by Lorna George
Naomi felt the colour drain out of her face and her blood chill. 'What?'
'I never heard such screams. It was agony.'
He sounded horrified. Of course he did. Those screams, the cold and the heavy, pressing darkness had nearly driven her insane. Still, hearing it spoken of, knowing he had somehow seen it, left her feeling vulnerable. If there was one thing in the world that Naomi hated it was to be vulnerable, and in her insecurity, she fell back on her most efficient defence mechanism.
'How dare you,' she snarled. 'How dare you go poking about in my thoughts like that?'
'Now, wait,' Arun replied. 'You don't understand. It's the Bond, I didn't have a choice. Your dreams just meshed in with mine and the strongest overpowered the other.'
He stood and made to move towards her, but she quickly backed away. She didn't want anyone near her right now. Didn't want to think about what he had seen, what he knew. Her own personal hell on display for him to see and bring up in her waking hours.
'Firefly...'
'Don't keep calling me that!' she snapped, latching onto it to escape the current topic. 'It's ridiculous!'
Arun seemed to catch on, his eyes still concerned but his expression altering to something less intimidating. 'It suits you, that's all.'
'How, exactly? Fireflies are just irritating, noisy, tiny little pests!'
He raised his eyebrows.
'Go away.' she muttered, grabbing a water skin and taking a mouthful. She heard Arun chuckle quietly at her expense, then there was a shot of magic and she nearly dropped the skin in her hands. Whipping back around to face him, she found him washed, dressed and clean-shaven. He looked surprised by the sudden anger on her face.
‘What?’
‘Do you ever listen?’ she asked furiously. ‘What did I say about magic yesterday? You’ve just highlighted our presence to half the cussing forest!’
The surprise was quickly replaced by anger of his own. ‘You don’t think your continual shouting might already have done that?’
A stream of abuse was pressing persistently against the inside of her lips and it took all of her self-control not to simply open her mouth and allow it to spill out. Keeping her seething gaze fixed firmly against his own, she barked orders to the ears she was fairly certain were all listening in. ‘Alright gentlemen, rise and shine! I want these platforms dismantled and all of you ready to move out on the double! No magic, do you hear me? No magic.’
There was an immediate scuffle from the nearby trees as the soldiers moved to do as they were bid. The tension between her and Arun was practically crackling as she threw the water skin down on the bedroll with a loud thump, before pointing her forefinger in his face.
‘I’m going to get you out of here and safely back to your ship, Your Majesty, and you can apply whatever reasoning you like to that promise, I couldn’t care less,’ she hissed. ‘But you have to understand that for me to do this job, there are rules that everyone, including you, have to obey. I can make do with your cruel restriction on my movements, I can even make do with you leaving me completely unarmed, but when I say that magic isn’t to be used except in emergencies, I expect you to listen. Is that clear?’
‘I wasn’t-!’
‘I asked you if that was clear?’ she interrupted his protest, trying not to just reach out and shake him until some sort of sense lodged itself into his thick head. He looked flustered for a moment, then drew himself up, taking a small step towards her. More intimidation tactics, she scoffed inwardly. When was he going to realise they didn’t work on her?
‘You need to get out of Ffion alive just as much as we do.’ he said, more calmly than she might have given him credit for.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘And that is exactly why I’m not going to put up with any more of your stupidity.’
*
Arun had never been as conflicted in his entire life as he was right now. This pale, scrawny girl he found himself married to was both infuriating and fascinating at the same time. The group was making their way slowly through the dense forest of Ffion, completely avoiding the main roads and meandering through the trees, with Naomi in front. The terrain was rough and he was surprised she wasn’t disoriented by the trees that they were weaving through. Occasionally her booted foot would sink into a bog of some kind, and after easing it out again, completely unconcerned by the mud that now caked her slender legs, she would find a safe way for the rest of them to go. It was taking a long time, but he knew that she could go a lot quicker if it wasn’t for them slowing her down. He didn’t like to think how bad it would be without her.
Briefly his mind flickered back to Rayan and Esta, trying to hope that they were fine while becoming increasingly aware of how dangerous these lands were, even without the threat of being hunted by outside sources. His cousin was well-travelled, and unlike him had been to Ffion a few times before now. As Naomi herself had said, he had to just cling to that knowledge and focus on getting out of here alive himself. Thinking the worst wasn’t going to help anyone at this point. Hopefully by this time tomorrow, he would have recovered his strength enough that he could use his dragon form once again. From there, he would find them and return his family and his wife to their ship.
His eyes found their way back to Naomi again, and her quiet amusement as she spoke to the young guard, Rostam, was making him feel very unpleasant. Why was it that she seemed perfectly happy to talk and be amicable with everyone except him? Since his rude awakening this morning, Naomi's obvious terror at the Bond giving him so much access to her mind while she slept and her refusal to accept it still, they had barely said a word to one another. Any attempt on his part to initiate conversation had been met with hard eyes and curt answers.
She was still angry with him for using his magic this morning, and although he so far had been unable to admit it, he knew it had been a stupid mistake. He just hadn’t been thinking, that was all. It had been years since he’d dressed and shaved by hand, it had become such a part of his normal routine he barely even registered that it was magic any more. He knew he should just apologise and get it over with, but she always made him feel so… so….
He didn’t know what he felt. She had terrified him yesterday, running into the thick of battle like that. She had been completely fearless, but he had felt it like a knife. It had made him angry that he should worry for her when she seemed to have so little regard for her own safety. He’d tried to tell himself that there was nothing attractive about a woman who would throw herself into danger like that, but it didn’t ring true. The more he saw of her courage and skill, the more he grew to appreciate it.
This woman really was capable of taking care of herself. More than that, she seemed to have taken it upon herself to take care of him as well. It was such a peculiar thought, and he had absolutely no idea how to deal with it. He was supposed to be protecting her, not the other way around. That was just the way it worked. Watching her and lost in his thoughts, Arun found himself smiling slightly. It seemed that no one had ever told her that.
He wanted to know about her. He wanted to know how she had become a prisoner, who she had been before. She was obviously from a better background than she had recently been living, and remembering how she had fallen into immediate military leadership, he could only assume of soldier class, if not higher. Esta had told him she believed her to be of noble birth, and the more he spoke to her, the more he had to agree. She was always very firm and sometimes abrupt, but she was also eloquent and well-educated. She wore authority like an old pair of boots, and he knew that sort of comfort with command was born, not taught.
The problem was that Adrienne’s coup against King Maximilian had been so long ago, Arun’s memory of the old Court was sadly lacking. He had no need to remember the names and positions of foreign Courtiers that were dead or no longer in power. It sounded harsh, but it was true. He had enough to remember just with the living, and even then found himself struggling on occasion. He did remember King Maximilian, however, as t
he man had attended his own coronation not five years previously. He didn’t remember very much, the days around the celebrations being busy and stressful, but he remembered his easy laugh, his sharp humour and bright green eyes.
A suspicion he wasn’t yet ready to name had been creeping up on him since their conversation at the river yesterday. She had been deliberately evasive about the lost Princess of Ffion, and had very quickly tried to change the subject. The way she’d looked at him, anxious and uneasy, was uncharacteristic of her usual self-assurance. She hadn’t expected him to know the rumours. Perhaps she had even been unaware of them herself? Most people believed the heir to the Redwood Throne long dead with the rest of her family, but whispers of an escape, that her body had never been displayed with the others in the city square, had been quietly circulated. He had initially dismissed it as false hope and speculation, but now he found himself wondering.
If only she would tell him, but who was he kidding? Naomi had made it perfectly clear on more than one occasion that she had absolutely no intention of telling him anything. Angry and betrayed, he had initially told himself that she was just being difficult, but experiencing her nightmares, feeling her fear, made him think twice. It had been horrific, the way the darkness had wrapped around her like a shroud of death, the cold causing her to shiver uncontrollably, despite how she had burrowed against his body for warmth. The screams of tormented souls still echoed around his head, and the feeling of her locked muscles as she tried to stave off her deep and abiding terror. It made him question his treatment of her.
The crux of their problem until now had been that she had used him, with apparently little regret. Now knowing what she had been through, the state of her life, brought Esta’s words back to the front of his mind. Yes, she’d had a choice, but the alternative had been abhorrent. It didn’t make the situation any easier, but he found his anger with her softening quickly.
She had called his restriction spell cruel, but it was only this morning that he had fully understood that it really was. No matter his intentions, or how desperate he was, to someone that had suffered an incarceration like that, there was no way to justify his actions. It was small wonder she resented him. As his cousin had told him, what reason had Arun ever given her to trust him? If only he could secure her cooperation, he wouldn’t need the spell that kept her from running. She’d told him she was considering his proposal, even though to him it was more of a courtesy gesture, perhaps he needed to try a little harder?
If he knew one solid fact about Naomi, it was that once her mind was made up, she would follow through. If she gave her word and agreed to be his wife and Queen, a prospect he found far less daunting than he had before, he knew she would keep it. He just had to be tactful about it. Find ways to exploit her that were subtle and eventually win her over to his way of thinking.
Looking back up to where she was, he was pleased to see that the soldier, Rostam, had fallen back from her side slightly. The Bond sang out with a bestial pride that the other man was unable to keep pace with her, and he blinked in surprise at the strange reaction. He realised all at once that the unpleasant feeling he had been experiencing while the two talked had been jealousy, and as he picked up his own pace, he couldn’t keep himself from shooting a warning glare at the younger man when he passed. His dragon shifted and coiled within his magic, but before he could act on it, Naomi noticed him closing in on her and frowned.
‘You shouldn’t be up here,’ she dismissed him easily. ‘It’s dangerous.’
‘Is my company really that repellent to you?’ the beast inside him snarled at that as Arun jerked his head back to where Rostam was walking. ‘You didn’t seem to mind a moment ago.’
She rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything as she continued to carefully pick her way through the underbrush. It didn’t escape Arun’s notice that Rostam dropped back even further, and actually hid a little behind the next two soldiers back. He took a deep breath, knowing he was already making a hash out of things, and did his best to calm the strange surge of emotions and magic assailing him.
Suddenly Naomi had tackled him to the ground, her small weight catching him by surprise shoving him back into the mud even as she landed on top of him. Acting on instinct, he grabbed her, expecting some kind of attack, but he soon realised from the way she had wrapped her arm around the back of his head to cushion the force that she was shielding him from something. Dazed by the force of the fall and her sudden close proximity, it took him a moment to register that she was shouting and trying to get up again.
‘Let go, you moron!’ She struggled against him and he realised at once that he had at some point wrapped her very firmly in his arms. Immediately he let her go and she pushed herself up, grabbing his wrist and pulling him with her. ‘Fall back! Everyone, fall back!’
It took him a moment to orient himself enough to stand without stumbling, even as Naomi continued to try and drag him away with her.
'Didn't you hear me?' she snapped. 'We're being shot at by a clabbert! We must be too near their nests. We need to get out of here before she shoots at you again!'
As Naomi shoved him into action, he looked up to a nearby tree and saw a strange, green creature watching him furiously. Its body was similar to a small monkey, all long limbs and tail, but instead of fur, its skin was slick and strange, like that of a frog or newt. On its head, small horns protruded, and in its hand as it danced about the branches angrily, he noticed a small wooden blow-pipe.
The creature was quickly out of sight as Naomi led him back between the dense trees they had just come through. He could just make out the flurry of red that were the uniforms of his retreating soldiers, as she slowed slightly and pushed him ahead of her. He could tell that she was trying to bring up the rear and make certain no one was left behind, but his protective instincts refused to leave her. She scowled at him, but apparently realising he was going to be as pig-headed about it as her, she gave up and ran beside him.
Finally they caught up with the other soldiers, who were all looking confused, mud splashed all up their legs and backs. Sergeant Naseem had a bow with an arrow nocked, and was covering their escape, but Naomi waved him off.
‘She won’t pursue, don’t worry,’ she leaned against a tree and took a deep breath. ‘We frightened her, that’s all. Everyone alright?’
There was a quick sound off, and with everyone accounted for, Arun turned back to her to question further about the creature. He was surprised to find her sitting on a log, gloves pulled off and rolling up her sleeve, then noticed the colourful dart protruding from her arm, just above her elbow.
‘You’re hurt!’ he gasped, dropping immediately down to his knees in front of her and trying to see the wound.
‘I’m fine,’ she dismissed his concern without even looking up. ‘I need a knife, if that’s alright?’
‘What do you need a knife for?’
This time she did look up, her expression pinched as she yanked the dart viciously out of her arm. ‘I’m going to stab you repeatedly in the face, what the cuss do you think? I need to bleed the poison out!’
He bit back a sharp retort and pulled a small dagger from his boot before offering it to her. She snatched the blade, and without even a moment of hesitation, cut a small incision across it. Dark blood pooled, but her mouth was quickly over it, sucking then spitting the blood and poison from the wound. Her emerald eyes looked slightly unfocused and there was a thin film of perspiration beading her forehead.
Standing, he went to one of the packs and retrieved some clean bandages and a small potion that was used to keep wounds from festering. Spitting poison wasn’t exactly sanitary at the best of times, and the last thing he wanted was for the stupid girl to lose her arm. He turned to go back to her, but found himself face to face with the young guardsman, Rostam, who was holding up a water skin. She would probably be thirsty, it was true, but he didn’t want to thank the other man, and snatched it out of his hands unceremoniously.
‘My K
ing?’ the guard muttered, eyes lowered. ‘I just… I just thought you should know that the lady was hit while protecting you.’
Arun groaned quietly in defeat.
Chapter Thirteen
Naomi could feel the poison start to take effect. Her vision blurred at the edges and her movements were sluggish. Finding the right plant to nullify the dart wasn’t going to happen at this late stage, and none of the Korenian soldiers knew what they were looking for, risking making things worse. Thankfully the poison used by clabberts wasn’t deadly, but it was going to make her almost completely useless for the rest of the day, and slow tomorrow.
She should have just let His Royal Pain-In-The-Backside take the hit. She was more useful to them at the moment than he was anyway, and out of everyone to lose for a day, he was by far the most expendable. Honestly, she had no idea what had made her jump in the way of the dart, she knew better. It hadn’t been a practical decision at all.
Now here she was, trying to suck poison from a wound that was in quite possibly the most awkward place imaginable, and probably failing abysmally.
‘Here, let me.’
She looked up to find Arun back again, offering her a water skin and Sergeant Naseem a roll of clean linen bandages. He’d stomped off only moments ago and she’d hoped he would stay well out of the way. She was vulnerable right now, and she knew she was less inclined to be fair or diplomatic in this frame of mind.
Sitting down on the log beside her, she watched in a daze as he took her injured arm and sealed his mouth over the wound. She was about to protest, but the sharp pain in her arm let her know he was doing a better job than she had been. He spat twice, then took the water skin from her slack fingers, rinsed his mouth, then carefully washed the wound.
‘Do you think it needs stitching?’ he asked, looking up at Sergeant Naseem.