Annis’ eyes shone, but not with tears. “You are right,” she said, quiet as a prayer. “I will. I will tell him. And I will tell him that if he does not return from Yewamba, I will storm in there and drag him out myself.”
Loren laughed. “Good. Then go do it.”
The girl shot to her feet, but paused when Loren remained sitting. “Are you not coming?”
“I will in a moment,” said Loren, smiling ruefully. “Only my feet are enjoying the water too much. I wish to relax a little while longer, for I think I shall not have another chance in some time.”
Annis smiled at her and set off into the trees. Loren’s smile dampened the minute the girl’s back was turned, and she looked down at her feet as they dangled in the stream.
He loved me even before I left the forest. She had said the words without thinking. But why had she not said We loved each other? She loved Chet—she knew that she did. But she had known for some time, in the back of her mind, that it was not the same. If it had been, she could never have manipulated him so easily on the day she left the Birchwood. If it had been, she would not think of Niya the way she did—and the proof of that could be found in Weath. Weath and Chet had become fast friends, and Loren could see how attractive the woman was, with her short copper hair and lithe, supple figure. Yet never once had Loren suspected that Chet might harbor any feelings towards Weath beyond friendship, whereas Chet seemed to have more than an inkling of the connection that existed between Loren and Niya, and for good reason. Even now, Loren could not stop thinking of how easy it would be to draw Niya out of the camp, in secret, so that the two of them could be alone, and not just as friends.
A stone lay by her hand. She picked it up and flung it almost angrily into the water, where it broke the surface with a loud plop.
“Darkness take the woman,” she muttered. “And darkness take me as well.”
She drew her feet from the water and pulled her boots on, making her way slowly back to the camp.
thirty-three
SLEEP DID NOT COME EASILY that night. Chet had rolled over into the corner of the tent before she entered, and he did not move as she undressed and crawled beneath their blanket. But she rolled back and forth, trying to get comfortable and drift off. There was a lump beneath the tent, and she kept trying to shift around it to find flat ground again—but then at last she had to admit that the lump was only an excuse, for she had slept on far worst terrain many times during their journeys.
“Close your eyes, woman,” grumbled Chet.
Loren sighed. “I am not the only one who cannot sleep, then.”
He turned over, and in the pale moonslight through the tent, she saw his eyes glinting. “Of course I cannot sleep. I am terrified of what tomorrow could bring. Do you not feel the same way?”
“I suppose so,” she said with a shrug. “But on the other hand, by this point I am somewhat used to it.”
“If that is true, why can you not sleep?” he said. “Yet I think I understand your meaning. I do not feel as though I should be frightened. I was there for the fall of Northwood, and you and I faced Rogan more than once. I was there when assassins came for the Lord Prince, and I was in the battle on the Seat. Yet somehow, this feels different.”
“It is different,” said Loren. “All of those times were a surprise. The danger came from nowhere, and then it ended. This might be the first time you have planned to march into mortal danger.”
Chet chuckled. “I suppose you have the right of it.”
Loren felt herself relax at the sound of his laugh. Cautiously she scooted closer to him, and he did the same, placing his head on her shoulder. She curled her arm around him, fingers idly stroking his arm, and he laid a hand across her stomach. The contact relaxed her still further. It felt natural between them again. It felt right. Suddenly the doubts she had had upon the bank of the stream faded away, and they seemed silly in her memory. This was how it had been when she first came to know that she loved him, first beneath the boughs of the Birchwood, and then when their trysts began upon the Seat.
Then she remembered Niya, and the light in the woman’s eyes when she looked at Loren. Comfort fell away, and she felt like a fraud with Chet in her arms.
“Chet, you have not been wrong about Niya,” she said quietly. “I know you have suspected her for some time. And I dismissed it, but I should not have. Niya would have me, if she could. She has said as much, subtly, and in ways that were less subtle.”
He was still for a while, and then he pushed himself up on her elbow. In the midst of his silhouette against the moonslit tent, she could see his eyes searching hers. “And? What came of it?”
“Nothing,” said Loren. But then she realized that that was not strictly true. “She kissed me. Twice. In Dahab.”
She could feel him tense. “You … why would you—”
“I did not,” said Loren quickly. “She did it without asking.”
He pushed himself up still farther. “What? Loren, that is only a step away from taking a lover against their will. That is among the darkest of evils, it means death under the King’s law.”
“That is not the way of it,” said Loren. “I know how it must sound, but … do you remember the first time we kissed, on the shores of Dorsea, just before we sailed for the Seat?”
“Of course,” he said quietly. “That memory will never fade.”
“I did not ask you before I kissed you,” said Loren.
“Yet you knew,” he said. “You knew I loved you.”
“How? You had never said the words, nor had I. We had never spoken of it at all. And when we began—that is, when we became …” She flushed, and wondered if the moonslight would reveal it. “Even when we did more than kiss, we did not speak of it then. You told me you loved me for the first time just before we left the Seat.”
He thought about that for a moment. But then he shook his head. “I do not understand, Loren. You knew my desires, and I knew yours. And so the only way I can think that what Niya did was right, is if she also knew your desires, and she was right.”
She stared up at him. Shame burned in her breast, but she did not look away.
“I see,” he said quietly. He began to turn away, to roll towards his side of the tent again.
“Stop, Chet,” said Loren, pulling him back. “I do not want to be with Niya. I want to be here. With you.”
“That is not an answer.”
“Yes. Yes, I would be with Niya if it were not for you.” It thrilled her to say it out loud. Her skin rose to gooseflesh at the words, and she grew quick of breath. “But there is a difference between what I enjoy, and what I want—what I truly desire, and do not find appealing in some passing manner.”
He did not answer that for a moment. Loren realized she held her breath, and slowly let it out. And then, when he spoke, she heard a small smile in his voice.
“So you do not enjoy me, then?”
She gave a frustrated growl and slapped his arm. “Be silent, idiot. I love you, Chet. I do not desire to be with anyone else, but that does not mean I can promise never to have feelings for anyone else. Can you tell me, in truth, that you have never thought of another? I have seen you and Weath together, and you are friendly enough, and every once in a while your eyes linger a little too long on her waist.”
“Any man can see that she has a fine figure,” said Chet. “But there my thoughts remain. I will never be with her in that way.”
“And I will never be with Niya in that way,” said Loren. “It is not the same, for I feel a way about her that you do not feel towards Weath. But the end is the same, for I have chosen love. I hope you know that.”
“I do,” he whispered. “I only wish that my love was enough for you. That it did not leave you wanting another, or feeling this deep need to pursue the aims of the High King.”
“That is another matter entirely, and you know it.”
“Of course it is, but it comes from the same place in your heart. I believe you when you s
ay you will be true. Yet even so, I am not enough. There is your quest—your holy mission. Can you not give that up for me as well?”
“No,” she said flatly. “And I wish you did not want me to choose between them.”
He paused to consider that. “It is not your sense of duty that I cannot grasp,” he said at last. “That is a quality I admire, in others as well as yourself. It is only that I do not see anything beyond this war, for you. If I were in your position, I might do the same. But always I would dream of a quiet home in the woods, where I might spend my days after the war—if indeed it becomes a war at all. Do you want that, Loren?”
“I do not know. It sounds fine enough, I suppose. But when I think of it, I do not feel the yearning for it that is plain in your voice.”
“That is what I thought,” he said, sighing. “Is there a time after the war at all, in your mind?”
She sat up, and he rose from his elbow to sit beside her. She took his hands into her own, and traced a finger along the back of his palm. “I have no easy answer for you. I cannot say what I know you want me to say. How can I know what the distant future holds when I cannot even know what will happen to you and I tomorrow? But right now, I love you, and your love for me is dearer than any honor the High King could bestow. Can that be enough? At least for now?”
He turned his hand over to grasp hers, and lifted it to his mouth to kiss her fingers one by one. “It can,” he murmured.
Loren kissed him, and they lay down again together, chaste and content. Soon she was asleep, a dreamless sleep more sound than any she had had since leaving Ammon.
thirty-four
UZO CAME AROUND THE CAMP to wake them all before dawn. The party came out of their tents and looked at each other without speaking. They were silent, too, as they readied themselves for the journey. The Mystics buckled their swords upon their waists and donned their shirts of chain. Loren left her bow—Albern’s gift—for it would be of little use in the fortress, and only by terrible misfortune would she need it before then. Niya had her sword and a brace of knives at her belt. She caught Loren staring and winked, and Loren looked hastily away.
Annis rose to see them off, though of course she would not be coming with them. Loren eyed her with some slight interest, but then she saw that Annis and Gem would hardly even look at each other, and each flinched when the other spoke. They kept a wide distance between themselves as well. Loren groaned inwardly. Whatever Annis had told Gem the night before, it did not appear to have gone well. But she could waste little thought on that now. She would have to ask what happened after their journey to Dahab, if indeed there was an afterwards in which they could speak with each other.
She went to Midnight just before they left and stroked the mare’s muzzle. “You will be safe here,” she said. “If I do not return, I am sorry, but that only means you will belong to Annis. You like her.”
Midnight blew a wet snort into Loren’s face, and she laughed.
Shiun led them from the camp and into the jungle. They paused at the mouth of the valley while she went ahead to search it, making sure no new guards had been posted there since last they came. She soon returned to wave them on. The sky had only just begun to turn grey.
For a long while she led them on the same path they had taken the last time, but when she reached the place where they had seen the guards, she took them in another direction—right instead of left, up the face of the northern ridge rather than the south. Loren wondered at the change, but she did not speak. Shiun had been out all day scouting the path, and the woman was like an Elf in the woods, silent and sure. She would not lead them astray.
At one point they stopped dead, and Shiun gestured them into a crouch. Loren looked around for the reason, and then she saw two forms moving a little bit below them on the ridge. They wore the green cloaks of Yerrins, and they appeared to be eating. Shiun turned to Loren and leaned close, whispering into her ear.
“Do we remove them now?”
Loren blinked at her. “Remove …?”
Niya pressed forwards, her breath hot on Loren’s cheek. “We may have to escape at great speed. Every guard we kill on the way in is one we will not have to fight on the way out.”
“No. When are the patrols replaced? Do you know?” Shiun shook her head. “Then we could raise the alarm while we are still inside, and not even know it. And the family Yerrin prides themselves on not killing needlessly—we should endeavor to do the same.”
Shiun glanced past her, but Niya shrugged. Shiun turned away without a word and pressed on.
The grey had lightened considerably when they reached the base of Yewamba’s sudden cliffs, and the approaching dawn’s urgency weighed heavily upon them. The route up looked to be a difficult one. But Loren knew from long experience that climbing up was much easier than climbing down. The way began to wind back and forth, and Shiun would pause every few moments to check that the rocks gave her another path up. But then they reached the top of the slope, and it turned into a sheer wall at least thirty paces high.
“Where do we go from here?” said Loren.
“Up,” said Shiun, arching an eyebrow.
“That is why you brought me,” Weath said, smiling. She stepped forward and pulled off her leather gloves. Her eyes began to glow. “I may not be much of an alchemist, but I am an alchemist.”
She put forth her hand at about the height of her knee, and her fingers sank into the rock like it was made of water. Soon she had carved a little depression there, and she placed her foot inside it. She made another for the other foot, and then she reached up to create her handholds. Hand over hand and foot over foot she began to climb, creating new handholds each time.
“Sky above,” whispered Gem. “I would have killed to know a girl like her when I was the best thief in Cabrus.”
Niya sneered at him. “I will go next,” she said.
“I will follow,” said Loren. “Then Gem, Chet, and Shiun. You can cover our rear best with the bow.”
Shiun nodded. Niya was already climbing up just behind Weath, gripping each handhold almost as soon as the alchemist’s foot left it. Loren followed as soon as there was room, and soon the whole train of them were on the cliff face, making their way slowly up, like ants ascending a ladder.
The sun rose at last while they were halfway up, and eastern light poured upon them from the left. Loren paused for a moment to look back down. Yewamba’s little valley was in view, but nothing beyond, for the mountains blocked the landscape beyond from sight—that was the very reason Yewamba was so well hidden. She could not see any guards from her vantage point, and she hoped that none looked their way, for surely they could not miss the sight of five small black figures crawling their way up the light grey stone of the cliff.
Just then, Niya’s foot slipped from the wall, just as she was raising one arm to grasp the next handhold. She gave a grunt as she slid down, reaching desperately for something to hold on to. With no time to think, Loren braced her feet and one arm, and then reached the other up to try and halt Niya’s fall. It did little to slow her, but Niya gripped a handhold in time, and came to a stop with a jolt. Loren realized suddenly that her hand was on Niya’s rear end.
The Mystic looked down at her with a savage grin. “Time for that later, Nightblade. We are working.”
“Get on with it,” said Loren, removing her hand quickly. She paused for a moment and looked down towards Chet where he climbed behind her, trying to send him an apology with her eyes. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. She hoped that meant he was not upset.
Looking up again, she realized they had finally neared the top. Weath was already out of sight over the wall, and Niya was scrambling over as well. They all quickened their pace, Loren nearly leaping from handhold to handhold, and Gem following so fast that his fingers scraped on her boot more than once. But just before she reached the lip, Loren heard a muffled cry and the scuffle of leather boots on stone.
We are discovered, she thought. A moment’s pa
nic seized her as she wondered if she should keep going. But then she realized Weath and Niya were in danger, and she lunged up—only to recoil again, as a body sailed over her head and fell into the open air. She caught a glance of it—and saw Weath’s pale face, her red hair fluttering, her neck bent at an impossible angle. In silence the Mystic fell, and in silence struck the rocks far, far below, too far for them to hear the impact.
For a moment, horror froze them all. Then Loren nearly vaulted over the top of the wall to land on the rampart just beyond. Niya was there, kneeling over the body of a Yerrin guard. The blade of her knife was still buried in the woman’s throat. Niya looked up at Loren, her eyes wide with grief.
“She came—she surprised us, we—Weath, she did not see her, and—”
The words died in her throat, and Loren could only stare. Slowly she turned to the top of the wall again, her breath catching in her throat, as the others came over one by one and joined her in silence.
thirty-five
AFTER A LONG MOMENT OF mourning, Shiun broke the silence. “The sun is up. We are far too exposed here.”
“Yes,” said Niya. She wiped something—sweat, or tears—from her eyes with the back of a hand, while the other wiped her knife clean on the dead guard’s cloak. “Help me get her out of sight.”
“We have no time to find a hiding place,” said Shiun. She looked at the corpse disdainfully. “Throw her over the wall, where she may join Weath in death.”
Niya nodded, and together the two of them lifted the guard to toss her into the open air. There was a bloodstain on the floor, but that could not be helped. Chet and Gem still sat where they had climbed up. Chet stared blankly in the direction Weath had fallen.
“Chet!” whispered Loren. His head jerked towards her. “Come.”
Weremage: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 5) Page 22