“I heard in Beltania there were canis in these woods.” I eased down the path his body made.
“There are.” He glanced around us. “They keep to themselves, though.”
“That’s good.” If they only continued to do so.
“Don’t concern yourself. We’ll clear their territory soon enough.”
“How long do you think that will take?” Mimetidae lands were vast. Surely the canis hadn’t claimed all Mimetidae holdings as theirs. I had managed to avoid canis thus far, and I prayed my luck held.
“It depends on how long we can keep up this pace.” He seemed reluctant to admit, “Our best chance at reaching Titania is on foot. There’s nothing but forest between there and here. No beast can run through them. We can travel lighter alone, and we’ll have two ways less to split rations.”
“That’s good to hear since a quarter of nothing is still nothing.” But I had made do with less.
He cast me a strange look. “You think I would leave on such a journey without supplies?”
I bit my tongue to keep from admitting it was exactly what I thought we had done. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“Many things,” he said with a grin in his voice. “I ran these woods as a boy. I patrolled them when I grew older, and there’s one thing every guard knows, and that is to expect the unexpected will happen the moment you least anticipate it will.” He pointed at a spot up ahead. “Up there to your right, see that leaning pine? There’s a cache hidden at its base. We’ll find food, clothes and skins for water. Weapons and tools are a given, perhaps a bedroll depending who stocked it last.”
“They’ll know we stopped for supplies.” They must realize we left in haste.
“They will, but there are caches scattered all through these woods. Until they catch our scent we have a measure of protection. This cache in particular is one used by friends of mine. They’re not the sort who take without giving back twofold. If we reach it, we can survive off its stores.”
“Will the others guess where we’re headed?”
“They won’t have to.” He tapped his nose. “Once they catch our scents, they’ll be on to us.”
“Can we outrun them?”
“We don’t have to. We just have to outsmart them until we reach Titania.”
“They won’t dare cross into our woods without Hishima’s permission.” That gave me relief.
“I wouldn’t say that.” Chagrined at his expense, he said, “They won’t be caught doing it.”
The thought rankled me. “Are your guards so familiar with our land?”
“Few know their borders better than the Mimetidae. Beyond them, you and I will hold the advantage. You will save us valuable time. While the others are looking for a way in, we will be raiding the caverns for the proof we need. If we meet the others in the middle, afterward, then so much the better. We can use all the extra hands we can get to restrain the harbinger once she’s captured. After seeing her, they should be swayed to our cause long enough to get her to Cathis.”
“It’s a serviceable plan.” It was simple, straightforward and likely to get us killed.
“If you think of one better, feel free to share it.”
Directing my thoughts inward, I tried concocting a better plan for us, a safer way to get what we needed. I thought of no angle Murdoch’s plan was not fit to cover. Simple, in this case, was best. It had been a long time since I had been to Titania, and I had no idea what state of recovery she was in now. The streets might be as pitifully bare as Cathis or worse. I forced myself not to speculate.
“Stand watch and I’ll dig it up.” Murdoch put a hand on my shoulder and gave me direction.
I stared where he pointed, the likeliest spot for any who followed us to appear. I began studying the area as well. If these males knew him half as well as he knew them, we might be surrounded before realizing the magnitude of the trap we walked into.
He uncovered a short-neck spade matted in the underbrush. After he determined the cache’s location, digging met my ears. Metal on root. Grunt. Metal on dirt. Pant. Metal on rock. Swear.
It was familiar enough to be a lullaby for me.
“There we are,” Murdoch said at last. “It’s all as I said it would be.”
“Do you need help carrying supplies?” I abandoned sentry duty to study his findings.
“There’s only one pack.” He slid it onto his back. “There are weapons here, nothing fancy.”
“I have all I need.” I patted my pocket, taking comfort in Bram’s small blade.
He shoved a few items into his pockets and into the pack before he stood. “We’ve wasted as much time here as we dare. It would be safer to leave the patrol routes for the thicker passages.”
We had turned to go when I saw the short spade leaned against the tree. The decision took a split second. I darted over the gaping hole Murdoch had left unfilled and snagged the tiny spade. Its handle was worn and cracked from exposure. It was not the same quality as the one I had left with Isolde, but it would do. While I didn’t expect to dig up any graves on this trip, you never knew.
When Murdoch caught me picking rust from the weather-beaten metal, his smile blinded me in a way that even the morning sun glancing off the rolled handle failed to do. He didn’t ask what use a spade was against a harbinger. He seemed to realize it was a comfort item for me, one that held a practical use. If I required a token to calm my nerves, at least I had chosen this useful one.
Besides, my unconventional choice of weapon was worth Murdoch’s throaty chuckle, worth the light filtering through the trees to dapple his shoulders as he shook his head of midnight hair.
Chapter 10
Better females than I had made the journey from Cathis to Titania inside of seven days. Late into our first morning, after a night of no sleep, I began dragging. Murdoch forged ahead, and he set a grueling pace. Though I had done my fair share of walking these past few months, and I did possess enviable endurance, those applied to my own slower gait and not to his long-legged one.
A stitch caught my side, and I put a hand to it, frustrated by pain that hobbled me further.
Murdoch chose that moment to check on me. “We’ll stop here and catch our breath.”
“Are you tired?” Though he stood waiting, I kept walking and finally passed him.
It was a short-lived lead.
“Yes.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and lifted me off my feet. “I am.”
After kicking a pile of loose pine straw into a mound at the base of a tree, he dropped onto it with a grunt and sat me across his lap. His head fell back against the trunk, and his eyes closed. I watched him breathing easily and knew we had stopped for my benefit. I thumbed his eyelid and pushed it open. His other remained resolutely closed. His lips, though, curved at their edges.
“Well?” He stared at me unblinking, which was no doubt due to my grip on his lid.
“Nothing.” The steadiness of his gaze unnerved me. “Rest while you can.”
Crooking an arm around my shoulders, he drew me close, and I nestled my face into his neck. “Only if you will.”
I shoved him. “Must everything be a negotiation with you?”
He rested his chin atop my head. “Must everything be a battle with you?”
“I have learned to fight for what I want.” It was how I had survived on my own.
“Even if what you desire would be freely given?”
“Especially then. Being offered things of value at no cost is when you should be wariest.”
“So rather than accept an offer, you think it best to force others into making the same deal?”
I huffed. “I was bargaining in terms you understood.”
“Huh.” He rubbed his bite marks. “So that’s what you were doing.”
“Yes.” I pulled at his hand. “The bite was incidental.”
“Was it?” He traced my lips with his fingertip.
I resisted the urge to nip him. He might like it too much. “I
t got your attention, didn’t it?”
“Yes.” His voice went husky. “It did.”
“You liked it.” My eyes widened. “You actually want me to do it again.”
His grin was at once roguish and shy. I’m not sure how he managed the combination.
“You did say if I hurried you would bite me again.” He paused. “I hurried.”
I thumped his chin. “You are incorrigible.”
“Where you’re concerned, yes.” He cupped my neck in his palm. “I possessed some sense of self-preservation before we met. After…” His thumb stroked my pulse. “I’ve been more reckless this week than I have in all of my life. I haven’t been the same since the night you stabbed me.”
“You had to remind me.” I groaned and put my face in my hands. “See a physician for it.”
Peeling aside one of my hands, he set it on his chest. “I fear my condition is untreatable.”
My heart melted. His quiet ways had won me. Why had we not met when our lives were our own? Why find one another now, when the future loomed so uncertain? Why torment both of us?
Never would I have imagined he was capable of such tenderness. The way he poked fun at a situation he had to find as strange as I did endeared him to me. Once, he said that I understood force. Perhaps that explained why these tender moods confused me.
“I’m no healer, but I have often observed Mana at her work.” I straddled his lap. Let him tug me flush against him. His heart thumped hard beneath my hand. “Let me see if I can’t cure you.”
Breathing him in, I feathered my lips over his jaw, down his neck, where I scraped my teeth.
Murdoch inhaled harshly and held his breath. I delighted in swirling my tongue across his skin while smoothing my hands over his broad shoulders and lower, past his thick arms, to link hands.
“I don’t mean to question your credentials…” he hissed when I nipped his ear, “…but is the cure supposed to hurt worse than the condition it treats?” He gripped my wrist and held it steady.
“Your heart does seem overtaxed.” I feigned regret. “Perhaps I should try curing you later.”
“I want it now.” He turned his mouth against the inside of my wrist and pressed a kiss there.
Chills swept down my arms. “You want what, exactly?”
He didn’t hesitate. “You.”
Sliding his hands through my hair, he bent me to him. Impatient for the arrival of my mouth, his met mine halfway. His lips were firm, his tongue demanding as he coaxed my mouth open to him. Murdoch’s taste was as complex as the rest of him. He filled my senses, and I moaned at it.
Too soon he turned his face aside, allowing me to taste my mark upon him.
“We can’t do this.” He was breathless. “Not while you belong to someone else.”
Part of me knew he was wrong. I no longer belonged to Hishima in heart or in body. The other part felt Murdoch hard between my thighs and didn’t care who was right.
Before I became this shadow of my former self, I had enjoyed the pleasure found in the male form. I had always been tame in my tastes, but I wondered, what might this wilder Kaidi crave?
He gripped my hips, held me down as his hips rolled to meet mine.
“If we don’t leave now,” he said, out of breath, “we won’t be leaving any time soon.”
Tempted as I was to force his hand, he was right. With supreme effort, I mustered resolve. “We will finish this. Later.”
“First we find the harbinger.” His eyes gleamed. “Then we free you from your betrothal.”
“And if we fail?”
He held my face between his palms, and the kiss he gave me set my heart afire.
“If you are the prize,” he said softly, “fear not that I will win you.”
I pressed my lips to his one final time before I stood and gathered the spade I had dropped. I gave him privacy to adjust himself while pretending not to study him from the corner of my eye.
“See that ridge there?” He jerked his chin past my shoulder. “That’s where we’re headed.”
“The mountains will make for a harder journey.” Familiar as they were, I dreaded the climb.
“Saida Pass will shave a day from our travel if we keep up the pace we’ve set.”
“Won’t the others follow?” They must know the area at least as well as he did.
“They will, but that’s the point.” His arm brushed mine in passing. “If we lure them into the mountains, there’s less chance they’ll encounter Hishima, assuming they haven’t intercepted him already. That will accomplish two things. It keeps Hishima south of us, which gives the paladin a chance at detaining him upon his arrival in Cathis, and it gives us the help we’ll need to transport the harbinger back to Cathis in good condition. I doubt you and I could escort her that far alone.”
“I hope your paladin can detain mine for a day at least.” Though I doubted it. “Hishima will never allow us to reach the caverns. If we do, by some chance, he will see we never leave them.”
“We’ll think of something.” He sounded sure, and that relaxed me. I trusted him, I realized.
“I know you will.” Despite the fact our break had been anything but restful, I was energized.
“Can I ask you something?” He hesitated. “It’s personal. You don’t have to answer.”
He had said his secrets were mine. Could I do any less than allow mine to be his?
With no small amount of trepidation, I gave him leave. “Ask me.”
He took so long to speak again, I wondered if he’d changed his mind. “Why do you do it?”
Considering all the things I had done these past months… “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Why chase the plague? What have you gotten for your trouble except being called a liar by the very people you’ve sacrificed to help?” He scratched behind his ear. “Others in your position would have made other, easier choices. Yet you chose to fight. You made a stand for your clan.”
I contemplated my answer, but settled on, “It’s a long story.”
A sweep of his arm covered the distance between here and the mountains. “We have time.”
“When I fled Titania, no one had the plague. I had never heard of the plague for that matter. Oh, I’m sure some were in the early stages. We had livestock die in bizarre ways, some from the same herds that had been butchered for market. But no people were sick yet. No one had any great concerns. Since wildlife had died also, we assumed it was an illness spread among animals.
“Fleeing Hishima meant my family was shamed for my actions. I had broken vows made to our paladin. They were the ones forced to remain in Titania and endure his wrath.” A hard choice I regret. “Their ignorance protected them. My parents had no idea I had gone until he confronted them. Until you found me, my whereabouts were a mystery Hishima despaired of ever solving.”
“You did the best you could to protect them.” Murdoch’s sincere endorsement rang hollow.
No matter how I tried, I saw only my cowardice in abandoning my family to his whims.
“They…disowned me.” Gods it was hard to say aloud. “I understood why they did. I don’t begrudge them what protection it afforded them. It hurt to hear of it, but I had made my choice.”
Murdoch bowed his head. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I was sorrier to live it.” I laughed bitterly. “From Hishima’s manor, I fled into a small town situated at the base of the mountains we’re about to cross. My favorite cousin, Maier, lived there. She was the one soul I dared trust, and I would have only stayed with her until I had time to think of where to go from there. Every third morning, she traveled into Titania and sold her charms. It was through her I first learned of the plague and that my family had fallen ill as everyone else. I wasn’t worried. If everyone else had it, how bad could it be? Even when Maier came home with a fever, I teased her about using the yellow fever, as it was being called then, to avoid the lengthy journey into the city. We thought the fever would burn itself
out in a few days, but it got worse.
“Disowned and in hiding, I couldn’t use my parents’ name or mine to pay for a physician for her. There was nothing I could have done, I know that now, but it still haunts me.” It took several moments to work up the nerve to finish. “Maier died in her cottage with me weeping at her side.”
Murdoch stopped as if to turn, so I placed a hand on his shoulder to urge him onward. It was easier speaking of such things without seeing pity on his face. I could abide much, but never that.
“When the townsfolk came to claim Maier’s body to bury her among our kin, I learned all of my family had died. Most had been dead before Maier passed, but with her home sick, there was no one to tell me.” I tightened my grip on him. “Days, Murdoch. In a matter of days I lost them. I lost everything. The females succumbed to the plague. The males who had tied their life threads to their wives died alongside them. Only Uncle Ghubari, who had never married and been on a trip at the time, survived. By the time he returned, he assumed I had died too. That my body was one of many gone missing. Some blamed zealous townsfolk, saying they buried or burned bodies before families identified them. Others feared scavenging animals, but none suspected Hishima.”
“Did you know the plague was linked to the harbinger then?” he asked.
“Not then, no. But three nights after Maier’s body had been laid to rest, I snuck into Titania. My uncle had erected a memorial with the names of each of the departed carved into the crystal. I sat there and cried for my family, for my parents whom I had hurt so deeply at the end. I hadn’t gotten sick, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t care. I only knew that I didn’t want to be left behind.
“Then I heard it. Someone cried for help. I looked around, but I was alone. That was when I saw it. Maier’s hand. It pierced the earth and waved frantically for help. I clasped her forearm to let her know I was there.” My arm bore crescent-shaped scars to prove it. “I dug Maier out of her grave. I didn’t know what it meant, but she was a riser—a corpse who follows a harbinger—and she almost killed me. She would have if a harbinger hadn’t arrived to claim her before she could.
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