“And if he strikes you before he brings the apple out? If I protect you with a spell he’ll know I’m there, and he won’t risk the apple.”
“Don’t protect me with a spell.” Soren brushed her hair back from her face, playing with the strands. “Let him hurt me, wait for him to touch me with the apple, and then take it.”
She stared at him. “I will always try to protect you.”
Their gazes clashed, and Soren bent forward and rested his forehead against hers.
“In your plan, the moment you protect yourself, the same logic applies, anyway. He won’t bring out the golden apple, because he’ll know you’re a sorcerer.”
He was right. “Is there a way we can do this without either of us getting hurt?”
“My way has the most chance of succeeding. I go in, you hold the moonstone and you can stay by my side. Nuen will use me in his experiment—he’ll love the idea of that—and after he touches me with the golden apple, you grab it. You give me the moonstone, you cast a spell that lands you here in the clearing, and I slip out as and when I can.”
“What if he decides not to use you? What if he puts you back in the dungeon?”
She felt him shudder against her and she tightened her hold, almost regretting her words, but not quite. He needed to know the risks.
“How about I take the moonstone and go in to the stronghold, see how easily the golden apple could be stolen, and we make a plan after that?”
It was the best compromise they had come up with, so she nodded, and he put a finger under her chin, tipped it and kissed her, lifting her so that she straddled his lap.
“If you take any chances and I have to come and rescue you,” she said as he slid his hands beneath her thighs, “I’ll be very, very angry.”
He lifted his head and cocked an eyebrow, and she let some sky magic flicker at her fingertips.
“Very angry indeed.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
A SMALL GROUP of guards approached the gate, and Soren tacked on behind them.
It was . . . challenging to voluntarily walk back into Jasper’s stronghold. Even though he was invisible.
He realized he was breathing too hard, letting too much of a gap open up between him and the guards, and forced himself under control. He caught up with them as they reached the gate.
As they waited for it to open, the men fidgeted and Soren tried to focus on them, rather than the voice in his head screaming at him to run.
“He’s getting worse.”
“Best you keep that mouth of yours shut, Harry. The time for moaning was before we came in sight of the walls.”
Soren knew the man who spoke. Klem had trained with Rane, a year before Soren went through his own training, and before he’d ended up in Jasper’s dungeon, Soren thought he was a good enough man.
Now . . . he lifted a hand to his neck to rub away the tension.
The gate opened a little way, and they filed through. Soren would have liked to have left a bit more space between himself and the men, but there was no chance of that and as he followed, the gate was already closing.
He just made it through.
The men didn’t behave normally. Usually, when back from patrol, they would disperse. Some going to the kitchen, some to the barracks, the leader reporting to Jasper about what they had seen.
Today they kept together in a group, pausing when they were through the gate almost as if they were gauging the situation, as a soldier would before going into a fight.
“He around?” Klem asked the guard who’d let them in.
“Somewhere,” was the reply, muttered low.
“That’s helpful.” Klem turned away in disgust and they all moved together across the open training area toward the wooden barracks.
They had fallen into a battle formation, and Soren allowed himself to drop back a little, fascinated. Usually, there would be off-duty guards training or wandering about, servants from the house moving from building to building, but not today.
He looked up at Nuen’s tower.
Jasper had caught him the day he’d burnt it down, and when he’d escaped with Kayla about a week ago, it had still looked black and abandoned.
Not anymore.
Now it rose up, completely restored.
The men were halfway to their barracks when Nuen stepped out of the arched door at the bottom.
Soren had half-expected an attack from above, but it seemed the men were just as afraid of him on the ground.
They slowed their steps but didn’t stop altogether, and Soren realized they were pretending they hadn’t seen him, as if engaging with him, even looking at him, would bring about unpleasant consequences.
“I need a volunteer.”
Soren caught movement to his right, and saw one of the gate guards running toward the main house.
Warning Jasper, he’d guess.
The men ignored Nuen as if he hadn’t spoken at all, and kept going, drawing together a little tighter.
Soren moved away from them, making his way to Nuen, and trying to see if the sorcerer held the golden apple.
It wasn’t in his hand, but there was a pouch hanging from the belt at his waist and it was weighed down.
The apple could be in there.
Suddenly, and without any warning, Nuen raised his staff and pointed with his other hand, and the sand and sawdust of the training area rose up in a wall in front of the men.
They stumbled to a halt and it collapsed.
“I said, I need a volunteer.” Nuen’s voice was quiet but perfectly audible in the sudden silence.
“And I told you, if they want to volunteer, they will come to you. Stop trying to intimidate them.”
Soren turned slightly as Jasper approached, breathing heavily, as if he’d run all the way.
“I don’t have to listen to you. Eric doesn’t have a stronghold or any rules to adhere to.” Nuen’s face as he confronted his brother was twisted and bitter, and Soren took a step back at the sight of it. It was as if he had lost the hold he’d had on humanity, and he was something else entirely, now.
Jasper saw it too. His stride hitched a little, but he must have seen it before, because there was no shock in his expression.
“No. But he also has no power base. The King of Klevan has banished him, and he’s had to blackmail the King of Gaynor for access to troops to control any area he manages to secure. Troops that won’t be loyal to him and who he cannot count on. And if you keep going the way you are, neither will you.”
“Thinking of betraying me?” Nuen spoke in a voice that made Soren shiver.
“No. But the men are afraid of you, and more and more are choosing to leave. I can command them to do their job, but I cannot command their thoughts, and I will bet every one of the men in front of you would rather leave here right now than stay and serve us.”
Nuen flicked his hand again, and sand and dust exploded between him and the troop, not in a controlled wall like before, but a hard blast of temper. Sand stung Soren’s eyes and cheeks, and the men covered their heads and turned away.
“All right. But I still need a volunteer.”
Jasper shook his head. “You’re losing control. And you don’t need a volunteer. The apple healed you. And it’s healed all the people you’ve hurt since then.”
Nuen put his hand into the pouch on his belt and lifted out the golden apple. Soren had only seen it at night in torchlight, and he hadn’t truly realized how beautiful it was until now.
It gleamed, and Nuen turned it this way and that. “Do you think its light has dimmed a little? I think perhaps its light has dimmed.”
“Its light hasn’t dimmed.” Jasper spoke softly and stepped closer, but Nuen hunched protectively over the apple and dropped it back in his pouch.
“Stay back.”
Jasper sighed. “I’m not going to take it from you. No-one is.”
“No. Because I keep it on me always, just in case the pain comes back.” Nuen’s look was sly, an
d Soren’s hope that he could somehow find where the golden apple was kept and steal it was crushed into dust.
Nuen was paranoid and crazy.
The only way he’d take the golden apple out was to heal someone he’d injured, and now he and Miri were going to have to fight out which one of them that volunteer was going to be.
* * *
Soren had been so against this, he’d actually suggested giving up. Giving up and going to Therston Town or Gaynor to find his brother and think up another way.
It seemed the man liked to show his feelings with actions, rather than words.
There was nothing he could have done to show he cared for her more than that.
She had finally overridden him, but that he had fought her so hard over it, had suggested it at all . . . Miri hugged the warm sensation close as she emerged from the Great Forest onto the road. She picked a spot out of sight of the stronghold gates in case someone was watching, so she could claim to have come from Therston Town.
She fingered the small bronze crescent in her pocket, a wild magic item Soren had found the day before and her excuse for seeking Nuen out, when everyone else was avoiding him.
They didn’t know what it did, and there hadn’t been time to find out, but Soren said it didn’t matter. It wasn’t powerful and very few people knew the nature of wild magic objects. Nuen wouldn’t expect her to know, and he would use her ignorance to pay as little for it as possible.
She’d used sky magic to dress herself in rags, using as little power as she could and waiting until the afternoon to approach Nuen, so she had recovered most of the energy she’d expended in doing so.
Only someone desperate would approach Nuen if they lived in the area, because the stories would have spread about his increasing spiral into madness.
Soren reached out an invisible hand and gently held the back of her neck.
She shivered.
He was still angry with her. She could feel it in the stiffness of his fingers, the way he seemed to want to pull her back, stop her going forward at all.
She was in sight of the gate now, and she moved slowly, shuffling a little and using her staff as a walking stick, so they had plenty of time to see her and make up their minds about how much of a threat she posed.
She’d rubbed a little dirt into her face, muddied her hands and her boots, rolled around on the ground until the pine needles and bark clung to her rags, and then wound a coarse piece of gray cloth over her head in a scarf.
Soren had insisted on the scarf. He wouldn’t explain, but it was clear he didn’t want the men in the stronghold to see her hair, and he was so upset with her anyway, she had complied without argument.
By the time she’d reached the gate, two men had opened it and stepped out to meet her.
“You need to go back,” one said to her, his eyes a little wild.
“Back?” She pretended confusion. “I have something to sell to the sorcerer, and—”
“You’re actually here to see him?” The other looked at her in horror. “Where are you from?”
She looked down, and gripped the fabric of her filthy skirt. “The Hidden Market.”
“Where do you live, I mean?”
She let her shoulders droop. “My husband died last year and I have nowhere. Living where I can, sirs. In the forest, mostly. And I found something, and heard the sorcerer might buy it. Wild magic, it is.”
“Whoever told you that doesn’t like you very much.” The first man spoke under his breath. “Best you go, you know what’s good for you.”
“He won’t be interested?” She lifted the hand not gripping her staff to her chest.
“Too interested. That’s the problem,” the second man told her. “We’re trying to be nice here, wench. Go.”
“Who is it?” The voice that called out was querulous, and both the guards went stiff with fear.
“Just a passing traveler,” the first man called, his voice gone unnaturally high.
He was pushed aside, and Nuen was suddenly wedged in the narrow opening in the gate. “What do you want?” His expression was both suspicious and gleeful at once, and for the first time, the weight of what she was about to do settled on her.
It was the only way, though.
There was no question if Soren had come openly he would be tied up and under guard. They already hated him and knew him to be dangerous.
She was just a harmless woman. There would be less scrutiny and no chains or anything else, if Nuen followed the same pattern with her that he had with Tom and Ned yesterday.
Miri gave a clumsy curtsey and then fumbled about in her pocket until she brought out a dirty rag. She laid it on her palm, tucked her staff under her arm, and carefully lifted the corners away, to show the gleaming bronze of the flat crescent. “Wild magic, my lord. Are you in the market?”
Avarice flashed in his eyes. “I am. Come in.” He turned and strode back inside, and she followed, Soren crowded right up against her back, his hands resting lightly on her hips as he moved forward with her.
Nuen had come to a stop a few feet from the gate. “Go fetch money from my brother’s secretary,” he ordered one of the guards, his gaze never leaving Mirabelle.
The guard nodded and took off running.
“I’m afraid the price of my business is a little test,” Nuen said, his hand going into a pouch hanging from his belt. “And I’m afraid I’m going to have to do it quickly and only once, because my brother will be coming out any moment if that imbecile guard runs true to form.”
That was all the warning she got, that and the hard squeeze of Soren’s hand on her shoulder before he stepped back.
Nuen hit her with the spell with no ceremony at all. He raised his hand in a fist and threw his arm forward, flicking his fingers as he did it.
She felt her ribs crack, heard the sound of them do it, and fell, so far into agony no words, no sound, could fight from her bruised lungs out of her mouth.
There hadn’t been a chance to protect herself.
She lay on the ground, mute and immobile with pain, and she felt Soren’s hand on her cheek, just a light touch.
She imagined him hovering over her, all vengeance and fury, and it gave her strength.
She’d thought there would be a dance of manners, a request which would become a demand, but it seemed Nuen had taken no chance Jasper would stop him, and wasted not even a second to take what he wanted.
His face came into view as he bent down to look at her. He had taken the golden apple out and he contemplated her for a moment.
“Can you move?”
She looked at him blankly.
He pushed hard on her shoulder and rocked her back a little, and then she found she could make a sound as a moan was wrenched out of her.
“Good. It seems you can’t do anything.” He placed the golden apple against her throat for a moment, and she felt the tingle as it healed her. It took everything in her not to move.
That was the plan. To pretend she hadn’t been healed at all.
Nuen sat back, the apple clutched tight in his hand.
“Nuen!” Jasper shouted from somewhere behind her. “I told you not again.”
Nuen turned briefly toward him, then back to her. “Well, move.”
She made a sound, a strangled cry, as if she were still in enormous pain, and he frowned.
He leaned forward to touch the apple to her again, this time to her forehead. As he extended his arm, she jerked her head back, and in that moment, the apple disappeared.
She moved as fast as she could, grabbing her staff as she scrabbled backward, with no time to look at Nuen’s face.
She cast the protection over her seconds before she felt the first magical strike from Nuen hit her. She had promised Soren she would get herself out of the stronghold immediately and leave him to make his own way.
He’d made her swear that if he had to see her hurt and do nothing, she had to go as quickly as she could without him.
So she to
ok a trick out of Eric’s book, lifted her staff and gave it a whirl above her head. It gave her a second or two to see what was happening around her.
Nuen was staring at her, mouth open, absolutely dumbstruck.
And with an elation that competed with the remembered pain shuddering through her, she put herself back in the forest.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
KAYLA AND RANE
K ayla realized Rane was in pain when he stepped away from William and hunched his back, gasping.
So it was Eric. The spell he’d started to work into Rane’s back burnt as if it were on fire when Eric was near. She’d broken the part of it that compelled Rane toward him, had tried to lessen the pain, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
She went from mildly horrified at the petty betrayals William had committed for absolutely no gain, to searing, all-encompassing fury.
Wild magic left its hiding places in her bag, under her skirts, and flared and coalesced into a ball above her head.
She touched Rane briefly, a quick caress, and then walked to the window, opened it rather than use up any of her power by smashing it down, and jumped into the courtyard.
Behind her she heard a strange noise and looked back briefly to see if Rane was all right, only to find it was William, his eyes wide in his face, a hand over his mouth to stop any more noise escaping.
She dismissed him and turned to see what was happening up ahead.
Eric had obliterated the front of the stronghold. He stood just within the gate, legs braced apart.
“Come out, Wolfsblood. Come out and we’ll settle this, you thieving bastard.”
Everyone who could, had run. Three men lay still under rubble.
Kayla wondered if Eric had used his own power or a wild magic object to cause the destruction to the stronghold wall and gate.
She would have thought he’d have kept as much as possible back, if he was here to confront Andrei. She had to assume he was still strong.
He became aware of her approaching by degrees.
She was slight, and a woman, and he must have thought her a servant by her modest dress, but the wild magic, hovering over her head like a balloon, was hard to miss. She saw the moment when he realized who was coming toward him.
The Silver Pear (The Dark Forest Book 2) Page 21