03 - Sworn (2 page)

I looked to Ulric again, and he shook his head.

To not act now when we were so able seemed cowardly. Aren could have reached out and broken the leader’s mind, or transformed into an eagle and attacked while his father called an earthquake, blinded them, or stole their strength. And I—

Could kill by drawing water,
a dark voice within me offered.

That did it. My magic quieted instantly as Dorset Langley’s face appeared in my memory, full of life at first, then drawing in on itself as my magic—as
I
—pulled the water from his body until he was little more than a bony husk on the ground. Relief came with surrender, and I despised myself for being happy to let go. Even after everything I’d accomplished in the past week, my fear was strong enough to turn me into a mouse when I should have been a roaring mountain lion.

And I was glad of it, if it meant not killing again.

Coward.

Ulric turned to Patience. “I don’t think your friends are inclined to listen to you, my dear.”

Patience spit on the ground. “Jevan, take ’em back and I promise I won’t follow you any more. And I won’t pester about helping with the hunt.”

Jevan’s pale brows drew together, and a hint of a smile turned the corner of his lips. “This is that important to you, little savage?”

She crossed her arms. “Not just to me. They have something to do with all of the big things going on in this country. It would be stupid to kill them without letting Laelana get some answers.”

Jevan scratched at his neck. His men looked at him, at each other, at us. Clearly they weren’t about to make a move without his say-so.

“Very well,” he said at last. “But this is on you, girl. We’ll take them with us, but when Goff doesn’t like the look of them and their heads end up in the dirt, that’ll be your fault. I’m happy to leave them here and let them live.” The casual words about what he obviously considered our inevitable deaths sent a chill over me.

Ulric’s lip twitched.
He must be insane,
I thought. Trading fair odds of escape for what could turn out to be an army and a bloodthirsty leader, perhaps one with magic we knew nothing about...

Patience nodded. “Fair enough.”

Jevan rolled his eyes. “Gods, Patience. You’re going to be the one with an axe at your throat one of these days.”

She looked over our party again. She obviously didn’t recognize the deposed king, and she’d never met Kel, Cassia, or Nox. She only knew me and Aren, and not by our real names. We’d been rain-soaked and exhausted travelers when she met us. She had no idea what she was getting herself into if she brought us back into her life.

“Nah,” she said quietly. “Goff won’t like them. Laelana won’t either, but she’ll see reason.”

Something besides the fresh scars troubled me, but it took me a moment to figure it out. The child seemed to have aged incredibly in just a few months. She’d struck me as a charming little girl of perhaps eight when we’d met, spirited but well-meaning, precocious and playful. She’d obviously been an educated child before, but now spoke like an adult, and appeared to carry the weight of the world on her thin shoulders.

What happened to you?

Questions would have to wait. “Off your horses, three of you,” Jevan ordered us. “Double up. Timmin, take a horse and we’ll lead them. Everyone else surround and keep up.”

Aren frowned and glanced at his father. Surely now we’d act. Patience may have meant well, but this detour would delay our mission. Ulric only stared straight ahead, and Aren’s jaw clenched tight. He obeyed, though, and kept his silence.

Perhaps he trusted that Ulric had a plan. I certainly hoped so. I couldn’t seem to get a handle on the man at all. Not since we’d gained our freedom and he suddenly lost whatever respect and affection he might have had for me when we were imprisoned together. I’d received a pat on the back for killing a man Ulric hated. Since then, I might as well have been invisible to him. No more encouragement, no kind words, no suggestion that I might be helpful in the upcoming struggle to regain his throne from his eldest son.

It pained me to be discarded so easily, and with no reason given. All he’d put me through in his attempts to shape me into something he could use to escape prison, the work I’d done and everything I’d accomplished, seemed to mean nothing. I flushed with anger at the memory of the cruelty he’d thought necessary to train me, but it cooled quickly. I’d seen what he was capable of. Stealing an enemy’s strength, confusing them with moments of invisibility, shaking the earth and causing it to swallow soldiers whole. Even without his magic he was dangerous, a strong and capable fighter. I could hardly afford to make an enemy of him.

So I will obey. For now.

I climbed up behind Aren on his horse, and Patience took mine. She sighed as she settled into the saddle, taking weight off her feet. Kel rode with Nox, leaving Cassia with Ulric. He maintained his stony expression as she found her seating and put her hands gingerly on his arms to steady herself. The pair didn’t let their discomfort show, but acted as though a human king and a mer woman were the most natural companions imaginable.

And that, I realized, was how we had to present ourselves. Unified. No sign of the tension between Aren and Ulric, left over from years of neglect and cruelty. None between Nox and her father after his abandonment twenty years ago. No visible uncertainty in me as I struggled to understand my place in the group, in the world. Certainly no clue that the merfolk had a neutral yet tenuous relationship with Ulric, and only wanted him back on the throne because he was less of a threat to them than Severn, the son who deposed him.

No problem at all.

Jevan rode ahead of Nox and Kel, their horse’s reins secured to his saddle to keep them from bolting. He didn’t seem to notice Nox’s icy blue eyes glaring at the back of his neck, or the way her fingers twitched as though longing to reach for the dagger they’d taken from her. Kel put an arm around her waist, and she leaned back against him.

They made for a strange couple. Nox was every bit as cold and hard as Kel was kind and warm. Human and mer. Land and sea. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what he saw in her, but he was obviously smitten.

Another of the thieves rode Cassia’s horse and tied Aren’s to it, preventing escape unless we wanted to attempt an awkward dismount and flight on foot. Ulric rode slightly ahead of us, flanked by men with swords and knives drawn, and another on foot leading the horse by the reins. I doubted Ulric would have submitted to such an indignity under other circumstances, and wondered again why he wouldn’t allow us to act.

Aren tensed as his father glanced back at us. I squeezed my arms tighter around his waist, and he brushed his fingers over mine.

I relaxed slightly. We were together. That was the important thing. We’d almost lost each other only days before. Aren had nearly lost his magic and his life. But now we were together, and we would be fine. His magic was strong. His wounds were nearly healed. I had control over my power, at least in theory, even if the memory of what I’d done with it gave me nightmares. We would face whatever came, together, stronger as a team. I could overcome anything as long as I had him.

Ulric’s glare focused on me, and his brows gathered into a deep scowl. My heart skipped. A week before, that expression had been saved for the prison guards and times when Ulric spoke of the Darmish king or Dorset Langley.

And I killed one of them,
I thought.
I saved us. How does that make me your enemy?

We rode on through the spring forest, leaving the road behind. Yellowish mosses covered the trunks that surrounded us, and the horses’ hooves crunched over last autumn’s foliage. The forest here was less lush than what we’d encountered days before at the border. Spring was stunted. The sun shone warm enough, but something else felt wrong. I closed my eyes and loosened my hold on my magic slightly—not to attack, but to feel. The lack of water quickly became obvious. Even if I’d wanted to use my skills, I wouldn’t have been able to call much to me from these woods.

Still, the forest canopy came alive with birds tweeting to each other as we passed, their voices masked beneath the mumbled conversations of the men around us. Our group kept silent until Cassia whispered something into Ulric’s ear. The fellow walking beside them slapped her hard on the leg.

The look she shot him should have had him writhing on the forest floor, but he just grinned up at her. She lifted her chin, paying him no more attention than she would a nipping fly.

Do something, old man,
I thought. Nothing I’d heard about the king of Tyrea had led me to believe he’d put up with such disrespect, even if he believed Cassia capable of taking care of things herself. But he remained as he had been, unconcerned.

Patience glanced back over her shoulder at them, but said nothing.

Nox snapped her fingers, and Aren and I turned around. She didn’t speak, but stared pointedly at her twin brother. His shoulders tightened, and he shook his head. She nodded and closed her eyes, and I realized that she was trying to communicate with him. As a Potioner, she lacked the magic that protected me from Aren invading my thoughts. I’d assumed he was barred from trying that with her, but a moment later she opened her eyes and raised her brows, questioning. Aren shook his head slightly and turned to face forward.

“You could have a full conversation with her, couldn’t you?” I murmured.

“Not easily, and not without them noticing,” Aren said quietly, speaking back over his shoulder. “That Jevan has a little magic in him. He’ll notice if I try to use any more.”

Even with that quick exchange, Jevan looked suspicious. If Ulric wanted our power to remain hidden, we’d have to act like average people, giving up every advantage until he said otherwise.

“I hope your father knows what he’s doing,” I said.

“Me, too.” Even at that low volume I picked up on the concern in Aren’s voice. The thief leading our horse glanced back, and I didn’t dare ask more.

We rode on until I lost track of time and forgot to be frightened. My stomach grumbled, and my thoughts wandered to dark places I only wanted to leave behind. I longed to get down and walk to ease the ache in my backside, or to reach some place interesting.

Be careful what you wish for,
I reminded myself.

At least the sun was warm on my back. Nights were still cold, and our blankets too few. The deep chill in my bones felt like it had moved in permanently.

The man who had slapped Cassia touched her leg again, brushing his fingers over the outside pocket on her thigh. It seemed he’d spent some time working up his nerve. “You from around here?”

“No.” Ice dripped from Cassia’s voice, but the idiot kept grinning.

“Just passing through? Too bad about all this. I’m sure we can make you comfortable for the night. I have a lovely—”

“No.”

Ulric looked down his nose at the man. “The lady’s not interested, friend. And as much as I’d enjoy seeing her hand you your stones on a platter, I would advise leaving her alone. We don’t want trouble.”

A smarter man would have cowered under the look in Ulric’s eyes, and the tone of his voice would have sent him running. As it was, he merely snatched his hand away from Cassia’s leg and stepped back. He chuckled nervously. “Feisty one, eh?”

“Shut up, Morgan,” Jevan barked. He’d lost his jovial attitude over the afternoon, and if he wasn’t fearsome, he at least looked like someone to be taken seriously. I tried to sense his magic, and couldn’t. Years of being cut off from my own power had left me without an instinctive feel for it. I’d need to practice that.

Aren stretched his back and rolled his left shoulder forward. He’d done an incredible amount of healing since our return to Tyrea, but the deep knife-wound he’d taken back in Darmid still troubled him. The scar would fade. His always did, save for the strangely patterned one that his brother Severn had left on the other side of his back when Aren was a child. I reached over and absently scratched at my left arm, where I’d taken a nasty injury only days before. Magic had held me together and Nox had offered a salve to speed things up, and the scar was healing well.

But something about my magic felt wrong, something that went deeper than my horror at what I’d done.

Patience let out a high-pitched whistle as we reached the top of a low rise in the forest floor. An answering whistle came from high in the trees, and a young woman dropped to the ground, landing in a crouch well ahead of the horses.

She stood and looked the group over.

“I don’t think this were the plan,” she observed, and sucked air through the gap between her front teeth.

“They’re friends,” Patience said. She looked back again and made eye contact with me for the first time since we’d left the road.

The young woman looked us over again and walked away, dirt-brown ponytail swinging behind her. Aren’s horse plodded forward. We came closer to Ulric and Cassia, and Aren leaned over to speak to his friend.

“You all right?” he asked her.

She brushed her thick, dark hair back over her shoulder and shrugged. “Fair enough. The old man might need a rest, though. He’s slumping.”

Ulric grunted.

“Is that so, old man?” Aren asked.

Ulric shot him a dark look. “Not too old to whip you, boy.”

I couldn’t tell how much of the conversation was for the benefit of the thieves.

Patience slowed to ride beside us. “We’re almost there now. You’ll all be able to rest.”

“Almost where?” I asked.

“I guess I’d call it home.” She certainly didn’t sound excited to be there.

“Are the others here?” I asked. “The Wanderers?” It would be good to see them again, to know that they were safer than Patience’s appearance might indicate.

She closed her eye and drew in a long breath. “Those who are left are here.” She leaned forward to address the man who led Ulric’s horse. “Mind if I speak to them privately?”

He frowned and turned to Jevan, who nodded. The thieves released the horses and rode ahead, though others still surrounded us.