by Amber Argyle
But … So many mistakes. So many wrongs. Their two nations bound as enemies. The war she felt sure was coming. The curse pulsing in the forest around them—a curse she was no longer sure she was meant to break. But in this moment, they were safe and together. In this moment, that was enough.
She took his face in her hands and kissed him again. His lips were soft, pliant beneath hers. He let her set the pace. She explored his mouth, the taste of him. The feel of his smooth beardless cheeks beneath her hands.
Something shifted inside her. She would no longer run from Denan, no longer push him away. From now on, he would be the place she ran to. He would be her home.
Denan had been right all along. He was her heartsong. And it was more than a little terrifying. When she pulled back, she was shaking.
“Larkin?” he whispered.
“It’s just … It’s a lot. To love you. To let go of all that happened before. To move away from everything I knew into nothing I do.” She chuckled nervously. “Am I making any sense?”
He brushed her cheek. “No,” he teased.
She chuckled. They held each other until his breathing deepened and steadied. His arms slackened around her. She wanted to stay with him, but she desperately needed to empty her bladder. And she should check on her mother and sisters and help with the injured..
Denan didn’t stir as she eased from his arms. She slipped down the tree. Talox waited below. The engineers, who had also been held in reserve and so had some sleep, trekked out, packs of equipment on their backs or carried between them. They started toward her mother’s tree while eating a quick breakfast of dried fruit and cheese.
“There you are.” Larkin turned at her mother’s call. Pennice came from the direction of the healer’s tent, which was overflowing. She pushed the baby into her arms along with a bag filled with bloody bandages. “Take Sela to the river. Start a fire, boil the used bandages, and pack the baby’s dried swaddling.”
“I can help with the healing.” I’ve decided to love Denan. To never leave him. Why couldn’t she say it out loud?
Mama stepped closer. “I’m the one with medical knowledge, and this is no place for a four-year-old. We need clean bandages as much as anything, and it will be a while before they’ve packed up the rest of the camp.”
Was Larkin no more use than as a babysitter and laundress? Still, she held the baby close, took Sela’s hand, and led her to the edge of the pool. The waterfall sparkled golden in the morning light.
Larkin wrapped Brenna in Denan’s cloak. Lighting the end of a stick in a nearby campfire, she pressed the smoking end into the leaf detritus she’d gathered and blew until she had a cheery little flame that fought back the early morning chill.
Sela crouched beside it, dumped out a pile of little sticks, and began arranging them into people with leaves for clothes and hair. Six people. And next to it, she built a little hut of stones.
Their family at home. While their father had betrayed them all, Nesha had never betrayed Sela. Had only ever tried to protect her. Sela was only four. She couldn’t understand all the reasons Nesha and Harben were no longer with them. But she clearly missed them.
In contrast, Larkin had been fighting resentment and uncertainty of Nesha. Ashamed of herself, she touched each one and tried to guess which was which. Sela would shake her head or nod. By the end, she was almost smiling.
Larkin pulled her in close, tucking her under her arm. “I love you.”
Sela nested against her.
Larkin kissed her head. “Sela, what did you mean when you said the trees were our friends?”
Sela shifted and looked up at her, lips sealed.
Larkin tried to keep her frustration at bay. “Please, Sela. Talk to me.”
Sela turned back to the fire. Talox set a heavy pot of water to boil and left again.
“Did you remove the curse?” Larkin asked in a whisper. “Are you the one Denan was meant to find?”
Sela blinked up at her.
Larkin laughed nervously. “You don’t even understand what I’m talking about.” She passed a hand down her face. “Of course you don’t. Come on. You’re going to help with the washing.”
Larkin scrubbed out the bloody rags on the shore. Sela hauled them into the pot to boil. Brenna wiggled and stared at the leaves and birds above her head.
Larkin felt a presence behind her and turned to find Sela, her face pale. She pointed to the other side of the river. Larkin followed the gesture but saw nothing.
“Sela? What’s the matter?”
Sela motioned frantically for Larkin to follow. Scooping up the baby, Larkin grabbed Sela’s hand and hustled up the bank.
Talox rushed toward them, ax and shield in hand. “What is it?”
Heart hammering, Larkin shook her head. “I don’t—”
A scream pierced the air. Sela ducked behind Talox and buried her head in his legs. Putting himself between them and the river, Talox ushered them deeper into camp.
Pipers rushed past them, weapons out.
Larkin glanced over her shoulder at the opposite side of the mouth of the river. Bushes shifted. Someone crashed through, landing on his back with a mulgar on top of him. The two rolled. A knife flashed, black blood dripping. The man staggered to his feet. Only it wasn’t a man.
It was Maisy.
Bloody knife in hand, Maisy stabbed the mulgar again and again, though it was clearly already dead. Black blood dripping down her face, she fixed her blue eyes on Larkin before she noted the pipers taking up defensive positions. Her expression wild, she retreated, the bush she’d emerged from half swallowing her.
Sela whimpered. Somehow, she’d known. There wasn’t time to consider how.
Larkin pushed Brenna into Talox’s arms. “Maisy!”
“Larkin—” Talox began.
Larkin forced Sela’s hand into his. “Take them to my mother!”
He stiffened. “My orders are—”
“Then find someone else to do it.” She shoved between the soldiers, ran past the mouth of the river, and stood on the riverbank.
“Maisy,” Larkin called over the river rushing between them. “It’s not safe on that side.”
Half hidden behind the bush, Maisy’s gaze shifted to the dozens of armed men lining the top of the embankment. “I will not be the plaything of pipers. I will never be a plaything of anyone ever again.”
Larkin held out her hand. “I swear that won’t happen.” Maisy considered Larkin’s empty palm. “Are you hungry? I’m sure we can find you some breakfast.”
Maisy started at something behind her, something Larkin couldn’t see. More mulgars? She darted to her feet and ran along the embankment.
Pushing past pipers, Larkin tried to keep pace with her. “Maisy! Maisy, come here before it’s too late.” She bumped into another solid piper. “Move!”
To her surprise, he jumped to obey.
Behind Maisy, mulgars breached the tree line. The pipers loosed arrows. Talox’s tree trunk of an arm snaked around Larkin’s waist and hauled her behind the line of soldiers.
“Where are my sisters?” Larkin cried. He was supposed to be looking after them.
“The same place you’re going.”
He’d come back too soon to have given them to her mother. He must have passed them on to someone else. She tried to pry his arms off her, but they were like iron bands. “Put me down! Maisy won’t trust anyone else.”
“Maisy’s well-being isn’t my priority. Yours is.” Having reached safety, he released her.
She made to march back to the river, but Talox blocked her. “Don’t.”
She glared at him. “You said last night I had been chosen as a warrior. Start treating me like it.”
“You’re not ready.”
She flared her sword and shield. “I am. For this, I am.” She would not let another person down—not one more.
He considered her before giving a tight-lipped nod.
Relieved, Larkin released her weapons a
nd hurried downstream and pushed through pipers. When they didn’t move fast enough, she barked, “Move!” Just like before, they did.
On the other side of the river, the mulgars had taken cover from the pipers’ relentless arrows behind the trees. Occasionally, one would try to loose an arrow in the direction of the pipers, but their arrows never made it past the halfway mark of the river.
Maisy crouched along the bank, a fallen tree trunk between her and the mulgars.
A mulgar stood, drew his ugly bow, and loosed an arrow at her. It thunked into the trunk. Arrows from the pipers rained down on him as he ducked out of sight. Maisy hunched down lower, her arms over her head. She was going to get herself killed if she stayed over there.
“Swim, Maisy!” Larkin demanded.
Across the distance, their gazes met. Maisy hesitated, expression conflicted. She winced, touched her leg, glared at the pipers, then bolted straight at the mulgars.
“What are you doing?” Larkin cried.
“Which of you tried to dart her?” Talox thundered.
Maisy’s wince—someone had darted her. She would be unconscious in moments—unconscious and helpless at the hands of mulgars. Larkin gasped in outrage.
From Maisy’s right, a mulgar darted into the open, his path aimed at intercepting her. Instead of veering in the opposite direction, Maisy kept on. Could she not see him bearing down on her?
“Maisy!” Larkin cried. The fool girl wasn’t listening. “Bring him down!” she cried to the pipers. A hundred arrows rained. One punctured his wrist. He dropped the club but didn’t fall.
Half a dozen steps before the two would have collided, Maisy launched herself toward a branch. She hooked her foot around it and pulled herself up a wide tree. The mulgar grabbed her other foot and yanked. She managed to hold on by her fingertips. The mulgar bared his stained teeth, his mouth gaping wide over her exposed calf.
Another half dozen arrows bloomed from his back. Still trying to hold on, the creature staggered back. Maisy kicked him in the face. He dropped hard. She hauled herself up and climbed, the thin tree shaking and wavering under her weight.
“You fool!” one of the pipers cried. “Lie down before the venom makes you fall!”
Talox grabbed the man’s leather breastplate and shook him. “What were you thinking, putting her at risk like that? Did you hit her?”
The man, who was impossibly handsome, paled at the sight of Talox towering over him. “I might have nicked her,” he admitted.
Envenomed and halfway up a tree surrounded by mulgars.
“Talox,” Larkin said. “We can’t let her die.”
Their gazes met. The memory of Venna’s death hung heavy between them. Even when she lay dying, they had both refused to leave her behind.
“I’ll shield us,” Larkin said. “We’ll be safe enough.”
He passed a hand down his face. “If we go with a contingent of pipers—”
“She won’t come, and I can’t shield an entire contingent.”
He stared her down. “Denan is going to kill me.”
Her insides felt watery. “I’ll protect you.”
“Can you swim?”
Ancestors, she was not going to throw up, but the mere thought of going in the river that had nearly taken her life as a girl … And then she had to face mulgars on the other side.
Mute, she nodded.
Talox stripped off his armor and gave orders for a dozen pipers to lash their shields together to create a kind of raft. While they worked, Talox took Larkin’s hand. Together, they waded into the river. The cold was a shock against Larkin’s skin, and she gasped.
When the water reached their waists, Talox laid out his shield and rested his ax atop it. “Hold on. That way we won’t be separated.”
She nodded, too terrified to speak and glad she could blame her chattering on the cold. Perhaps seeing an easy target, one of the mulgars popped up and loosed a black arrow. It speared into the water a dozen feet in front of them.
“Now would be the time for the shield,” Talox said.
She flared her magic, stretching the shield wide enough that it covered both of them. Talox nodded, and they pushed forward and started kicking and swimming with one hand.
Emboldened, more mulgars left cover to fire at Maisy, the pipers on the other side, or Larkin and Talox. Their crude arrows glanced off her shield, which rippled. She felt each blow—a twinge in her magic—but her shield held beautifully.
She could do this. She was doing it.
A couple of mulgars positioned themselves behind Maisy’s tree and chopped at the trunk with their axes. The branches shuddered with each blow. Halfway up, Maisy wavered like a woman deep in her cups. The forest take her, she was going to get herself killed before Larkin could rescue her.
“Maisy, lie down before you collapse!”
Maisy obeyed, slumping across two branches, and didn’t move again.
Talox found purchase first and pushed to his feet, hauling his shield and Larkin with him. Out of breath, careful to keep her shield up, she scrambled to get her feet under her in the sticky mud. Mulgars charged from the cover of trees. The pipers on the other side put them down just as quickly.
Talox hefted his ax and shield into position. “Flare your sword. Stay behind me. Keep the shield up.”
He rushed up the embankment. She struggled to keep up with him. The mulgars left cover to charge them, their eyes glazed with frantic hunger. The pipers loosed at any that emerged, dropping one after another.
There were too many to stop them all. The closer they came, the more details Larkin could see—broken fingers, missing teeth, bald spots on their heads. And the smell—filth and rot.
When Larkin and Talox were halfway to Maisy, the first mulgar slammed into her shield and bounced back, the impact shuddering through her connection. It didn’t hurt so much as vibrate uncomfortably.
Another hit her shield. And another. And another. She gritted her teeth, forcing herself to hold it. Three mulgars rose to their feet and circled around. She tried to make it bigger but didn’t dare expend any more energy.
The first reached Talox.
“Talox,” she cried in warning.
He was already swinging. He blocked its spiked mace with his shield and chopped its shoulder. The creature staggered back, what remained of its arm dangling. Oblivious to the pain, it charged him again. Talox kicked it down and ended the creature with his ax in its chest.
He barely pulled it out in time to meet the next mulgar.
The third veered toward Larkin. Remembering her lesson with Talox the night before, she lengthened her sword and drove it into the creature’s chest. She felt the weight of the mulgar shift and sag, like her sword was a line tethering them.
The mulgar’s eyes focused, locked with hers. Then it dropped to the ground. Dead. Her sword flickered and faded.
“Larkin!” Talox barked.
She started and felt her connection to the magic wavering. She opened her sigils wide, unintentionally pulsing, which threw a dozen mulgars back.
The tree holding Maisy groaned and tilted—the mulgars had managed to chop through half the trunk. The mulgars charging Larkin and Talox didn’t notice as it turned in place like a dancer, leaves fluttering. It tipped, slowly at first, and then faster and faster.
It was going to land on Talox and Larkin.
“Larkin!” Talox shouted. He barreled into her, pushing her under him, his body a shield over her. Flat on her back, she watched the tree rush toward them. Holding her hand out, she held her shield in place and shut her eyes.
Her shield sigil shuddered but held as the tree crashed down on them. She opened her eyes to find them surrounded by branches in the bubble of safety.
Talox blinked. “That’s handy.”
“Maisy,” she cried. Ancestors, she’d been in the tree when it had fallen.
“Stay here.” Talox pushed off her and passed through the shield as if it somehow recognized friend from foe.
Ignoring her, he waded and climbed through branches, his ax swinging on mulgars rising to their feet. He bent, plucking Maisy from the green.
Not far from Larkin, a mulgar struggled free. Before she could raise her sword, the pipers ended him.
Maisy over his shoulder, Talox struggled through branches toward her. Larkin channeled more magic into her sword, making the edge razor sharp, then she blazed a path out of the tree. Three swipes, and they were free.
Huffing, Talox ran beside her. The way to the river was clear. Larkin formed the shield behind them to protect from any arrows. The pipers who’d made a makeshift raft out of shields were halfway across the river. Larkin wasn’t sure what it was for until Talox settled Maisy inside.
Larkin hadn’t even considered how they would drag an unconscious Maisy through the river. Relief that Talox had at least thought ahead, she sloshed back into the river, which now felt warm against her chilled skin.
“Hold on and worry about that shield,” Talox said.
As the pipers pushed the raft into the current, Larkin forced her hand through a strap on the back of a shield and looked back. Mulgars rushed them. The piper archers loosed arrows, dropping mulgars by the dozens, yet still they came.
Larkin opened her sigils wide, flaring her shield as wide as it would go. It formed a dome over them. Mulgars paused at the side of the river, careful not to let a drop touch them, and loosed their own arrows. They rained down on the shield, which rippled and danced. It stung, as if Larkin’s sigils were raw from multiple hits.
Mulgars crumpled by the dozens as the pipers filled their bodies with arrows. Lying on his back, one mulgar raised his bow, sighting beneath the shield. Then his arrow was gone, and Talox hissed, a line of blood sheeting down his arm.
“Talox!” she cried.
“I’m all right,” he said through clenched teeth.
Helpless to assist him, Larkin concentrated on holding on. The strap dug into her forearm painfully. Pipers waded out, grasping the raft and hauling them in. Not sure if she could release her shield, she glanced back to the shore. The mulgars were all dead.