Soren had gone, moonstone in hand, to check there were no patrols nearby, and to find a safe place to camp.
Mirabelle stood alone in the trees and admired Nuen’s confidence.
He only needed to look out of his tower to see the Great Forest lying spread out before him. And to know he was tauntingly close to wild magic.
Sky magic glimmered over the wall and Miri straightened as she heard screaming, then shouting. The magic cut abruptly off, and left her pulse hammering in her ears.
A ball of wild magic shimmered to life just to her right, spinning in place for a long moment before it seemed to catch an invisible breeze and move off into the trees.
She concentrated on the stronghold, wondering if they were too late, whether Eric had changed his mind and decided to strike down Nuen before he travelled to Halakan.
She couldn’t see the front gate from the place Soren had left her, but she thought she heard the creak of hinges, more raised voices.
She crept forward, working her way deeper into the trees for safety. When she reached a place where she could see the entrance, she pressed herself up against a tree and peered around the trunk.
The gates were open halfway, and two men were backing out of the stronghold, their hands raised. Their faces and their posture didn’t speak of surrender, though. It seemed more as if they were conveying they had no weapons and meant no harm.
“Shoot them. Shoot them now.” The man who screamed the order was short, possibly only an inch or two taller than she was. His face was red, and while sky magic danced down his arms, Miri could see he was spent, he had nothing left to give or he wouldn’t have been calling the archers on the gate towers and on the battlements to shoot.
The interesting thing was, the men were ignoring him.
“Nuen.” A large man, with a hard, tight belly hanging over his belt, came into view. “That’s enough.”
Nuen looked at the new arrival, a man Miri guessed must be his brother, Jasper, and drew back his lips, baring his teeth. “I need them.”
“Why were you asking the men to shoot them, then?” Jasper tried to soften his tone, but it came out hard, and exasperated.
“I didn’t mean kill them, just shoot them.” He pointed to one of the men at the gate. “Just shoot them!”
The man looked over at Jasper, and he gave a small shake of his head. “Close the gates.”
Miri saw the relief in the guards as they obeyed him. There was a tension in their bearing that signaled some of them were frightened, and at least one, as he pulled the heavy doors closed, looked longingly out at the men half-hobbling away, as if he’d like to join them.
She realized there was something strange about the men as they drew level with her.
They were hobbling, like there was something wrong with their legs, although she could see no injuries or signs of crookedness. As they moved, their limps became less pronounced, until they disappeared beyond her sight, jogging almost normally.
“I thought I left you in a safer spot.” Soren’s body was suddenly pressed up against her back as he whispered in her ear.
She swallowed back a scream, looked back at him, to find he wasn’t there.
She narrowed her eyes, and he appeared, a grin on his face.
“Come. I’ve found a good place to camp.”
She put a hand on his arm. “Something happened inside. Nuen cast a spell and there was screaming, then two men ran out the gates, and Nuen tried to have them stopped.”
Soren’s grin dropped from his face. “Tried to have them stopped?”
“The guards wouldn’t listen to him, and Jasper intervened and had the gates closed. He let the men go, even though Nuen said he needed them.”
“Where are the men now?”
Miri pointed down the path. “They were hobbling at first, but they managed quite a good run at the end.”
Soren looked the way she pointed. “Sounds as if they may have something useful to tell us.”
She nodded and he led the way, holding her hand and weaving them through the trees parallel to the path.
The way curved right, toward Therston Town, although it kept very close to the edge of the Great Forest.
Miri was still amazed at how the people of Therston seemed brave to the verge of foolishness when it came to the Great Forest. But Soren was from Therston, and she realized it explained a great deal about him.
The men had not been able to keep up their fast pace, and she and Soren caught up with them after only five minutes, both standing bent over, holding their sides.
“Do we risk it?” One of them asked.
“I can’t go on, and I don’t want to stay on the road, in case Jasper changes his mind, or Nuen changes it for him.” The other looked back down the path, and Miri shivered at the loathing and fear on his face.
“Right then. Let’s do it.” The first man straightened and walked toward the trees, found a faint trail and started in, and his friend followed.
They didn’t go far. Just to the first reasonable clearing, although it had no water.
The men sat down, and then one lay on his back, eyes open, looking at the sky. “Never thought I’d see the sky again.”
The other man grunted and lay down himself. They said nothing more, and Miri could feel Soren’s agitation grow.
“I’ll have to ask them,” he murmured in her ear. “Stay here. It’s better they don’t know about you.”
She nodded, and Soren moved quietly around to the other side of the clearing and beyond, and then started walking toward them without any effort to hide the sound.
The men were already on their feet, eyes wheeling left and right by the time he burst into the clearing and drew back, as if surprised to see them.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he said easily. “You gave me a little heart-jump, yourselves.”
“Who are you?” The man’s voice trembled a little.
“Soren De’Villier.” Soren held out a hand, and the man looked at it in utter surprise, as if good manners were the last thing he expected.
“Tom Butler.” He extended his own hand, and Soren gave it a quick shake before he let go and held his hand out to the second man.
“Ned Timkin.” The second man took a cautious step forward, and shook as well.
“If you don’t mind my saying, you look the worse for wear, gentlemen.”
“Thing is,” Tom said bluntly, “why don’t you? I heard all about you. Everyone connected to Harness has. Shouldn’t you be half-dead?”
Soren cocked his head, and Miri could tell his sympathy for the men was leeching away as he wondered if they had worked for Jasper while he was down in Jasper’s dungeon. “How are you connected to Harness?” he asked.
They didn’t seem to hear how cold and quiet he’d gone. Miri did, though. She had come to know him well, she realized.
“Tom and I supply Jasper with his stirrups and bits for his horses. Some other metalwork, too.” Ned pressed trembling hands against his sides. “We delivered a few things while you were kept there. Heard the guards talking about how you were clinging to life by a thread.”
Soren raised a brow, signaling him to continue.
Ned sighed. “We didn’t like it, but Jasper is our liege lord, and the king of Therston’s always taken his side in any complaint. We just hoped you’d get out, is all.”
“Heard you were rescued by a princess.” Tom laughed. “We couldn’t understand why Jasper didn’t just tell the truth about it. Getting his men to spread it about that Kayla of Gaynor magicked you out of there still gets a laugh in the village.”
Soren didn’t say anything for a beat. “What are you doing here? It’s dangerous in the forest.”
Ned shook his head, the trembles in his hands back, and Tom shoved his own hands deep into his pockets.
“Nuen. He’s . . .” He shuddered.
“He broke our legs.” Ned whispered. “Broke them with some spell, so we could hear the snap.” The next breath
he took was more a sob than anything else.
“Called us his volunteers. Because Jasper said the guards didn’t have to volunteer if they didn’t want to. Knows the way the wind’s blowing, that one. That people are leaving for Therston Town, putting some distance between themselves and Jasper and Nuen. Soon they won’t have anyone to tax, nor men whose loyalty they can count on.”
“Volunteer for what?” Soren frowned.
“Testing the golden apple.”
“Why does he need to test it?” Soren looked from one to the other. “Didn’t it heal him?”
Tom tipped his head from side to side. “Yes. His skin is healed, and he isn’t in pain any more, but . . .” He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Seems he wakes up thinking he’s still hurt, feeling as if he’s still hurt, and then even when he realizes it’s just a dream, he keeps thinking it’s all come back, or that it will, at any moment.”
“So he’s testing it? How will that help him?”
Ned shrugged. “Don’t think he knows himself. We’re the third lot of suppliers he’s grabbed. One he hurt so severely, he was dead before Nuen touched him with the golden apple. The others, Jasper made him let go. We were unlucky. We got there this afternoon when Jasper was busy, and Nuen grabbed us.” He shuddered and hunched. “My mind still can’t believe my legs are all right. The sound they made when they broke . . .” He turned and vomited into the bushes.
Soren and Tom looked away while he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shuddered again.
“There’s no water here,” Soren said, sliding his bag off his shoulder. He pulled out a flask, and handed it to Ned. “You can take this. I have to be off.”
“Where’re you going?” Tom asked, and Miri thought he sounded like he wanted Soren to stay. As if he felt safer with Soren around.
“I have things I have to do. I would find a new liege lord, if I were you.”
Ned took a sip of the water and then handed it to Tom. “We already came to that conclusion. I will never set foot in that place again.”
“Thank you.” Tom lifted the flask as if in a toast. “Don’t go back there, no matter what vengeance you have in mind. Nuen will break every bone in your body.”
Miri didn’t like the look that passed over Soren’s face, contemplative, as if he was thinking that very thing.
He gave the men a nod, walked out of the clearing.
While she waited for him to work his way quietly back to her, she watched Tom and Ned as they sank back to the ground and shared the water.
“Strange fellow,” Tom said.
Ned shook his head. “Whatever we endured today, he had weeks of it.”
Tom turned his head. “He asked us what we’re doing here, but we should have asked him the same. To hang around near the stronghold after he’d been a prisoner there for weeks . . . Do you think he’s mad?”
“Didn’t seem mad.” Ned lifted his arms to pillow his head. “Seemed remarkably sane, you ask me.”
“Did you notice he didn’t deny the story about being rescued by a princess?” Tom stretched out, catching the last of the light.
Ned gave a low chuckle. “Too outlandish to dignify with a response, most likely.”
Soren was suddenly beside her again, holding out his hand. Miri took it and let him lead her to the safe place he’d found for them tonight.
She was afraid, though, from the look she’d seen on his face, that when he thought about safety, he was only thinking about her.
He was planning something really unsafe for himself.
CHAPTER THIRTY
SOMETHING WAS BOTHERING MIRABELLE. Since they’d left Ned and Tom in their clearing, she hadn’t looked at him, and her hand was stiff and unyielding in his.
Soren pulled back a branch as he led her toward the spot he’d found for them and saw her eyes were firmly on the ground.
The place he’d found for them was perfect.
He’d been longer than he’d wanted to be looking for it, but while there were places where they could have spent the night, they were more open than he wanted.
He’d pushed on and found a place where they could sleep with their boots off.
A lot more than just their boots, if he had his way.
Which he may not, given Miri’s change in demeanor.
Still, he congratulated himself again as he ducked under tree branches that touched the ground, forming a tent. Beyond, through the bowed branches on the other side, there was a small open space surrounded by trees, and a tiny stream trickled across the top corner.
He had found the dark, shadowed tent of branches because a wild magic item had been lying within it, calling to him, and then the sound of the water had drawn him in further.
The small bronze crescent he’d picked up was unusual, but it didn’t have much power, and he was grateful for it more because of the safe place it had led him to than any benefit he was likely to get out of it.
He had already set the bed rolls out, and now, as Miri wandered around, exploring, and very deliberately not looking at him, he started collecting some firewood.
“Can we risk a fire?” she asked him, bending to pick up sticks as well.
He nodded. “I think we can risk it. There’s no way anyone can see in here. So as long as we’re quiet, and there isn’t too much smoke, I think it’s safe.”
He watched her as she collected a few more sticks, her hair falling loose and wild over her shoulders. She still held herself stiff and closed in.
She was beautiful, and brave, and he wanted to laugh at himself that the one person who made him burn, made his heart skip and pound, was also a sorcerer.
It was an irony Rane would enjoy. Although his falling for a princess was perhaps just as unbelievable.
The sun was almost set, and long shadows reached into the small clearing.
After days of running, of having no time for anything but moving forward, they at last had some time in hand.
There was no point in trying to break into Harness tonight with the gate closed. Not when he could do it tomorrow with the moonstone, and be able to see what was happening clearly.
He had made her a promise that when they touched each other again, there would be a bed, and plenty of time, but he hoped she would settle for a bed roll. For once, they had the time, and he had plenty of ideas on how to pass it.
He had been collecting an armful of branches while his mind wandered, and as a deeper silence registered, he lifted his head.
Mirabelle had stopped gathering wood and was looking at him with a strange expression. “What are you thinking about?”
“You.” His stark answer flustered her. She looked down at her feet, then dropped her wood, almost threw it down, with an exclamation of annoyance.
He abandoned the pile he’d made, rose up and walked to her. Drew her into his arms. “What’s wrong? Why are you so upset?”
She felt delicate, and absolutely precious.
“I’m angry with you. Frightened for you.” She whispered the words into his chest.
He frowned. “Why?”
“Because you’re thinking of letting Nuen catch you, to perform his experiments, and then trying to steal the golden apple when he uses it to heal you.”
He froze. “And how do you know that?”
She gave a sniff. “It was all over your face when you were speaking to those two merchants. I could tell exactly what you were thinking.”
“It might work.”
She sighed. “It won’t work. It will only work if he catches me, and you are there with the moonstone, ready to snatch it from Nuen the moment after he heals me.”
The thought of her under Nuen’s power sent an icy hand in to close over his gut, and he held her even tighter against him. “That won’t happen.”
“Neither will your idea.” Her words were implacable.
He sighed, brushed a hand down her back. “Let’s think about it in the morning. I’m tired of Nuen, of Eric, of the whole lot of them.”
She leaned back, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “I’m tired of them, too.”
He wound his hand into her hair, tugged so her face lifted to his. “Then let’s forget about them for a bit.”
She smiled, and lifted on her toes to brush a kiss over his lips. “That’s an idea I don’t object to.”
“I don’t have that bed I promised you.” He kissed her, quick, soft presses of his lips to her jaw and throat.
She slipped a hand behind his head, and pulled him closer. “I think I’m prepared to overlook that. Given the circumstances.”
He walked her backward, lifted her, and set her down on the bed roll.
There was a gleam of anticipation in her eye.
He undressed her slowly, and she did the same, as they took turns to remove shirts, trousers, any layer that could come between them.
He ran a finger from just below her ear, along her jaw and then trailed it between her breasts and laid his hand, splayed wide, low on her belly.
She was as beautiful as he thought she would be, and as he bent his head to taste her skin, as her hands ran down his back, he swore to himself that he would keep her safe.
No matter what.
* * *
They held on to each other even as they argued.
Miri realized it may have been amusing for someone else to watch, but neither of them felt like laughing, even as they sat, half-naked and entwined in each other.
Soren would not let her present herself at the stronghold on some pretext, so Nuen could snatch her for his experiments, even though she told him she could have a protection spell ready and use it just before he hurt her.
But, she might not cast it in time, and she could get hurt.
As far as she was concerned, could wasn’t the same as definitely would, which would be the case for Soren if he was the one who handed himself over.
“You could take the moonstone. Snatch the apple.” His voice was low as he ran possessive hands down her arms.
The Silver Pear (The Dark Forest Book 2) Page 20