar moaned. “Get in the woods and hide.”
There was no chance she’d outrun an arrow, and there was no chance she’d leave Alistar behind, either.
The men stalked forward. They expected her to fight.
Mina raised her left hand and let it glow. Instead, she’d give them what they feared most.
&
nbsp; 38
BLOOD IN THE WOODS
Flame burst from Mina’s fist. “Who are you and what do you want?”
The raiders didn’t answer. She glanced to the archer in the tree and did a double take. Garr was climbing up one branch at a time with his dagger between his teeth. Thank the gods he hadn’t abandoned her. She needed to keep the raiders’ attention and give Garr a chance to strike.
“You shot my sorran. I’d like to know your names for when I perform your lurrite.”
She stepped forward and the archer’s aim followed. Good. He hadn’t noticed Garr take the dagger from his mouth.
“I’ll ask one last time. Who are you and what do you want?”
The raiders spread out in a semi-circle. They were going to surround her. Five against one was no honorable battle, but this wasn’t the Academy or the tournament.
This was life or death.
Garr swung up and plunged his dagger into the archer’s neck. The man plummeted to the ground with a weak scream. One of his companions whirled around at the noise, but the remaining four charged right at her, their swords raised in an unknown stance.
She thrust her left arm out and scattered fire. Three leaped back, but the other swerved out of her way and swung his sword.
His blade met Hawk with a jarring clang.
Dark brown eyes opened wide in surprise. A Duslander. They narrowed into grim determination, and his blade cut through the air in a series of slices at her back and neck.
She eased her feet into a dance to parry each one.
A joyous song burst in her chest as she slipped into the rhythmic spins and curves of her dance. It had been days, weeks even, since she’d last been able to dance with abandon, and though her muscles ached from travel, her blood pumped fierce and fast.
The Duslander kept his distance as his blade searched for an opening, slicing at her wrist or legs. Timid. Uncertain. No, that wasn’t it—his attacks weren’t weak or slow. They were designed to render her unarmed rather than dead. But why?
“What do you want?” she yelled.
The Duslander swung his blade in answer.
She spun Hawk in wide circles to keep him at a distance, aware of his companions stalking slowly forward, their blades ready and eager to slip past Hawk should she give them the chance. She needed to keep them from Alistar; he lay sprawled and bleeding on the grass, defenseless.
Behind them, Garr came running with his bloodied dagger. The other four raiders turned their swords on Garr, likely deeming him the greater threat. Garr rolled under one raider’s swing with impressive finesse and barged another out of his way.
A sharp sting caught her wrist, snapping her attention back to her assailant. The Duslander wasn’t giving her chance to breathe.
“Focus!” Garr yelled, as he wove between blades.
The Duslander continued his barrage of swings, and she realized too late what he was doing: his attacks were pushing her away from Garr. Dividing them into easier targets.
Garr couldn’t hold off four men alone; his dagger didn’t have the reach of their scimitars.
She drew the Duslander into a feint and flashed a burst of fire at his face.
He raised his arm into a block and her attack disappeared in a puff of smoke, as though he’d absorbed it. His dark eyes crinkled into amusement.
Gods, he was a Fire Walker.
Garr broke free from the raiders and slipped to her side. “They’re not Hartnords!”
“I know.” She raised Hawk into the Solaran stance.
Garr copied with his dagger. “Leave one alive.”
Her thoughts exactly.
The Duslander and his four companions circled them. Mina and Garr stood back-to-back. When the first raider lunged, Mina swept his blade away with a flowing parry. Garr crouched ready—while the raider’s blade was locked with Mina’s, he threw himself inside the man’s reach and stabbed him through the shoulder.
It was a good strategy, and Mina stepped forward to engage the next assailant before their enemies caught on. Again, Mina parried the man’s blade away while Garr rushed him with the dagger, this time stabbing the stomach.
Three and two now. Closer to a fair fight.
This time, Mina fell into a dance pattern that Talin had drilled with her a hundred times at the least. Parry, parry, feint, slash.
Hawk cut clean through the raider’s neck, as easy as carving meat.
He fell with the familiar gurgled rasps of her nightmares.
Gods, she’d killed a man.
It was her sword that had spilled his life’s blood and ripped the light from his eyes.
She had no time to dwell on it.
“Mina!” Alistar yelled. “The trees!”
Another raider had crept into the clearing and was crouched over the body of the dead archer. The bow! He had the dead man’s bow! And his arrow aimed right at Garr.
“Garr!” she screamed, but he was locked in battle with a raider, unable to take his eyes off his enemy and see the danger. Mina launched herself into a run, ramming into Garr’s side and knocking him down. He hissed as the arrow skimmed his arm and left a thin trail of blood. She stumbled over his legs and dropped Hawk.
A raider came up behind her, his blade poised to strike.
Garr flung his dagger. It struck the man in the face, tearing a chunk out of his cheek as it bounced away into the grass. Mina seized the moment to grab Hawk by the hilt and thrust its blade up into the raider’s stomach.
She twisted her face to one side as a spurt of blood splashed her tunic.
Garr retrieved his dagger, panting for breath. “Did we get them all?” His amber eyes opened wide. “Guess not.”
She followed his gaze and swallowed a curse.
The Duslander poured fire from his palms. Flames raced across the grass of the clearing and began to lick at the trunks of the closest trees. His threat was clear—he could destroy this entire forest.
She lowered Hawk. “Don’t.”
“The forest,” Alistar groaned. “You can’t let him—”
“Your companions are dead,” she called. “It’s over. What good will burning some trees do? Give it up and leave with your life.”
The Duslander pointed at her sword, and then the ground. He wanted her to drop it and submit.
The bowman stepped up beside him, arrow nocked and drawn. His arrow pointed at Garr. He stood too close. There would be no chance to duck or dive out of the way this time.
The Duslander had her trapped and he knew it. Mina’s eyes moved from Garr to Alistar and the arrow in his—
Gods. The arrow was gone from his thigh. He’d ripped it out himself. The bloody thing was nocked in his bow, and drawn back with shaking hands. His eyes were half-glossed over, but he released it with the last of his strength.
It shot true.
The Duslander summoned a shield of fire.
The arrow pierced through it. His shield snapped out and he fell against a tree, the arrow embedded in his upper arm. But before Mina could approach, the Duslander snapped the arrow in half and fled into the woods, followed by his companion. Gods damn it, she wanted to question at least one of them. Even if she took Luna, there was no chance she’d find them in such dense woods at night.
Alistar groaned and collapsed back onto the grass.
“Ali!” She ran to him and dropped to her knees.
His Bosan skin shone far paler than she’d ever seen it, and sweat beads dotted his face. He grimaced. “How bad does it look?”
Blood gushed down his leg. Far too much. She yanked off her sahn and pressed it to his wound. Alistar hissed and grabbed clumps of grass.
Garr stood over them. “Can you move it?”
“Does it look like I can move it?” Alistar gasped. “Why d’you care anyway?”
“Because I’m the one who’ll end up carrying your carcass. What, you think our tiny priestess here could do it?”
She shot Garr a glare, but Alistar barked a laugh. Then his laughter choked into a hacking cough that sent shudders through his whole body. The blood had already soaked through her sahn and showed no signs of stopping.
“Get the bandages. All of them,” she ordered Garr.
He ran to their horses. She drew her mother’s dagger and cut away the red-stained cloth around his thigh. As she peeled it and her sahn away, the blood ran so thick that she could barely tell where the wound began.
Garr returned with bandages. She took them, but her fingers shook and were sticky with Alistar’s blood. Oh gods.
“Here.” Garr took her hand and guided it. “Let me.”
Together, they pressed down on Alistar’s leg.
Alistar hissed, but the flow didn’t abate.
“He’s losing too much,” Garr murmured. “You need to cauterize it.” There was no humor in his expression.
“What, no!” Alistar’s voice was hoarse. “Stars above, you’re not burning my leg!”
“If we don’t stop the flow, he’ll bleed to death.”
“No!” Alistar yelled and tried to sit up on his elbows, but lacked the strength. “Wrap it up, take me to Myryn!”
“He won’t make it back to Myryn.”
Gods, she couldn’t do that to him. She glanced to her mother’s dagger. Jonan had warned her against sharing her blood, but he’d saved King Khaled’s life with his blood, and hers as well. Alistar was her friend. She wasn’t going to sit here and watch him bleed to death.
She snatched her dagger and cut clean across her palm.
“What are you doing?” Garr said.
She ignored him and pressed her palm to Ali’s wound. Nothing happened. No surge of power passed through her veins to his.
Because he was Neu Bosan. Because he couldn’t form that connection.
Garr grabbed her shoulder. “He’s running out of time.”
A sob shuddered through her. “I’m not burning him. I can’t!” She grasped onto Garr’s wrist. “You’re an Ash Maker, you must know how to stop blood. You must know something!”
His amber eyes were kind. “Whatever you think I can do, I can’t.”
