“Privy,” she whispered.
“With your longbow?”
“I might need to shoot someone.”
Griffin didn’t looked amused. “Go back to bed. If you wander off into the night, you’ll just entice one of those fools sitting downstairs to follow you and rob you.”
“And if I don’t?” she challenged.
“Then I have your saddle in my bedroom, and I told the hostler not to let you have your horse if you tried to leave alone. I may have mentioned that you suffer from spells and can’t be allowed out on your own.”
“You didn’t,” Charlie hissed. “You are an absolute monster!” She was about to throw down her possessions and launch herself at him when the innkeeper’s head appeared at the top of the stairs, and he warned them to be quiet.
“Go to bed,” Griffin told her. “You aren’t going anywhere tonight, and you’ll have all of tomorrow to complain about how awful I am.” He stood in the hallway with his arms crossed blocking her path, clearly intending to stay there until she went back into her room. There was a long, tense moment where they both stared each other down.
Finally Charlie gave in. She couldn’t overpower him, and even if she somehow outlasted him, he had already laid too many obstacles down for her to successfully escape. She would have stood and stared at him all night, but she was still holding all of her worldly goods, and her arms were starting to tremble. She went back into her room without a word, dumped her things on the floor, and shut and locked the door behind her. Feeling near tears with anger, she dropped onto the bed crosswise, not bothering to even get into it properly. She was going to kill Griffin, she decided. Kill him and pull all of his stupid curly hair our.
* * *
5
The Temple
There was a great deal of pointed silence the next morning. Charlie was ready to leave and sitting in the narrow wooden chair with her arms crossed when Griffin came to fetch her. She followed him downstairs in silence and declined the pastry he offered her for breakfast. He had already had their horses saddled, so they were on the road quickly. The drizzle had tapered to a fine mist, and Charlie rode with her hood up. Griffin had the decency to not try to speak to her. He stayed a few paces behind her and let her sulk in peace. Neither of them had slept; Charlie because she had been too angry, and Griffin because Charlie had periodically gotten up to bang on his wall or door to disturb him.
The next day Griffin made a few attempts at small talk, all of which she ignored.
“Gods, are you going to be mad forever?” he demanded. “I think you’re making far too big a deal out of this. You made a strategic movement, and I thwarted it. You lost a skirmish. It’s hardly the end of the world. And even if you had succeeded, I still would have caught up with you the next day, so what did you really lo—”
Charlie had had enough of his rambling. She took her feet out of the stirrups, pulled her right foot beneath her, and, using her saddle to push against, launched herself at Griffin. He had been riding close to her, and her tackle caught him mid-sentence, knocking him off his horse. They both hit the ground together with a thud. The horses spooked and darted away.
Griffin had been taken completely by surprise, and the force of hitting the ground from such a height with Charlie’s additionally weight on top of him had knocked the air out of him.
Charlie rolled off him and sat watching him gasp for a moment. “Are you all right?” she asked indifferent when he managed to sit up.
He stared at her. “What do you care? You just almost killed me.”
“Well, I didn’t succeed.” She stood and dusted her clothes off.
“Damn,” Griffin said, examining himself for injuries. He threw in a few more choice words while Charlie watched him unsympathetically. He looked up at her when he was finished. “Well, do you feel better now?”
“I do, actually.”
“Are we even then?”
She thought about it. “Yes, I think so.” She turned and walked in the direction their horses had fled, and Griffin followed rather more slowly.
Their relationship returned to its previous level of reluctant coexistence. Charlie turned her attention back to her quest and put the question of how to get rid of Griffin aside for the time being. Griffin let her make the decisions and resisted pestering her about where she was going. They were both polite to each other and even spoke on occasion. No one mentioned the incident at the inn or its accompanying retaliation, but Griffin was careful not to ride too close to her now.
* * *
Two days later Charlie was certain they were nearing the next spot marked on her map, a temple of some sort. She had spent the morning in brooding silence trying to determine how to conduct her search with her unwelcome chaperone along. She didn’t want to explain to him why exactly she needed to search a temple or what she was looking for. He had followed her without objection wherever she had gone so far, which was steadily east, but he looked at her curiously when she consulted her map, and her sudden, and occasionally contradictory, adjustments to their trajectory weren’t lost on him. He had casually asked to see her map once but hadn’t argued when she said no. After that she kept it with her at all times.
Charlie tolerated his presence with as much patience as she could muster, trying to give the impression she was begrudgingly resigned to his presence. She doubted Griffin was much fooled by her attitude, but he was impossible to read. She thought she might try to sneak away that night. She knew he would catch up with her, but she just needed a few hours head start to do what she needed to do.
Charlie was startled from her reverie by Griffin speaking. “What?” she asked distractedly.
“I said, you’re burning a hole in my head with your eyes. Could you stop, please?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What? You’re mad that I was looking at you?”
“Glaring,” he corrected. “And considering how often you snap at me for looking at you, I think that’s fair.”
“Maybe you deserve it,” Charlie muttered under her breath and guided her horse out in front of Griffin’s so she could put her back to him.
He heard her. “Why are you so grouchy? I thought we were getting along. Or least had reached a tacit agreement not to fight anymore.”
“No.”
“No what?”
“No, we are not getting along,” Charlie said, exasperated. “Just because I’m not throwing a temper tantrum constantly doesn’t mean I like that you’re here. I do not. I’m just not wasting my energy fighting with you.”
He considered this a moment. “I thought we’d already been over this. What’s so bad about having a little company? Someone to talk to, safety in numbers. Things have been going well since we started traveling together.”
Charlie stopped her horse. “Griffin, things were going well before you ever stuck your nose into my life. I have been without your help for months. I have successfully fed and cared for myself the entire time. No one has bothered me. Whatever trouble I may have gotten into, I was able to get out of without you. Stop trying to present your following me around uninvited as you being a hero saving me from certain doom.” She leaned forward to meet his eyes squarely. “You’re just nosy.”
Griffin’s mouth opened and closed a few times. “I am not nosy. I haven’t even asked you where we’re going for days. I haven’t asked you anything.”
“That doesn’t mean you aren’t trying to find out,” Charlie pointed out as she continued up the steep hill ahead, Griffin following behind her. “You only quit asking because I wouldn’t tell you. And you’re following me all over the stupid country out of curiosity, not some trumped-up concern for my well-being.”
“You have to admit that it is rather suspicious how secretive you’re being,” he countered. “Why do you have to hide where you’re going? Two people traveling in the same direction falling in together for a while isn’t exactly unheard of.”
“But I don’t want to travel with you,” Charlie said stubbornly. “
Whatever consequences there are for being alone are on my own head and are none of your concern.”
“Well, it isn’t just about you. Two people traveling together is safer for me too,” Griffin said. “If I got hit on the head, I could at least expect you not to let something eat me until I regained consciousness.”
“No, I’d leave you,” Charlie said absently as they reached the top of the hill.
“Well, that’s rude,” Griffin said indignantly.
“Hush.” Something had caught her attention, and she stopped.
In the distance, hidden among the thick trees was a large building, like a small fort or even a castle. She wouldn’t have been able to see it at all if she hadn’t been up so high. There was a thick, vegetation-covered stone wall, above which she could just make out the structure it surrounded. She could discern very little through the trees, but she thought she saw a peaked roof and maybe a turret or two.
After staring transfixed for a long moment, Charlie suddenly realized this might be the temple she was looking for. Quickly she whipped her much-weathered map out from where she kept it in her tunic pocket and opened it.
“So that’s where you’ve been keeping it,” Griffin noted, craning his neck to read over her shoulder.
Charlie spun her horse to face him so he couldn’t see. She looked at the map again, then over her should at the crumbling wall. She didn’t dare take out her history book to read the description of the temple, but the location on the map seemed to match. She had come across it sooner than she had expected.
“Is this it?” Griffin asked, eyes glinting. “Is this where you were going? What is it?”
Charlie looked at him in silence for a long moment, bitterly regretting that she hadn’t succeeded in escaping her knightly escort at the inn. She pondered briefly if she should deny any interest in the location and sneak away during the night, but she dismissed the idea quickly. He was too clever to be deceived by feigned disinterest. Finally, she answered, “Yes, Griffin, this is it. This is where I’m going. And now that you’ve escorted me safely here, you may go.” She put the map away again and turned Mystic toward the temple, now hidden among the trees again.
“I’ll just see you to the door,” he said drily.
“Really, you needn’t come. After I look at this, I’m going back home. It’s the opposite direction from where you’re going, so we won’t be able to travel together anymore,” she continued. “You’ll have to face the perils of your journey alone.”
Griffin pulled his horse up next to hers. “You’ve really got to learn how to lie. You get this sort of blank look on your face and stare straight past my head when you do it, like you’re talking under a spell. What is this place we’re going to see?”
“We’ll find out when we get there, I suppose.”
He smiled. “You said ‘we.’”
“Oh, shut up.”
* * *
The castle, when they had finally fought their way through the underbrush to it, was a crumbling stone heap being reclaimed by the forest around it. The vines that almost concealed the walls suggested that the place was long-abandoned, possibly undiscovered for centuries. One section of wall looked like it had been caved in by a powerful blow from a catapult or a battering ram, but while the stones were cracked and broken, the wall hadn’t collapsed. The iron spikes that lined the top of the wall were rusted, and several had snapped off completely. Circling the outside of the wall was a moat.
The place she was looking for had been described as a temple, and Charlie was confused by the presence of the defensive structures. Perhaps this wasn’t the right place, or perhaps Shalans had a very different concept of how a temple should be constructed. She was also a bit at a loss for how she was supposed to get inside. The moat was deep, but it was almost empty; the rusted pipe that had once supplied the water protruded from the ground several feet above the current water level. The steep sides sloped sharply down into the thick mud and murky water at the bottom. There was no drawbridge.
“Is this what you were looking for?” Griffin asked her. “What is this place?”
Charlie rolled her eyes in frustration. As she had dreaded, Griffin was going to ask her a hundred questions she couldn’t answer.
“I’m going to go inside,” she said, tying up her horse.
“How? There’s no drawbridge over the moat. And why?”
“People must have gotten in and out somehow,” she sighed, not answering his second question. “So I can too.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Did you ride all this way looking for an abandoned castle?”
“No. I just want to explore it. You can stay here.” She started to fight her way through the undergrowth around the edge of the moat.
“No, I’m coming with you. Hold on.” He tied up his own horse and followed her. “How do you want to go about this?”
“I’m going to walk all the way around first, just to be sure there’s no better way over,” Charlie decided.
A hike around the perimeter left them both hot, sweaty, and short-tempered from the exertion of struggling through the thorn bushes but failed to turn up any way across the moat. Climbing down into the moat and up the other side appeared to be the only option. Charlie had ridden halfway across an entire country looking for the dagger, and this was one of the only two places she had left to look. She wasn’t going to let a little mud stop her. Gingerly she slid over the side, trying to keep her footing on the slick ground; it wouldn’t do to roll down the slope and land in two feet of muck at the bottom. She made her descent with great care, facing sideways and traveling diagonally to keep from slipping. Behind her, she could hear Griffin following, but didn’t turn to look at him.
As they neared the bottom, the loose, crumbly earth gave way to thick, gooey mud. The mud sucked at her boots, and the effort of pulling her foot free with each step threatened to unbalance her. She grinned when Griffin uttered a curse behind her. At least he wasn’t having an easier time than she was. The water at the bottom of the moat was murky, coated with green algae, and of an uncertain depth; the last thing she wanted to do was step in it.
“We should have brought a stick to test the depth of the water,” Griffin said. “I think it’s just collected rainwater though. Test it with your sword.”
She did, and found it to be only a few inches deep. She looked hesitantly back at Griffin. “What if there are snakes?“
He considered. “I doubt it. They probably scurried off when they heard us coming anyway.”
She was certain he was just saying that to reassure her. Cautiously she stepped one foot into the water, praying that nothing would bite her. When nothing did, she took another step, then another. The water wasn’t deep, but the ground was so soft that she sank until the brown water almost reached the top of her boots. Gathering her courage, she continued resolutely, refusing to grimace as she splashed to the other side.
Climbing up proved twice as hard as going down. Moats were not intended to be climbed, and the ground was steep and slick from erosion, giving way easily under their feet. Swearing and slipping, they slowly half-climbed, half-crawled their way up, grabbing exposed roots and bigger rocks for handholds when they could find them. Charlie slipped and was surprised when Griffin caught her arm to keep her from sliding back down. She muttered her thanks and kept climbing.
When they reached the top, Charlie fell into the tall, thick grass and sighed with relief.
Griffin took a seat next to her, catching his breath. “Are you rethinking this decision, by any chance?”
Charlie squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to block Griffin out. “Can you please just be quiet for a minute.”
Griffin obliged with silence. When she opened one eye just a bit, he was sitting next to her, mud streaked and tousled, just watching her.
“Ugh,” Charlie muttered, getting up. She turned to the wall to begin looking for a way in.
Griffin sprang up and followed her. “How do you get into this thing? There sh
ould be a gate or at least a few tucked-away doors for people to come in and out. I didn’t see anything when we were walking around the outside.”
“The door must be hidden under all these vines,” Charlie reasoned. “We’ll have to cut them down. We should start looking.”
“Why are we doing this again?” he wanted to know.
“You don’t have to,” she pointed out. “You can sit here and wait, or go back to the horses, or go back to your horse and ride away and never see me again.”
He gazed at her for a beat. “All right. I’ll help you look.”
They poked and prodded among the vines at intervals, hacking and cutting with their daggers as they searched for an entrance. A green snake slithered across Charlie’s foot, and she was unable to stifle a small cry of surprise and a little foot-stamping as it disappeared into the waist-high grass. Griffin heard and didn’t bother to spare her feelings by holding back his laughter. She glared at him and continued her search further afield from him. After a few minutes of chopping randomly at the tangle of vines, her knife blade struck something solid with a clang, making her hand smart fiercely.
“Ow,” she muttered, switching her knife to her other hand to continue cutting. After a few more minutes she was certain she’d found a metal surface instead of stone.
“Find something?” Griffin inquired, tromping up.
“Maybe. Help me cut this away.”
Griffin helped her cut through the vines, revealing more of the rusted metal surface. Quickly they sawed and slashed at the wiry plants until they had uncovered a door. Charlie grabbed the handle and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. Griffin tried next, but it refused to move. They tried pulling together, but the door stuck fast.
“It must be locked,” Charlie sighed, wiping sweat from her face with her sleeve.
“Or the hinges are just too rusted to move. We might have to take them off. Lock first though.” He pulled a slim knife from his boot and set to work on the lock while she sat on the ground and watched.
Charlie was impressed by how quickly Griffin managed to deprive the door of its handle, lock, and hinges. “Did you learn that as a squire?”
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