by Lorna George
Suddenly arrows were being fired at her, but the magic reacted so quickly, they were burned up before they came near. Naomi turned on the attackers. Before she could act, they had been taken out by a volley of Korenian arrows. For the first time since she’d woken, she felt something other than blinding fury, and blinked rapidly in surprise.
‘It’s alright, it’s just us,’ Arun’s gentle voice intruded in her mind and she flinched violently. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you alright?’
She shook her head, trying to clear it, hating the way it felt to have him in there, but knowing she had initiated the contact by borrowing his magic. It was invasive, and her natural response was to try and eject him. The magic fought for and against her, the fire consuming and wrapping around her body like a column until that was all she could see and feel.
‘You’re losing control!’ Arun spoke urgently, his voice now panicked and forcing the connection. She tried to shut the magic off, but she couldn’t seem to remember how. Falling to her knees, she clutched her head and clenched her eyes. She was burning up, the heat licking at her flesh, eating her alive. The baby was still crying.
‘Let the baby go!’ she thundered, trying to focus. Arun was fighting to get to her, she could feel his mental push and part of her recognised that he was trying to help. She wished she had her own magic to use, that she could simply reach out and wrap around their necks, choking the life out of them.
Heeding her command, the magic obeyed her, and a long vine of burning flame shot out and choked the biggest man. Instead of strangling him to death, the fire simply burnt him alive, boiling him until he all but dissolved on the grass. The baby cried louder and Naomi shouted out in agony.
‘Come back, little Firefly,’ Arun tried to coax her and she felt the magic react and flare up. It hurt so much, she could barely think. ‘I know it hurts, but you have to calm down. Breathe deeply. Keep breathing and focus on that. Just keep breathing.’
‘The trick is to keep breathing.’
Her teacher’s humble but powerful advice echoed around her head, reinforced by Arun’s repetition. She could hear Gerrard’s voice as though he were there and knew Arun had accessed her memories. She snarled almost bestially. ‘Get out of my head!’
‘You have to close the connection.’ he pressed with a forced calm, and she briefly wondered why he bothered. She could feel all of his emotions as though they were hers and she tried fruitlessly to get them away. His frustration, his fear, his urgency, all swirled around her skull like an unfamiliar and uncomfortably hot brew of cha, scalding her mind.
‘The baby! Let the baby go!’ Naomi knew she was screaming now, her voice hoarse from the pain, and she grit her teeth tightly. The sound was horrific. ‘It’s crying!’
‘It’s crying because it’s afraid for you,’ a familiar male voice that wasn’t Arun spoke firmly from nearby. ‘You’re burning the forest.’
Some of the heat receded and she breathed unsteadily. ‘I’m burning… the forest?’
‘The baby is safe,’ continued the voice. ‘I have her. She cries only for you now, little sister.’
‘Little sister?’ Naomi whispered, then heaved a shuddering gasp as though coming up from a deep submersion and the magic washed completely out of her. She knew that voice. ‘Tristan.’
Her senses came back to her, and laying on the charred grass, she was surprised to find Arun leaning over her, worry plain in his eyes. She gave him a quick once-over, then did the same to herself. Neither of them were even mildly burnt, not even their clothes. Looking back up to him in confusion, she opened her mouth to ask how it was possible, when he immediately spoke over her.
‘I didn’t touch you, I swear.’
It came out in a panicked rush, and she felt a little twinge of appreciation for him. She smiled slightly. ‘I know you didn’t.’
‘Are you alright?’ he asked, still sounding shaken, his hands hovering as though he wanted to touch her, but knew he shouldn’t without permission. She reached up and offered him her hand. He looked surprised, but took it in both of his own without hesitation.
‘I’m fine,’ she was too afraid to look at the damage she had done and kept her gaze focused on his face. ‘Is everyone else? Did I…?’
‘You haven’t hurt anyone that didn’t try to hurt you first,’ he immediately assured her, then looked away, his expression ashamed. ‘This was my fault. I haven’t taken the time to explain how our Bond works. You haven’t had any experience of fire magic. I should have warned you, taught you.’
‘Don’t,’ Naomi spoke firmly, sounding more herself, and he looked back at her. ‘There hasn’t been any opportunity to teach me. We’re not supposed to be using magic, remember?’
She smiled wryly at that, realising for all her insistence in the matter, it had ultimately been her that had broken the rule. She might as well have put up a large sign to show their location, or walked through the forest blowing a horn. Arun smiled too though, and she was glad to see the concern fade a little. She’d caused him a lot of trouble, no matter her motivation. He didn’t deserve it.
‘What happened?’ he asked quietly. ‘You were in control at first, I could feel it, but something changed. It happened so quickly, and I couldn’t get in or out.’
‘I don’t know,’ she lied, realising this was now the second time she had done so to spare his feelings. ‘I was upset and the more upset I became, the harder it was to control.’
He stared hard at her, and she wondered if he could tell she wasn’t being completely honest with him. She was about to cave in and admit it had been his intrusion that cost her control, when he shook his head and sighed. ‘You used a great deal of raw magic and still somehow managed to keep us both from harm. I’ve never seen anything like it, especially not from someone who has no experience of fire magic before.’
‘Let’s hope you never will again,’ she grunted, then realised how quiet it was. ‘The baby!’
Sitting up so fast she nearly head-butted Arun, she looked around the clearing. The sight was crushing and she felt her heart ache for the damage she had done. The grass was black and burnt away, and a lot of the nearby trees were charred on their trunks. She could see the burnt remains of the men she had killed, and a few with arrows protruding from their blackened bodies that she hadn’t. The fire in the middle of the camp was smoking, but out, as though when she extinguished the flames that surrounded her she had done the same to that one as well. The Korenian soldiers were climbing carefully down from the trees in the dark, looking at her oddly or avoiding her eye altogether. She could hardly blame them for being afraid after the damage she had done.
She saw the man, Paget, and the young boy both bound on the ground by long, thick vines, but still alive, and felt a sickening jolt in her stomach. Her eyes scanned the dark and burnt clearing, until she found the figure leaning casually against a tree. He smiled slightly in amusement at the expression she was sure she was making, and she was about to pelt across the distance and throw herself at him when she remembered the company they were in. Naomi sat frozen, unsure how to react.
He looked just the way he always had, his bright green eyes, so like her own, and his messy, mousey blond hair tied in a low tail, but escaping and falling in his face. He didn’t seem as tall as she remembered, but his skinny form made her automatically work out proportions and realise she had grown in height since she’d seen him last.
‘Who are you?’ Arun demanded, turning on the other man, standing and placing himself protectively in front of her. The other Korenians moved to touch their weapons, and unable to watch that, Naomi forced herself to her feet as well.
‘He means us no harm,’ she assured quietly. ‘This is The Watcher.’
He smiled again and straightened from his casual position. She saw that wrapped around his arm was the baby wood sprite, quiet now, and completely unharmed. Tristan seemed to notice the direction of her gaze and gently stroked the little sapling.
‘Normally when someone tries to burn down my forest, I would be a very formidable opponent indeed,’ he raised his eyebrows, laughter dancing in his eyes. ‘But for you, little sister, I’ll make an exception.’
Naomi could feel all eyes on her, and for all her attempts to block him out, Arun’s curiosity and concern. She bowed her head. ‘Forgive me.’
‘So serious,’ Tristan replied, with a note of sadness in his voice. ‘But no harm done. A little fire occasionally is good for cleansing the forest, and this blight was ready to be burnt away.’
She looked up and watched as he walked towards the prone figures he had tied on the ground. The boy was awake, his eyes wide with fear as Tristan approached. It was hard to know how to act; her thoughts were jumbled, she was tired from lack of sleep, and the magic, while being quietly restrained by Arun, was still buzzing around her body, and she could feel his so far unspoken urge for answers. She didn’t know what to tell him. In truth, it wasn’t up to her. She had to follow Tristan’s lead in this, despite how her emotions battered her insides, demanding release. It was hard to keep a lid on them, and she wondered if Arun could sense it.
‘Well, what should we do with you two, I wonder?’ Tristan snarled through his smile at the prisoners, and she remembered just how scary he could be. She had known him almost her whole life, meeting in secret in the forest, playing together, hunting together. He always had been more ruthless than her, and that was no small feat.
‘The boy is innocent,’ Arun spoke up from beside her. ‘He was merely following orders.’
Tristan looked at him in surprise, but Naomi scowled. ‘That’s no excuse. Some of the worst atrocities I’ve ever seen were carried out by people who were just following orders. He has a conscience, a will of his own. He should have refused.’
‘They would have killed him.’ Arun argued back, but quietly.
‘No one ever said doing the right thing was easy.’ She tried to keep a lid on her anger, knowing it wasn’t his to bear the brunt of. Looking to the young man, she saw his eyes dart helplessly between her and Arun. ‘One day we will all have to answer for the things we have done in our lives, and saying that the evil you helped commit was because someone else told you to isn’t going to be good enough.’
‘Oh, my poor little sister.’ The weight of sadness in Tristan’s eyes nearly broke her. ‘How dark you’ve become. Where is my laughing girl? My teasing friend, my sniggering companion?’
‘She died,’ she replied firmly. ‘Long ago.’
‘Did she? Did they truly kill her?’ he asked, his voice light despite the words he was speaking. ‘Or is she still in there somewhere, hiding in the shadows of your mind, waiting for it to be safe enough to come out to the light again?’
She didn’t know how to answer him. She was aware that she had changed. She’d had to. Years of darkness and starvation, her annual beating on the anniversary of her capture, had forced her to shut that part of herself down. Her trust had been broken too many times. Five years ago, if someone had told her what was to happen, she would never have believed it. Along with the deaths of her loved ones, the suffering of her people, it had been Adrienne’s betrayal that had broken her heart. To survive all she had suffered, it had been her rage that she had turned to for strength, and it was bound to show.
‘Who are you?’ Arun repeated his earlier question, though without the threat or anger. ‘I know you’re The Watcher, but…?’
Naomi realised immediately that he was trying to ask who Tristan was to her. It was obvious that they knew each other well, and she supposed that given the circumstances, he might be concerned about the reappearance of a potential lover. She nearly laughed at the absurdity and caught Tristan watching her with the same amusement on his face.
He bowed to Arun, and spoke sincerely. ‘Your wife and I have been good friends for my whole life.’
‘I’m not his wife,’ she corrected, drawing the gazes of both men again, startlement apparent on both their faces at the vehemence of her words. She hadn’t meant it to come out so harshly, but it was true. She didn’t want any assumptions to come back and haunt her later.
‘I see,’ Tristan looked bemused and Arun turned away from her. ‘I’d heard you were married from the dryads, but then, they also told me you had perished with the others years ago, so what do I know?’
He was being patronizing, but she knew better than to call him on it. Crossing her arms, she responded firmly. ‘Nothing is decided.’
Tristan looked between her and Arun and shrugged. ‘It sounds like a truly interesting story. I’m intrigued to know how anyone ever managed to coerce you into even considering such a decision, little sister.’
‘She certainly isn’t very easily won over,’ Arun replied before she had a chance, and she was surprised to find he was smiling softly too.
‘Don’t I know it,’ Tristan agreed. ‘Always had very high standards, let me tell you. For everything. Food, weapons, clothes… Let me offer you some advice, King Arun, and urge you never to take up the topic of silk with this lady.’
Yellow eyes widened in apparent shock as he whirled around to face her. ‘Silk?’
‘The agony!’ Tristan cried, grabbing the breast of his tunic and looking skywards dramatically. ‘I’ve never heard anyone in my life talk so long about the differences between silks, that Tsumetese is so much better quality than Korenian, and with such incredible enthusiasm.’
‘That seems a little frivolous,’ Arun said slowly. There was curiosity and amusement in the statement, and Naomi felt challenged by it.
‘I can be frivolous if I want to,’ she frowned, wondering how they could speak so light-heartedly after what had just happened.
Arun held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘I’m just a little surprised, that’s all.’
‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘Because I can fight, I’m not allowed to like pretty things? I have to dislike wearing dresses just because they aren’t practical? I have to be like a man in order to be perceived as strong?’
Arun looked thoughtful at that, but said nothing. It seemed she had finally managed to shut the man up.
‘Well!’ Tristan said loudly, breaking the silent awkwardness her words had brought. ‘You two can save that conversation for when the rest of us poor souls aren’t around to witness it, thank you.’
‘You started it.’ she reprimanded him.
‘So I did,’ he smiled back. ‘Still, I like this maybe-husband of yours. You might very well have met your match, little sister.’
‘Don’t encourage him, please.’ Naomi grumbled under her breath. Typical. Male bonding, that was all she needed. She indicated to the two prisoners still on the ground at their feet. ‘We have more pressing matters to attend to.’
‘Indeed we do.’
Arun, finding his voice once again, nodded to the older of the two. ‘Please, again I’d ask you to spare the boy. He’s young. He’ll learn from his mistakes.’
Naomi wasn’t at all sure of that, but knew that Tristan would probably agree. She wouldn’t be at all surprised if, once free, the young man in question went running back to Adrienne and related all he had seen. It occurred to her that he had even now heard things she would rather not shared with anyone, let alone her enemy.
‘Unfortunately, this is currently out of my jurisdiction,’ Tristan admitted, and looked to her. ‘Normally your punishment would be mine to decide, but I am only The Watcher. The forest isn’t mine, I only care for it, and today we are in the company of Naomi Redwood, whose authority even I must bow to.’
The horror she felt must have shown plainly on her features, for even as the last words left his lips, Tristan seemed to realise his error. She couldn’t look at Arun, but felt the Bond magic rise up violently with an exaltation that made her ill. Now he knew, and he would never let her get away.
Chapter Sixteen
Arun was completely dazed. He had been hypothesizing that Naomi was more than she pretended to be, even toyed with the idea of her b
eing the legitimate heir to the Redwood Throne, but to hear it said out loud, to have these passing thoughts confirmed as truth, had been more of a shock than he might have anticipated. That his utter bewilderment had been mixed with her own shock at being exposed like that made it even harder to deal with. He was speechless, and could see the way she was struggling to keep her composure. She wouldn’t look at him, or The Watcher, and instead kept her eyes glued firmly on the prisoners.
In the silence of the dark forest, he heard her release a quiet breath as she bowed her head. ‘I don’t give a cuss what you do with them. It isn’t for me to decide, not any more.’
He could taste the bitterness of those words. Adrienne had seized power just about four years ago now, and it struck him that Naomi had been locked away for probably all of that time. Her family had been murdered, her country thrown into poverty, and by her own cousin, no less. It was small wonder she was so jaded. How would he have coped in that situation? Could he have come out of it with the determination she showed? It made him question everything he thought he knew about her. If he had suffered all that she had, and been offered her freedom and a chance for vengeance in exchange for a night with someone he wasn’t supposed to see again, he knew he would ultimately have decided to take it.
Still, if only she had told him. Things could have been so different between them.
Suddenly she turned and began to walk away from them all. The Watcher looked at him, then back to her retreating form. ‘Where are you going?’
‘My gaoler has lengthened my chains,’ she called back, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder at Arun without turning. ‘We need to get packed up and ready to leave. I’m sure the whole forest knows we’re here now.’
He flinched at her cold words, but felt a keen distaste for his actions that he had only just recently begun to brush the surface of, and realised he deserved it. Everyone had tried to tell him he was being cruel by physically restraining her with his magic, but he hadn’t listened. He kept his silence and watched as she reached the trunk of the tree they had been sleeping in, and taking it at a run, climbed up easily and out of view. He turned to Sergeant Naseem and motioned for him to get the men moving. They began to follow Naomi’s example and head out to the various trees they had been camping in.