Sarn suppressed a sigh. Ever since his brother had started school nine months ago, they’d been having variations of this same argument. Sarn was tired of it, but the six-year age gap between them had forced the role of de facto parent on him whether he liked it or not.
“Because I’m responsible for you. When you’re my age, we can reevaluate that.” And that was all Sarn intended to say on that matter until his brother turned seventeen. He rolled onto his side and glared at Miren, not caring that his glowing eyes tended to creep people out.
“Fine, then I won’t tell you why I came.” Miren folded his arms over his chest and glared at the floor.
Miren would cave because he liked to talk, but Sarn didn't feel like waiting for that to happen. Instead, Sarn looked to his best friend for an answer, and Shade had one ready.
Before delivering that explanation, Shade glanced around to make sure they had this corner of the barracks to themselves. That meant the problem had to do with the Foundlings and was likely complicated. Great, what else could possibly go wrong today?
Sarn scrubbed a hand over his face and contemplated pulling the covers over his head, but that wouldn’t fix anything, and loose ends bothered him. He really didn't feel up to sorting out anyone’s problems, not even his own after he’d so badly screwed things up with Nolo. He’d blown his one chance to impress that worthy because of his frigging magic. Life was so unfair lately, and he was tired of nothing he did ever being right.
Snores punctuated the quiet, reminding them they weren't alone far from it in fact. But Shade waited, listening hard for anyone creeping around in search of a chamber pot, a drink of water, or a free bunk. Rangers tended to come and go through the barracks at all hours of the day and night.
When his androgynous friend was satisfied, Shade leaned back so the post holding the two bunks above this one aloft screened his friend from view. Sarn was just glad Shade was sober for a change. Whatever had happened couldn’t have been that bad with Shade there unless...
But no, he was being silly. Miren was sitting right there, looking hale and hearty and angry as hell. Sarn pushed that worry away. Shade had promised to watch over his brother, and here his friend was, alert, clear-eyed, and acting every bit the friend.
“Well?” Sarn asked, making no attempt to hide his impatience.
Shade was taking too long to deliver whatever news had brought them here, and the longer Sarn waited to hear it, the more worry congealed in his gut.
But Shade took one last glance around to be certain they wouldn't be overheard then finally spoke. “A horn-sporting son of a goat kidnapped your son.” A veil hid Shade’s smile at Miren’s splutter of indignation.
“I tried to stop him.” At Sarn’s incredulous look, Miren continued. “I did. I threw everything I could find at that creep, but he got away. Will tried to stop him too. It was a group effort, but he was a wily one. Don’t worry. We didn’t hit the baby. We were very careful. I made sure of that.”
Sarn stared at his brother and words failed him. That was a common enough occurrence though, so Miren plowed on with his story, which grew stranger and stranger by the moment. Sarn held up a hand to stop the flow of words. Miren tended toward loquaciousness and would go on and on instead of getting to the point if not stopped.
“Let’s start from the beginning. Give me the short version for now. Who took,” Sarn paused as the words 'my son' got stuck somewhere between the doubts in his mind and the father-sized hole in his heart.
How could he be anyone’s father? Sarn was barely able to take care of himself most days. He finished the sentence with the only thing he was sure of, “such a sweet baby.”
“A horn-sporting son of a goat,” Shade put in.
But Sarn shushed his friend. A sick feeling was growing in the pit of his stomach. Shade was supposed to watch over his brother. What had Shade been doing when this had all gone down?
Sarn opened his mouth to ask then thought better of it. “I want to hear Miren’s side. You can tell me yours later.” And Shade had better have a good explanation for being left out of Miren's account.
“I already told you everything.” Miren folded his arms over his chest and went back to glaring at the floor.
“Thank you for that, and for coming to tell me, and for trying to save—” Sarn trailed off again into silence.
He could think the words, 'my son,' but saying them out loud made them a fact. Because Sarn couldn't lie, every word he uttered must be true. If he tried to speak a falsehood, the words would twist on his tongue into the truth.
And the truth of those two little words was just too massive. Sarn wasn’t ready to face them yet, but he couldn't escape them for much longer. That baby had his eyes, and he was already crawling. Soon, he’d be walking and talking and asking uncomfortable questions, and it was all too much for Sarn.
He closed his eyes, and there was that baby's smiling face and his chubby arms reaching out across that abyss of doubt and fear. ‘Love me,’ his sweet little smile said, 'because I love you.’
Just like that, those two little words had leaped into his mouth. They waited on the tip of his tongue. All Sarn had to do was say them, and he'd know without a shadow of a doubt if that adorable child was his.
Sarn had to know, but he'd find out with both eyes open. Even his magic stilled inside him as it grasped the seriousness of the situation, but it didn’t press him. Maybe it already knew what he’d avoided discovering until now.
The barracks suddenly quieted as all the snoring ceased, and time itself seemed to hold its breath. When those words came, they were said in a rush amid the questions Sarn still needed answers for.
“Who would kidnap my son?”
There, he'd said it, and those two words hadn't changed. He had a son, and that son had been kidnapped. Sarn sat up. He needed to get that baby back. He could figure out this fatherhood thing later. It was too big, too complicated, and too scary to contemplate now.
“Well?” Sarn asked when neither his brother nor Shade answered. “No one except the Foundlings and you two know about the boy.” He gestured to his two visitors.
Then Sarn recalled the Huntress and the incident on the river. Relating it took only a moment since a lot of it centered around his heroic efforts to keep Nolo from drowning, and that didn’t rate a mention, not to these two. They’d only fret if they knew he’d fallen into an icy river.
So, Sarn stayed quiet about that part. But Shade gave him a look that made it clear he wasn’t fooling anyone. His friend knew more had happened. Well, Shade could just wonder about that for a while longer. No way would he talk about that in front of his little brother. Sarn didn’t want to give the kid nightmares.
“You think she had something to do with this?” Miren asked, and it took Sarn a moment to figure out who his brother had meant—the Huntress.
“I don’t believe in coincidences, so, yes, she’s somehow involved in this. I just wish I knew why.” Sarn swung his long legs over the side of the bunk.
“It makes sense. So, what do we do about it?” Shade handed Sarn a pair of extra-large boots. His best friend always did cut right to the chase.
“We go after her. I don’t see any other options.”
“You could tell someone,” Shade said, and there was an edge in his friend’s voice that had never been there before.
“And lose my son? No way.” Not after he’d finally had the guts to claim the boy. Sarn stuffed his foot into the first boot he grabbed. Thankfully, it was the right one.
“How do you know they’ll take him away?” By 'they' Shade meant the Rangers.
“Look at me. I’m a seventeen-year-old freak who should be dead. Plus, I’m Indentured, and half of the Rangers think I’m mentally defective. Do you honestly think they’d let someone like me keep a baby? I know they won’t. I had a hard enough time getting custody of Miren, and he was nine then.”
At the time, Sarn had been two months shy of sixteen, but Miren had been a kid who could talk
, walk, and feed himself, not a defenseless baby.
“I remember.” Shade shrugged. “I’d be a poor friend if I didn’t point out all your options.”
“You had to fight for me?” Miren stared at Sarn in open-mouthed shock when he nodded.
“Shh, keep your voice down. Of course, I did. You were my only family before—” Sarn ended that with a look when he heard someone stirring.
He motioned for Shade and Miren to follow him around piles of discarded gear, clothes, and other items not even the glow of his eyes could resolve into anything other than boxy shapes. Someone had left a delivery smack in the middle of the barrack’s floor. It wasn’t the first time either.
Avoiding a stubbed toe or making any kind of racket was hard with all that stuff in the way and half of it was precariously piled. The long room was also windowless so Rangers coming off shift could sleep through the day if need be.
Jerlo would have the delivery boy’s head for this when he saw it. Sarn shook his head at the mess as he crept around it, taking care not to jostle any of the waist-high towers.
Once in the hallway, Sarn tied his boots then faced a dilemma. He couldn’t take his brother into the cold and snow. Hell, he didn’t even want to go back out there. But he had to go after his son.
Did he really? His son was nine-months-old and the concept of fatherhood was still new, and confusing. What if he didn’t go after that child?
He wouldn’t be tied to a woman who’d betrayed him then hid her pregnancy. She hadn’t even visited Sarn during the long months he’d spent recuperating from Hadrovel’s attack. Nor could Sarn prove she hadn’t tipped that psychopath off to his escape attempt.
But could he hold the sins of the mother against the child?
No. Sarn would have to hide him if he retrieved that child. If anyone found out about the baby, they'd take him away. And when that kid grew up, he’d be just like Sarn—hated because of the magic in his blood. What kind of life was that?
The same one Sarn was living. Was that so bad? No. For better or worse, that child was his, and he needed to know that child was okay.
“So, we’re doing this?” Shade cocked his or her head to one side and an anticipatory gleam crossed those familiar brown eyes. Likely his best friend had read every thought that had just crossed his mind.
Sarn nodded. “What about Miren?”
“What about me? I’m going with you. He’s my nephew.”
“I’m coming too,” Will chimed in as he and a few other boys poked their heads out from behind a covered cart. Crumbs dotted their clothing.
Sarn exchanged a glance with his best friend. Shade nodded. They were of one mind on the subject.
“Alright, but first there’s something I need you to do. It’s critical to saving—” Sarn paused as footsteps sounded from nearby.
No doubt it was one of his Ranger babysitters coming to check on him. Fates forbid he expired on their watch. Sarn motioned for the five boys, ranging in age from fifteen to eleven, to follow him. Then froze when one of those boys turned out not to be a boy at all.
“What are you doing here?”
Chapter 18
In the silence that fell when those bells finished tolling, the world seemed to hold its breath. Robin did the only thing she could; she reached for the help she’d been searching for since her daughter was taken from her. “Hey! We need help.”
“State the nature of your emergency,” the man, who was still striding away from her, said in a clipped tone without turning.
Maybe he wasn’t a Ranger. They were supposed to help hikers in need, not interrogate them.
“We have several wounded in need of a healer and—”
“Where are your wounded—here or back at your camp? How many are wounded? How were the member or members of your party wounded? Was it an accident or something else? Where did you camp? How many are in your party? Which direction did you come from?”
“Whoa!” Robin held up a hand to stop the rapid-fire questions, but they just kept coming at her faster than she could answer them until she chopped a hand through the air. Enough was enough. “I need help, not an interrogation.” She glared at him, and he glared right back. Whoever had trained him had forgotten to teach him some basic manners. Dad would be horrified by this. It was no way to treat people in need.
“We have two wounded women. One is more seriously injured than the other, and no, I don’t know how bad her wounds are because she won't let me look at them. She’s right there. We were attacked in the mountains.” Robin paused. She’d hit the important points, hadn’t she?
“Which ones?”
“I didn’t stop to find out. We were too busy surviving to look at a map before we walked out to find help. Nor does it matter since our entire party is here, not there.” Robin increased her glare when the white-clad man just stood there and ground his teeth. “Will you help us or not? If not, can you direct me to someone who will?”
He cocked his hooded head to one-side, considering her. Maybe he was considering whether or not to get involved. Standards were definitely slipping. If he was a Ranger—and that seemed like a giant ‘if’ right now—she’d have a word with his commander. This was no way to treat a survivor.
“Who attacked you?”
“It’s complicated. I’d rather explain that to your commander. Take me to him.” Robin folded her arms. Hopefully, he’d be more helpful.
If that black blob behind them was Mount Eredren, then his commander was none other than Jerlo. Robin had no reason to doubt that the Queen of All Trees had transported her closer to her goal, but neither did she have any proof that she was indeed regarding Mount Eredren either. She probably should have led with that question, but it was too late now. She’d already alienated this guy.
“Yeah, well Jerlo’s not on duty right now. So you’ll have to wait until later.”
His dismissive glance made it clear she didn’t have a valid reason for disturbing the commander. But Robin didn’t care because he’d just confirmed she was indeed staring at Mount Eredren, home to the best commander the Rangers had. She’d get that audience alright and the help she needed. Just let him try to stop her.
Before she could demand he summon help, this poor excuse for a Ranger removed a horn from his belt and blew three short notes then three long then three short ones again. It was the call for help and that familiar tune made her shoulders sag with relief. Help was coming at last.
Training pushed her to run toward that melody, and Robin stifled a laugh because this time she was the one in need. A tear leaked out of her eyes as Rosalie’s sweet little face ghosted up in her memory.
I will find you. I don’t care who I must bribe. Your kidnappers must have passed this way. Someone here must have seen them. Someone like the Ranger securing his horn to his belt while he called out questions about Cat’s condition. Finally, he was interested in helping.
Robin fought the urge to punch him. But she needed his help and so did Cat. Just get inside. That was all that mattered right now. Robin stalked back to the boulder and the snowy human-sized lump sitting on it.
“I take it help’s arrived?”
Robin just nodded to Strella’s question and handed the rope tied to the sled bearing the unconscious Cat to the Ranger. It was time he pulled his weight.
He took the rope and passed its loop around his torso. “I take it she’s secure?”
“Yes,” Strella replied as she picked up the other lead. She threw a distrustful look at Robin, but Robin just gave her a ‘what can you do’ shrug.
This guy was their in. Until they met someone else, they were stuck with him.
“It’s a bit of a walk. Do I need to summon a stretcher for you, or can you make it?”
“We’ll make it. Lead the way.” Strella gave their escort a none too gentle shove.
“Alright. Follow me.”
As if they had any choice about that. Strella rolled her eyes, but their guide had already set off, so he didn’t see it.
“I hope there are more helpful Rangers inside,” Strella muttered.
Robin nodded. But there might not be. She had no idea what the set up here was like just that it was very different from the way her father had run the Rangers of her home valley. Oh God, how she missed that place. Larkspur no longer seemed so small and provincial. Could she go home after she got Rosalie back?
There were a lot of hard words between her and her parents. Had time softened them any? Or were they still bricks walling them off from her? Robin chewed her lip as she seriously considered going home. Would her parents take her in while she figured out what to do with her shattered life?
Robin brushed away a tear, one for each of her parents. How she missed them and their counsel. They’d been right about Ison and that still smarted. If only she’d listened but she hadn’t, and that had led her to this place on a quest that felt more impossible every passing moment.
The cold fist of grief clenched around her heart made breathing difficult as the snowy meadow gave way to a switchback trail that some kind person had shoveled. As Robin slogged upward in the sled’s wake, her thoughts drifted to the next stages of her plan—getting help and finding her daughter.
Her tired legs protested each step. So did her frozen toes which had begun to throb through her soaked boots. Unless the Queen of All Trees planned to show up a second time and wipe away her exhaustion, she wouldn’t make much progress tonight. But she must try after she found a tracker. The Rangers should have one, and he should be able to do what she couldn’t—track the Wild Hunt to their lair.
How could she find one with Mr. Bad Attitude leading the way? Robin massaged her temples through her snow-caked hat, and her entire quest felt hopeless. The futility of finding her daughter almost crushed her then and there until warmth spread through her body, energizing it.
It was the Queen’s gift and the realization choked Robin up. Maybe it was a sixth sense or the silent call of the Queen. Whatever it was, it made Robin pause on a precipice and glance over her shoulder. And there, a silver shape loomed at the edge of the forest. She burned with a pure light that reached through the menhirs barring her from entering the meadow.
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