***
“It almost reminds me of home,” Tiel commented as he swept his eyes across the treetops. The forest was sparse and easy to travel through here at the edge, but he could tell it would grow dense very quickly if they kept walking.
“Different trees, I imagine,” Rynne said as she climbed up onto the top of a rocky hill to get a better view. It wasn’t much of an incline, but it was the best they had found so far. “Vakar is said to have brutal winters.”
“I was actually talking about Jehalai, but yes, you’re right. Most of the forests in Vakar are pine and not many of them have been cleared. I’m actually surprised this one survived the last few wars.”
She crouched on a rock at the top of the hill and pulled out a spyglass. “Some sections didn’t. It used to stretch all the way to the coast.”
He nodded idly and stood above her. “See anything interesting?”
“It’s not really high enough. I think I’ll have to climb one of those trees if I want to see anything.”
Tiel turned to one of the giant oaks not a hundred feet away. “That seems dangerous. Do you have experience with that type of thing?”
“Psh, of course. It’s not hard once you do it a few times.”
He suspected she was lying, or at the very least exaggerating, but he decided not to press the matter. “Ah.”
She smiled as she put the spyglass away and hopped down the hill towards the oak. “How long have you been in Haven, anyway?”
“Four years,” he told her. “I came to study with Master Bale once I turned eighteen.”
“From a Kirshane monastery in Vakar?”
“Yes. The monastery was closing, actually. I wasn’t sure why at the time, but Master Bale said the monks had lost interest.”
Rynne turned back to him and frowned as she tested the lower branches for handholds. “That’s…odd, isn’t it? How does someone who dedicated their life to a cause like that just get bored?”
“I’m not completely convinced it’s the reason,” he admitted. “I’ve learned since that all the other cloisters across Esharia closed within the last five years. A number of acolytes have come to Jehalai to study simply because there’s nowhere else to go.”
“So why weren’t you there?” she asked. “It’s kind of convenient you happened to be in the city when you were.”
Tiel shrugged. “Master Bale moved back and forth between Haven and the monastery. I think part of it had to do with money, honestly, but he always insisted that the city would be the focal point of all major change in the world. He just wasn’t certain if that was good or bad.”
“Fair enough,” Rynne said, turning back to the tree. “This should work. I can probably get up high enough to check out the entire area.”
“If you want, I could levitate up there,” he suggested. “That high branch seems sturdy.”
She grunted. “No cheating. You’re not a real woodsman if you can’t climb a simple tree.”
“Van said you were—”
“I’d ignore most of what he says, especially if it involves me,” she dismissed with a wave of her hand. “He’s been especially grumpy lately and hasn’t wanted to do anything fun.”
“Ah,” Tiel murmured. He watched as she leaned her crossbow against the tree and then wove a spell. Her fingernails grew into sharp points, almost like the talons of a bird of prey. “I thought you just said no cheating.”
“It’s not cheating if you still do the climbing,” she replied as if it were obvious, then grabbed hold of the lower branches and pulled herself up.
“I…see. I guess I’m not familiar with these rules.”
“Yeah, well, you were sheltered, what can I say?”
Rynne made her way up past the first ring of branches with relative ease. Her compact frame must have had more strength than it seemed, and he found himself admiring the way she moved. Her hips swayed just a bit each time she went up, and it was almost mesmerizing…
She was halfway up to her perch, perhaps twenty feet up in the air, when one of the branches snapped and she completely lost her grip. Tiel lunged forward to catch her, but he wasn’t entirely prepared for the force of the impact. It knocked him flat on his back and he felt the wind leave his chest.
“Zandrast’s blood!” she hissed as she righted herself on top of him. “Goddess, I’m sorry.”
“It’s…all right,” he wheezed in between attempts to breathe.
“You sure? Nothing broken?”
“Just the branch,” he said as he leaned up. Aside from ruby red cheeks, she appeared fine—apparently he had broken her fall rather well. “That’s how Venar punishes cheaters, you know.”
Her eyes narrowed for a moment as if she couldn’t believe he was serious. “You don’t…”
He managed a soft grunt. “It was a joke.”
Rynne smirked. “I wondered if you had a sense of humor.”
“Shall I cheat again and go take a look?”
“Personally I think you just like to show me up,” she groused. “But fine, be all reasonable and boring.”
She extended a hand. Her amber eyes seemed to glitter in the twilight as she helped him up.
“Can I, uh, have the spyglass?”
“Oh, right.” She reached down and handed it to him.
He stepped up next to the tree. For some reason the spell didn’t pop into his mind as quickly as normal, and he had to turn away from her to jar his memory. After wetting his lips and clearing his throat, he closed his eyes and reached out to touch the Fane. Its energy tingled across his skin, and he methodically altered the pull of gravity around his body. A second later he started a slow ascension up the branch in question. When he finally got there, he kept the spell going just in case the wood wasn’t as sturdy as it seemed.
“Just take a look around,” she said. “We need to be getting back soon; it’s almost dark.”
Tiel nodded and pulled out the spyglass. Before putting it up to his eye, he wove a quick sensory enhancement spell. Between the lens and his magic, he should have been able to see anything within twenty miles…
And there they were, a few small pinpricks of light near the horizon flickering like distant candles. “Campfires.”
“Where?”
“North, maybe fifteen miles,” he said. “Enough for a dozen men or more.”
Rynne swore under her breath. “It could just be another group of travelers, I suppose. Or maybe bandits.”
“Maybe,” he murmured. He didn’t believe that any more than she did. “Or it means Prince Kastrius and his thugs know we left the city.”
“But they are stopping, at least,” she pointed out. “If we get moving early we should still be able to beat them to the Wall.”
He nodded faintly and started his descent. Beating them to the Wall was all well and good, but Jehalai was still almost four days away. The real question was how they were being tracked in the first place. Had their pursuers blindly dispatched a squad south assuming the Kirshal would leave Haven? That seemed far too coincidental for Tiel’s liking.
He eventually reached the ground and handed her back the spyglass. Her body language had changed completely, and he imagined his own mirrored it. Suddenly this was more than just a flirty little excursion into the woods.
“We should get back,” Rynne said. “We’ll need to head out early.”
Tiel nodded and fell into step behind her.
The Last Goddess Page 26