RAFE
I bent down and looked at the dark spot on the ground.
I rubbed the dirt between my fingers.
Blood.
I would kill them.
I would kill every one of them with my bare hands if they had harmed her, and I’d save Kaden for last.
I pushed twice as hard, trying to stay on their trail while I still had light. The ground became rocky, and it was harder to follow their tracks. I had to slow my pace, and it seemed that only minutes had passed before the sun became a fiery orange ball in the sky. It was going down too fast. I pushed on as far as I could, but I couldn’t track them in the dark.
I stopped on an elevated knoll and built a fire in case Sven and the others rode in the night. If not, my cold campfire would be easy to spot by day when they tracked me. I stabbed at the fire, poking it with a stick, and wondered if Lia was warm, or cold, or hurt. For the first time since I’d known of her existence, when the marriage was proposed by my father, I hoped she did have the gift and could see me coming.
“Hold on,” I whispered into the flames, and I prayed she’d do whatever she had to, to stay strong and survive until we came.
Even if I caught up, I knew I’d have to hang back until the others arrived. I had been trained in countless military tactics and was well aware of what the odds of one against five were. Except for an opportune ambush, I couldn’t risk Lia’s safety by going in there half cocked ready to take their heads off.
What was she doing now? Had he hurt her? Was he feeding her? Did he—
I snapped the branch in two.
I remembered the words he spit at me when we wrestled on the log. Give it up, Rafe. You’re going to fall.
No, Kaden.
Not this time.
CHAPTER FIFTY
The flat white sands disappeared and were replaced by sand the color of burnt sky—ochres of every hue. It was still blistering hot, and the air shimmered in waves, but now the landscape offered a variety of rocks and unearthly formations.
We passed enormous boulders with large round holes in them, as if a giant snake had slithered through, and still others teetering precariously as though they had been stacked by a colossal hand. If I was ever to believe in a world of magic and giants, it would be here. This was their realm. Sometimes we’d reach a high ridge and see for miles into multicolored canyons so deep the water that trailed through them became thin green ribbons.
It made me wonder and ache with the same feeling that a black sky dusted with glittering stars did. I had never known of this peculiar world. So much lay beyond the borders of Morrighan.
My captors were still crude and hostile, and yet if I turned my head a certain way and paused, my lashes fluttering like I was seeing something, I delighted in how I caught their attention. They would stir in their saddles and look across the horizon with dark brooding glances. Kaden would direct his dark glances at me. He knew I played on their fears, and maybe he worried about the power that gave me, but there was nothing he could say or do about it. I used this sway over them sparingly, though, because I hoped a time would come when it would serve me better than in long stretches of emptiness where there was no apparent escape. At some point, maybe it would open a door for me to flee.
I kept track of days, scratching lines into my leather saddle with a sharp rock. I didn’t care about their tack, only about how much time I had left to find a way out of their grasp. It seemed they were deliberately taking me on the most lonely, desolate stretches imaginable. Was all of the Cam Lanteux like this? But if there had been one strategic miscalculation like the one they had made at the City of Dark Magic, there would be another, and the next time I’d be ready for it. In the same way their eyes scanned the horizon for unexpected visitors, so did mine.
I tried not to think about Rafe, but after hours of the sameness, hours of worrying about Pauline, more hours of assuring myself that she was just fine, hours of wondering about Walther and where he was headed and if he was all right, hours of fighting the knot in my throat thinking about Greta and the baby, my mind inevitably circled back to Rafe.
He was probably home now, wherever that was, resuming the life he once had. I understand about duty. But did he still think about me? Did he see me in his dreams the way I saw him? Did he relive our moments together the way I did? Then like dark, burrowing vermin, other thoughts would eat through me and I’d wonder, Why didn’t he try to change my mind? Why did he let me go so easily? Was I just one more girl on the road from here to there, another summer dalliance, something to be bragged about in a tavern over a tankard of ale? If Pauline could be fooled, could I be too?
I shook my head, trying to extinguish the doubt. No, not Rafe. What we’d had was real.
“What’s wrong now?” Kaden asked. The others were staring at me too.
I looked at him, confused. I hadn’t said anything.
“You were shaking your head.”
They were watching me more carefully than I even knew. I sighed. “Nothing.” This time I wasn’t in the mood to play with their fears.
* * *
The red cliffs and rock eventually softened to foothills again, but this time there was a glimmer of green on them that deepened and grew as we traveled down a long, winding valley between two mountain ranges. The beginnings of forest appeared, a gradual unveiling of yet another world. It felt as if I had already traveled to the ends of the earth, and we still had a month to go? I remembered looking out across the bay at Terravin to the line separating sea and sky and wondering, Could anyone really travel so far that they might not find their way home again? The bright homes that surrounded the bay protected loved ones from being lost at sea. What would protect me? How would I ever find my way back?
It was getting dark. The mountains on either side grew higher, and the forest around us became thicker and taller, but I caught sight of something at the far end of the valley that was almost as glorious as a patrol.
Clouds. Dark, furious, and luscious. Their churning blackness marched our way like a thundering army. Relief from the relentless sun at last!
“Sevende! Ara te mats!” Griz bellowed and kicked his horse into a gallop. The others did the same.
“Afraid of a little rain?” I said to Kaden.
“This rain,” he answered.
* * *
We lashed the horses to timbers in the semishelter of ruin and trees. I wiped the rain from my eyes to see what I was doing. “Go inside with the others!” Kaden yelled over the roar of wind and the deafening thrash of forest. “I’ll unsaddle the horses and bring your gear!”
The cracks of thunder chattered through my teeth. We were already drenched. I turned to follow the others into the dark ruin tucked close to the mountain. The wind tore at my hair, and I had to hold it back to find my way. Rain fell through most of the structure, but lightning lit the bony skeleton and revealed a few dry corners and nooks. Griz was already trying to start a fire in one of the stony alcoves on the far side of the cavern. Finch and Eben took up residence in another one. It was once an enormous dwelling, a temple, as my brothers and I would have called it, but it didn’t feel holy tonight.
“This way,” Malich said, and pulled me beneath a low overhang of stone. “It’s dry here.”
Yes, it was dry, but it was also very dark and very cramped. He didn’t let go of my arm. Instead, his hand slid from my arm up to my shoulder. I tried to step back out into the rain, but he grabbed my hair.