Ride the Storm

by Karen Chance

  “Is that what you tell everyone you enslave?” I asked bitterly.

  Only the special ones, he mouthed, his back to the merchant, causing me to stare up into that unique face in confusion.

  Which only increased when it suddenly morphed, the features sliding from aquiline perfection to something else. Something with a too-narrow mouth, a too-large nose, and a pair of piercing green eyes. A very familiar pair.

  “No. But in your case, it’s probably true,” the fey that wasn’t a fey told me. “You’re just the kind the nobles prefer, although they’d never admit it. You’re going to spend the rest of your life eating sweets and having fat babies for your master. You’ll be fine.”

  Just stay out of trouble, he told me silently while I gaped at him. And tried to process the fact that Pritkin had just sold me into sex slavery to the fey.

  And then he was gone.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “All right, move out! We’re clearing this area, all of you—get ready to move out!”

  I stuck my head out of a tent flap a few minutes later, in time to see the merchant confront several dark-haired fey on horseback. “What’s this?” he demanded.

  The nearest rider looked down at the rotund figure with annoyance. “What did I just say? Move out!”

  “But I have special permission—”

  “Not anymore. New orders, all camp followers are to pull back to the stronghold.”

  “But I’m not a damn servant! I’m—”

  “Doesn’t matter what you are. If you’re not fighting, you’re not staying. Now move out!”

  There was a sudden uptick in activity on the road as people rushed to obey, throwing saddles on donkeys and baskets on wagons and dousing campfires with practiced ease. Except for the merchant, who was still shaking his head. “You don’t understand. I have a buyer—a very important buyer—coming in the morning—”

  “Then he can see you at camp!” The soldier was starting to look annoyed.

  “I’m not putting my stock in that cesspit! You can’t expect—”

  The merchant suddenly found himself airborne, when the fey reached down and jerked him up, as easily as I might have a kitten. “I expect you to follow orders, hundr, or you may find yourself on the auction block, instead of your cargo!”

  A gloved fist opened, and the merchant’s fine clothes ended up in the mud.

  And ten minutes later, Rosier and I were in a cart, with what looked like a cage built onto the back of it, jolting along a wreck of a road.

  We weren’t alone. There were a dozen women crammed in with us, all of whom looked as cold and miserable as I was. My clothes had been replaced a rough linen shift with a halter tie at the neck—slave wear, judging by the fact that everyone else was dressed the same. It was thin and backless to the waist, and I was barefoot, since they’d also taken my shoes. But other than being robbed, I hadn’t been harmed.

  Unlike Rosier. He’d acquired teeth marks in his arm and a boot print on his face, courtesy of a dog, its owner, and his current resemblance to a chew toy. The damage was minimal, but he was looking a little spooked. I’d put him behind me, in a corner of the cage, but not before everyone saw. Which probably explained why our companions were huddled on the opposite side, staring at us with wide eyes.

  I glanced behind me. Rosier had curled into a little ball, looking like he was cold, too. I put a fold of my skirt over him, and he looked up gratefully.

  He really wasn’t that bad, once you got used to him, I decided.

  “He isn’t so bad, once you get used to him,” I told everyone.

  It did not appear to help.

  I shut up and stared through the bars at the passing countryside, which didn’t tell me much, since it was the same close-packed tree line I’d been seeing for miles. Only not close enough. A thin rain had begun to fall, just as we were setting out, and while the top of the cage was covered, gusts of wind kept wetting us through the sides, making me shiver.

  And curse Pritkin even harder. Last time I showed up in beautiful, sunny Wales, I’d expected to find him mending a tunic or cooking dinner or some other mundane stuff. But what had he been doing? Running from the fey he’d just ripped off to the tune of a priceless staff. And since they’d just stolen it from someone else, someone who was going to require a literal pound of flesh if he found out, they’d been real motivated to get it back.

  We’d barely survived that little escapade, and now what was going on? Armies of fey on the road, Pritkin disguised as a slaver, and me . . . What the hell was he doing with me?

  Had he wanted to get rid of me? I hated to believe it, but it was kind of looking that way. Maybe because I hadn’t been in favor of the let’s-steal-a-valuable-fey-relic quest he had going on.

  I hadn’t known what the staff was at first, not being an expert on fey weapons—or godly ones, either—and had only figured it out later. So, of course, I’d been all about returning it. And going back to whatever Pritkin called a home and hanging out until the cursed soul decided to make an appearance.

  It had seemed like the best plan—it had been the best plan—but Pritkin hadn’t approved. He’d wanted to know what the Svarestri were doing with the staff, why they’d been taking it to court, and whether it represented a threat to his king. And I was standing in the way.

  So he sells me to a damn slaver?

  “What?” Rosier demanded suddenly.

  I looked down. “What’s wrong?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you. You’re looking . . . grim.”

  “Your son just sold me into slavery! How am I supposed to look?”

  Rosier yawned. “He didn’t.”

  “Oh, so I’m imagining this?”

  “No, but there’s something else going on.”

  “And you know that how?”

  He shrugged. “Emrys hates slavery. I don’t know what he’s up to—I never know what he’s up to—but he’s planning something.”

  Yeah, something he couldn’t let me in on. Something he couldn’t talk to me about for five seconds. Something he didn’t trust me enough to—damn it!

  “Get some rest,” Rosier advised, eyeing me. “You might need it later.”

  “You get some rest!”

  “Good idea.” He curled up under my skirts and went to sleep.

  I jolted along in the cage, getting progressively more angry and miserable by the minute. And not just because of Pritkin. But because the rain was coming down harder now, drumming on the wooden roof and dripping off the sides. And making the dips and holes in the so-called road fill up with water, so that we got splashed every time a wheel hit down.

  Not that it mattered. The wind was pretty much ensuring that we were all soaked to the skin anyway. Causing me to hug my knees, trying to preserve what body heat I had left. And making the thin shift I was wearing all but transparent. But it wasn’t outraged modesty that caught my attention, and had me blinking down at my chest in confusion.

  It was the necklace.

  Specifically, Billy’s necklace, which I wore so often that I tended to forget I had it on. But it was hard to ignore now, giving off a puddle of warmth against my icy skin, its central ruby glowing faintly through the halter’s loose weave. And nestled heavily between my breasts as usual, despite the fact that it had absolutely no business being there.

  The merchant had handed me over to a crabby old woman with black teeth and a harassed look. Who had dragged me into a tent, stripped me, and pawed through all my stuff. She’d taken everything, including my beat-up tennis shoes, my caked-with-mud T-shirt and shorts, even my underwear.

  Yet she left me this?

  It was even weirder when I realized that the necklace was heavy gold, set with a central ruby that acted as a talisman, along with several smaller ones on the sides. And while it was undoubtedly ugly as sin, with scrolls and flouris
hes and rococo doodads, it was also worth more than anything I’d seen in this entire country. Hell, for all I knew it might be worth more than the entire country, at least in this era, considering that most of what I’d seen of Wales consisted of mud and weeds.

  Yet she hadn’t taken it.

  I clasped it through the damp material, wondering if I was imagining things. But I could feel the weight in my palm, and Billy’s presence inside, just as I had in the suite. Too drained and exhausted to talk to me, or even to wake up from the stasis ghosts fell into when low on power, but undeniably there.

  If I was imagining things, I was doing a good job.

  My bracelet was sliding around my arm as well, but I’d half expected that. No one could remove that thing for long. But the necklace . . . I took it off all the time, since it was uncomfortable to sleep in. And if it had any special abilities to come find me again, they’d never shown up before.

  I thought about it for a minute, and then I poked Rosier. “Do you see anything?”

  He opened a heavy-lidded eye and looked at me blearily. “What?”

  I showed him my front. “Do you see anything?”

  He scowled. “Did you wake me up for this?”

  “I’m serious!”

  He sighed and muttered something that sounded like “women.” “Yes, they’re very nice. Can I go back to sleep now?”

  I frowned. “What are very nice?”

  “Oh, all right. They’re better than nice, if you like that sort.”

  “What sort?”

  “The big pillowy sort. I’ve always been more partial to the teacup variety myself.”

  I stared at him for a moment, and then I poked him again, hard. “We’re not talking about my breasts.”

  “What, then?”

  “The necklace!”

  “What necklace?”

  I stared. “You really can’t see it?”

  “See what? What are you blabbering about? Can’t you see I’m injured?”

  “He barely scratched you—”

  “He almost put a boot through my brain after his mongrel tried to devour me! I’m in a delicate condition! I cannot have these sorts of things happening! And you are supposed to protect me. I would like you to know that I consider this a failure on your—”

  I stopped listening, in favor of remembering that Gertie hadn’t taken the necklace, either. At the time, I’d just assumed that was due to it not being a weapon. But a friendly ghost was a useful thing to have, as I would have expected a fellow clairvoyant to know. Yet she’d let me keep him.

  I started looking around under my skirts and wrenching around, trying to see behind me. The knot of women crowded a little farther away, like they were afraid I was having a fit, while Rosier stopped his diatribe in order to scowl. “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for something.”

  “For what?”

  “For that,” I said, stopping at the sight of a small green tail poking out from under my right knee.

  I stayed very still, or as much as possible in a creaky old wagon with no shocks. And, for once, the tiny creature didn’t scurry off. Instead, slowly, tentatively, a small snout poked out to match the tail. And, above it, bright black eyes gleamed in a stream of moonlight, looking at me timidly.

  “It’s okay,” I told it softly. “You can come out.”

  It did, slowly, slowly, pausing every inch or so to look around, as if a hawk was going to swoop down out of the sky and snatch it up. But I thought that unlikely. Somehow I doubted even a hawk’s eyes could see it.

  Rosier’s sure couldn’t.

  “Have you lost your mind?” he asked, staring from my face to my—as far as he was concerned—totally uninteresting knee.

  I ignored him some more and held a finger down to the little green lizard. It hopped on board, the iridescent hide flowing smoothly from the skin of my knee to the back of my hand, then scurrying through my fingers and across my palm, before finally finding refuge under the ball of my thumb. And then disappearing altogether, when Rosier stuck his nose into the mix.

  He thrust the stubby proto appendage to within an inch of my hand and then turned to look at me accusingly.

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’s nothing—”

  “Don’t give me that! You tell me what you’re doing right now! We are in sixth-century Wales—”

  “I know where we are.”

  “Then you know this is not the time for you to have a mental—”

  “I’m not having a mental anything.”

  “—breakdown, or to keep secrets from your partner!”

  “Oh, we’re partners now?”

  “Just tell me!”

  “I was going to, if you’d give me a second,” I said, exasperated. “It’s a ward.”

  “What?”

  “A. Ward. One Mac made. He’s a friend of Pritkin’s,” I added. “Or he was.”

  “Was?”

  “He died,” I said shortly. Because Mac was another of the people I’d lost on this journey. One who’d believed in me. One whose trust I had yet to validate, whose sacrifice I had yet to honor, because that could only be done one way—by winning this.

  But it looked like he’d left me some help.

  “Mac specialized in magical tattoos,” I explained. “When he died, some of them transferred themselves to me. This is the last one left.”

  “What does it do?” Rosier demanded, squinting. Like that would help.

  “I didn’t think it did anything.” Mac had been a war mage, before a debilitating injury led to an early retirement. He’d taken to making up wards in his spare time, to sell to the magical community. And, naturally, considering that his clientele mostly came from his old profession, the majority had been useful for battle in some way: improving senses, strengthening stamina, or acting as outright weapons. Like one in the form of a sleek black panther he’d named Sheba, which had attacked enemies with all the savagery of the real thing.

  But garden lizards aren’t known for their ferocity, and if this little guy had increased my abilities any, I’d failed to notice.

  The bright black eyes reappeared, materializing on the skin of my knuckles, Cheshire Cat–style. The rest of it followed, somehow managing to seem solid and 3-D, despite being flat against my hand. Yet it could disappear again in an instant, fading away into nothingness.

  Like the necklace.

  I smiled, finally understanding. “Mac didn’t make you to fight, did he?” I asked softly. “He made you to conceal.”

  Because what did a war mage need as much as his weapons?

  A way to make sure that no one took them from him.

  “What?” Rosier looked testy. “What are you talking about? What is it?”

  “A chameleon,” I said, wondering why I hadn’t figured it out before. But then, I often forgot it was there, until its little claws pitter-pattered over my skin in the middle of the night, waking me up. Because mostly, I didn’t even see it, a fact that I’d put down to shyness.

  But no.

  It was just doing its job.

  It seemed uncomfortable out in the open, so I held it up to my shoulder and it hopped from there to my hairline, scurrying over the skin of my neck, making me shiver. Or maybe that was the cold. Because the rain had finally slacked off, leaving a star-studded sky peeking through gaps in the clouds. But the wind had picked up, causing me to pull closer to Rosier. Not that he seemed in the mood for a cuddle.

  “I don’t see how that helps us,” he said testily. “Unless you’re packing an AK-47 I failed to notice.”

  “It wouldn’t help if I was. We can’t go around shooting people—”

  “According to you.”

  “According to common sense. It would change the timeline.”

  “Yes, and that wo
uld be a shame. The one we have being so successful,” he said crabbily, and hunkered down under my damp skirts.

  Rosier didn’t seem to take roughing it well. But he had a point. As nice as it was to finally discover what my little companion did, I didn’t see it helping us out of this. The same was true of Billy, who was too weak to materialize without a power boost I couldn’t afford to give him. And my bracelet, which was too dangerous to use, since I couldn’t predict what it would do. So, okay, I wasn’t going to have to steal back my stuff from some peddler, but other than that . . . it looked like we were still screwed.

  I sighed.

  The rain dripped off the roofline.

  We jolted around some huge boulders that were jutting out into the path, all mossy and green and running with rivulets.

  And suddenly, a vista opened up before us.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I hadn’t realized how high we were, since we hadn’t seemed to be hiking uphill all that much. But we must have, or else we’d been higher than I’d thought when we came in. Because we were looking down into a vast, sprawling valley.

  In the distance, the sloping sides of a mountain range receded in ranks, becoming darker and more indistinct until they were finally lost in mist. Below, the deep blue night was studded with flickering campfires, like a reflection of the heavens above. It caused an optical illusion, making it hard to tell where sky ended and earth began, and made me dizzy enough that it took me a minute to realize what I was seeing.

  And even then I didn’t believe it.

  Because there were hundreds of them.

  Hundreds and hundreds of campfires. Meaning that the army we’d passed on the road, which had now stopped for the night, had to be numbered in the thousands. Thousands of fey, more than I’d ever expected to see on earth—more than I’d ever expected to see period—and at their center, what looked like a whole city built out of tents.

  The other women had gathered around, dirty hands clinging to the bars, pale faces staring out, momentarily forgetting their fear in the face of overwhelming awe. I doubted any of them had ever seen anything like it. I knew I hadn’t—and that I hadn’t read about it, either.