“I’ll bring in your plate shortly, sir,” said Nira before she scuttled out of the room.
Jayson emptied his glass and lowered himself into his favorite chair. The laughter and calls of the children outside filtered in through the cracks of the windows and doors like dust—like air.
Soon, he would hear the women begin their afternoon tasks at the cabins. Jayson would sit and listen to the evening chatter, the singing, the music. He would listen to the Guardians bidding each other good night and the sounds of the cabins being shut up for the night. And then he would listen to Cook cleaning up in the kitchen, the clatter of pottery and utensil banging against each other, the splash of water, the gruff force of the wet rag against the pots and pans. He would listen to Nira report the day’s goings on, how the pantry needed to be replenished, how the wood pile was getting low, how the drought made the air too dry. Then he would listen to Nira retreat to her room and close the door, shoving the bolt into place. That one last sound every night reminded him, more than anything, that he was a stranger here.
Finally, Jayson would listen to the silence. He might retreat to his own room and undress for the night, or he might remain in his chair beside the fireplace and listen to the crackle of the flames. Either way, he would listen to the wooden beams in the house shifting their weight, to the wind pressing against the windows, the crickets calling to their mates. Eventually he would drift off to sleep, always with her name upon his lips, the only sound that ever really mattered to him.
Ivanore.
11
Brommel had slept fitfully during the night, unable to keep the memories of Brielle at bay. When the sun woke him, he was surprised to find Arla had already packed her blankets and taken down the tent.
“Here,” she said, handing him the folded cloths. She then held out her hands. “I’ll take my things now.”
At first, Brommel didn’t know what she meant, his mind was still foggy from lack of sleep. But then he remembered and fished out her food, book, and other items from his pack. Then they ventured into Vrystal Canyon, Brommel taking the lead.
Despite feeling weary, Brommel’s senses were heightened. He had had no encounter coming through the canyon before, but he kept his dagger in hand just the same. One could never be too careful.
As the canyon narrowed, Brommel brushed his fingers across the stone. One side was damp with moss, an unusual trait of this place. No one really knew why water seemed to seep from the very stone itself. Wind curled down from the cliffs above as well, sending a cold shiver down his spine.
The path ahead wound to the right, cutting off Brommel’s view. The sound of the wind reminded him of a woman moaning in childbirth. It chilled him to the core. He shook it off and moved forward.
“Stay close,” he said over his shoulder to Arla. He glanced back to reassure himself that the woman was still with him. She was, though her face revealed little of the concern Brommel felt.
The turns ahead tightened so that they could only see a few yards ahead at a time. Despite the stories he’d heard, he had traveled this route at least three times in the past two years and had never run into any problems. Then why did he feel so anxious now?
A stiff, cold wind drove into Brommel, pushing him back. Dust eddied around him, and he accidentally pulled some into his lungs. He coughed and closed his eyes against the assault. He turned his back to the wind and pulled his collar up around his face. The sharp sting of dirt needling his skin drove him to arch his spine and hide his face.
“Arla,” he said in a raspy breath. He could feel the dust clinging to his lips. “Arla, we might have to go back until this lets up. We can’t move forward like this.”
But his voice was lost in the wind. He stood like that for several minutes, the brutal wind pounding on his back as if it were some giant’s fist hindering his progress. And then all of a sudden, the attack ceased. The wind died down to a breathless emptiness, while the sand and dust fell to the ground in lifeless heaps.
Brommel straightened and brushed the dirt from his hair and shoulders, brown clouds of it rising from his body. He spat out the soil that had made its way between his lips and teeth, and the brown clump of wet sludge landed at his feet.
“I hope that’s the last of this crazy wind,” he said, nearly laughing. But when Arla said nothing in reply, he looked to the spot where he expected her to be. No one was there.
“Arla?” he called out. “Arla, where are you?”
She must have turned back, he realized. He’d told her to do just that, though he had not followed his own advice. So he started backtracking through the narrow pathway, and every so often he called her name again.
“Arla!”
When he stepped around a bend and spotted the woman standing in the middle of the path, her feet planted firmly on the ground and arms coiled around her abdomen, he at first felt relief. He had found her, and now they could continue on their way.
“Let’s hurry,” he told her, “before another blast hits us.”
But the woman said nothing. He had grown accustomed to Arla’s silence, so he thought nothing of the lack of reply. But when he began walking, she did not follow him.
“Arla,” he said, turning back for her. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
He took her elbow, which he realized was bare to the shoulder. She had been wearing a linen blouse and skirt, with a red scarf wrapped around her neck. But now the scarf was missing, the blouse and skirt replaced by a ragged brown tunic that hung over her body like a sack.
“Where are your clothes?” Brommel asked. “What’s happened?”
Arla turned to face him, and the expression in her eyes sent a chill through him. It was a look of hunger, of anticipation and greed.
He let go of her arm and stepped back, reaching for his dagger as he did so. But the creature moved with the speed of a snake striking its prey. It snatched Brommel’s shoulder with both hands, which were rapidly transforming. The fingers lengthened into thick, scaled claws, and the jaws opened sickeningly wide, the teeth extending into curved white fangs.
Brommel tried to slash at the beast with his blade, but the creature had slid its powerful arms around his body and pressed his arms against his sides, making his hands useless. In another moment, the beast would tear out his throat.
The twisted half-formed figure of Arla jerked its head back and wailed. Next, Brommel heard a loud thump and saw a stream of blood spray across the canyon wall. There were more thumps, and the beast’s arms spasmed and then went slack. Brommel, now free, buried his dagger into the beast’s chest.
The beast cried out once more, then its eyes rolled back in its head. Its body went limp, and as it fell forward, it revealed Arla, the real Arla, standing behind it, a bloody dagger clenched in her fist. She was breathing heavily.
Brommel gaped. He hadn’t realized the woman had brought along a weapon at all. He wiped his dagger clean on the dead beast’s tunic. Arla did the same.
“Are you all right?” Brommel asked.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?” she replied.
“I called for you, but you didn’t answer.”
“When the wind picked up, I stayed back. These bursts don’t usually last long, but you moved on ahead. I tried to call out to you too, but you couldn’t hear me. In a cyclone of dust, I saw the groc. It studied me for a moment, but then vanished. I had a feeling it was after you, so I followed it.”
Arla lifted her skirt and slid her blade into a concealed leather strap above her knee. Brommel’s eyes remained on the spot even after Arla dropped the fabric back into place.
“We should move on,” she said.
Brommel blinked and nodded in agreement. “Right,” he said. “I’ll, uh, take the lead?”
For the first time since he’d met her, Arla smiled.
12
The boy was no more than twelve years, Ivanore was certain of that. He was thin but strong, a boy accustomed to working the fields, probably alongside
his father. His eyes, a velvet brown, pinned her in place. He held no weapon, but she suspected that if she made any sudden moves, he would shout and wake the rest of the house and perhaps their neighbors.
“Who are you?” the boy asked, his voice edged with fear. “What are you doing in here?”
Ivanore stood still and tried to keep her breathing even. “I’m so sorry,” she said, mustering a feeble smile. “I was hungry, and I—”
“So you broke in to steal our food.”
There was no point in lying, Ivanore realized. “Yes,” she said. “Though the door was unlocked. I wanted some bread, but it was wrong of me. I’m sorry.”
“I should report you,” the boy said. “My father knows the constable. There is no mercy for thieves here.”
For a moment, Ivanore considered using her magic to silence the boy, but she did not want to hurt him. His life would be short enough, she feared. Instead, she pulled the loaf from her bag and held it out to the boy, but he didn’t take it.
The boy narrowed his eyes and studied her. “I know you,” he said in a whisper. “You’re Minister Arik’s witch.”
At the sound of her brother’s name, Ivanore drew her cloak protectively around her shoulders.
“Your skin,” continued the boy, “pale as sand, like him. You’re from Imaness too. I’ve heard about you, how you’ve helped him.”
“I never helped him,” Ivanore snapped. But then she lowered her voice. “But I am sorry for all the misery he’s caused since he’s come here.”
“He has no right to be Minister of Hestoria,” continued the boy. “My father says so.”
“Your father is right.”
The boy’s expression softened. When he stepped toward Ivanore, she stiffened, expecting him to grab her. But instead, he reached past her and lifted something from the table. “Are you thirsty?” he asked.
She nodded warily.
The boy held out a nearly full leather bladder with a cap on one end. “Luckily, I refilled it after I went hunting today.”
Ivanore accepted the bladder, removed the cap, and poured the cool, wet contents into her mouth. She hadn’t realized how dry her lips and tongue were until the water revived them. She swallowed over and over again until every drop was gone. Only when she had finished drinking did she realize how desperate she must look to the boy. Embarrassed, she tried to give the bladder back.
“Keep it,” said the boy. Then he reached for the table again and picked up the second loaf of bread.
“You’ll need this too,” he said. “I’ll bake more in the morning.”
Ivanore hesitantly accepted the boy’s gifts. “What will you tell your father? About the missing loaves?”
“That I had a midnight craving for bread,” he replied, smiling. “You’re brave. Running away from the Minister. If he’s as mad as everyone says, you’ll have hell to pay when he catches you.”
Ivanore nodded and tucked both loaves and the water bladder beneath her cloak. Then she hurried to the door. As she opened it, she turned back to the boy.
In that moment when she looked at his lean body and face full of youthful innocence, her heart squeezed with fear. She wanted so much to take him with her, to rescue him from his future fate. But how could she do that? How could she ask him to leave his home, his family? What excuse could she give?
Ivanore smiled tearfully. “Thank you, Bastien,” was all she could say.
The boy frowned. “You know my name.”
Ivanore caught her breath. It had slipped out so naturally she hadn’t even realized it. Yes, she realized now, she had heard his name in the vision.
He had called her Arik’s witch. She would have to let him believe it. “I am terribly grateful. I owe you my life.”
The boy seemed to question her with doubtful eyes, but the look passed, and he smiled. “You owe me nothing,” he said.
With a final, reluctant goodbye, Ivanore slipped through the door into the night. She moved back the way she had come. She was a thief, she thought, feeling the shape of the loaves under her cloak. But what choice did she have? Bastien had understood. He had willingly helped her, but why? She shivered at the memory of her vision of him. When would Arik come for this village? And why would he come? What will they have done to anger him? She tried to see it, but her mind refused to clear. Since she had left the castle, a hazy veil had obscured her seeing. It must be the hunger, the fatigue, she reasoned.
Pushing any concern she had from her thoughts, Ivanore ran back into the forest. In her haste to move on, she failed to notice the pair of yellow eyes watching her from the darkness.
13
Brommel held his hands up to the fire in the tavern’s hearth. The stones radiated heat, warming him to his core. After dispatching the groc in Vrystal Canyon, Brommel and Arla continued their journey to Noam and rented two rooms at the local inn, which wasn’t all that comfortable since the structures and furniture were designed to accommodate the smaller-statured Noamish rather than humans, who stood more than a foot taller than the local residents. Still, the service was good, the food satisfactory. And sleeping on a small mattress for a night was still better than sleeping on the ground.
Arla sat in a chair beside Brommel, sipping from a mug of hot tea. They had said very little during their two days together, but now Brommel was curious. He had judged Arla wrongly, assuming she was—well, he didn’t know what he had assumed—that she was a woman, and he did not expect her to be capable of killing a creature as powerful and deadly as a groc. Yet she had done so without hesitation, without fear. Brommel had Arla to thank for his life, and he had yet to mention it.
He pressed the back of his head into the cushion of his chair. His own mug of liquor sat on the small round table between him and Arla. He reached for it but then let his hand fall away.
“I haven’t thanked you,” he began haltingly, “for what you did in the canyon.”
Arla finished her drink and set the mug on the table beside Brommel’s. She did not meet his eyes when she replied.
“You don’t have to thank me,” she said. “It’s not the first time I’ve encountered a groc. They come around for our goats sometimes. Worse than wolves. Worse than snakes.”
“Really? How so?”
“They leave most of their prey behind. Only take the head and heart. A waste really.”
She said this so matter-of-factly that Brommel couldn’t help but wonder what this woman, this farmer’s wife, had seen and experienced in her lifetime. He thought too of the groc that had nearly gotten him. Would the beast have made off with Brommel’s head? He shuddered to think of it.
“Even more reason to thank you,” Brommel offered sincerely. “I would be ungrateful if I didn’t say it.”
The woman raised her eyes to his for the first time since they’d survived the groc’s attack. Brommel once again was taken back by their color, rich as honey. She looked at him as if she were trying to read him, to understand the meaning behind his words. As if she thought he was lying. Was she so accustomed to being lied to that she could not trust a simple expression of gratitude? After a moment, however, she smiled a little, her eyes releasing some of their distrust.
“You’ll have to forgive me,” she said. “I’m very tired. I’ll go to my room now, if you don’t mind.”
Her gaze remained fixed on his for a moment longer before she excused herself and left Brommel alone in front of the fire. If she had been her husband or any other collected man, he would not have let her go off alone. Some of Brommel’s collections had to be restrained with ropes, but Arla had come with him willingly. In his heart, he felt that he needn’t fear her running off. And even if she did, he had already decided he would not go after her.
Brommel turned back to the fire and stared at the flames devouring a blackened log. A server, a young woman just three feet high, approached to refill his mug, but finding it still full, she moved on to another customer instead.
The image of Arla’s eyes played across B
rommel’s mind. She carried such sadness in them, he realized, and why shouldn’t she? She had left her daughter and husband behind. He understood that sort of weight that a man or woman can carry for a lifetime. He had the same burden, the same incurable sadness. Only he would never see his wife and daughter again. Not in this life.
Brommel finally took up his mug and drank from it. The liquid burned as it slid down his throat, heating his esophagus and stomach. He did not want Arla to carry her burden for a lifetime. He couldn’t say how he knew it, but she deserved better than that. She deserved to be happy.
Brommel clasped the mug tightly as he cursed himself for letting Arla come. What had he been thinking? He’d been thinking about himself, of course, about the wasted trip to Quendel and being shorted on his pay should he fail to deliver. How could he have been so selfish? To tear a family apart for a few coins that he could live without? Brielle’s face appeared before him, her face a mask of disappointment. Would he have ever allowed her to do what Arla had done? No. Never. He would have killed the man who would try to take her from him.
But a man had taken her from him. And he did not kill him. Brommel had left that task to someone else, and then he ran. He took his boy and fled to Imaness, to safety.
A coward, Brommel hissed under his breath. I am nothing more than a coward.
Brommel drained his mug. Then he stood up and fished a coin from his pocket, leaving it on the table for the server. He would take Arla back, that’s all there was to it. He would take her back to Quendel, to her family, and deal with the consequences later. But then he remembered Ivanore. Ivanore was the reason Arla had wanted to leave. She had made a vow to the princess, but what of it? Ivanore was far away, and who knew when or if she’d ever return to Imaness. And Arla had her family to think of, didn’t she? They needed her, here and now. Surely, he could convince her of that.
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