Deliver (The Blades of Acktar Book 4)

by Tricia Mingerink

  “What do you think?” She twirled, and the skirt flared as it caught the air.

  He wasn’t about to say what he was thinking. Had he once told her so flippantly that he wasn’t tempted by her?

  Because he was. Very tempted.

  Months ago, Martyn could’ve walked by her without a glance, even dressed as she was now. But now that he knew her heart—the kindness she gave, the struggles forced upon her by the prejudicial town—he truly saw her.

  He shouldn’t have stayed so long. He should’ve stuck to his original plan and gotten out of there as soon as Kayleigh’s leg had healed enough for her to walk. He could’ve found somewhere else to spend the winter, made do with his own cooking, survived with only Wanderer’s company.

  Instead, he’d stayed. He’d let himself get attached. Let her think he cared.

  “Well, aren’t you going to say something?” She smoothed the skirt.

  Martyn swallowed, but even that couldn’t clear the hoarse gravel to his voice. “It looks…nice.”

  “I even have enough fabric left to make a blouse to wear with my divided skirt.” Her smile glinted in her eyes. “Wait there. I have something for you.”

  He struggled to breath as she swished back into her bedroom.

  She returned a moment later, carrying what looked like a bundle of buckskin. She held it out to him. “I hope they fit.”

  He took the bundle and unrolled it into a pair of buckskin trousers and a matching vest of soft buckskin. What the…he stared at the clothes. When had she done this? And how?

  Kayleigh rocked back and forth on her heels. “I measured your spare set of clothes one of the times I cleaned your cabin while you were out scouting. I hope you don’t mind. Your clothes were getting a bit frayed, and we had a lot of buckskin and I thought that might be nice and sturdy for your long rides. Do you like them?”

  Did he like them? Of course he did. How could he not when she was looking at him with such big, brown eyes and that low note to her voice?

  But he couldn’t tell her that. This was a big mistake. He shouldn’t have let her care for him this much. He was a former Blade. He wasn’t the type to settle down with a girl like her. He would abandon her, just like his parents had abandoned him.

  He closed his eyes as pain plunged through his chest and bones. He had to leave. Now. And never return. Never even look back.

  Worse, he had to crush her heart. He couldn’t leave her with any hope that he’d return. Hope would kill her slowly over the weeks and months when he didn’t come back.

  No, better to kill that hope quickly. She’d move on, looking back at this past winter with a shudder for the kind of man she’d been fool enough to befriend.

  When he reported to Walden, he could ask Shadrach to check in on her. And he’d leave the pack mule here. But he could do nothing for her besides leave.

  Forcing his eyes open and his heart to go cold as Acktar’s winter, he faced her. “I have to tell you something. Something about my past.”

  She stilled, the smile dropping from her face. “All right. What’s wrong?”

  He shifted the buckskin trousers and vest to his right hand and braced himself. His muscles locked, as if trying to prevent him from doing this.

  But he couldn’t hesitate. Best to get this over with as quickly as possible. He grasped his right sleeve and pushed it all the way to his shoulder, revealing the rows of scars marching down his arm. His marks. All thirty-three of them.

  She stared, as if she couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing.

  A strange tightness filled his throat. “Up until last summer, I was a King’s Blade.”

  “I don’t…but you’re a scout. You fought for the Resistance.” Kayleigh gaped at his marks, her face pale.

  He could tell her King Keevan had granted him clemency. That in the Tower, Martyn had fought against King Respen. But he couldn’t, not if he wanted to destroy her hope.

  Martyn let go of his sleeve. “No, I didn’t.”

  Red flooded into her cheeks. “You lied. This whole time, you were lying. Of course you didn’t care that I’m Respen’s niece. You worked for him. You killed for him.”

  Martyn clamped his mouth shut. This was what he wanted, right? Her hatred. Yet, it sliced him like Respen’s whip had once slashed his back.

  She grasped her sword, drew it, and pointed it at his chest. “Get out. How could you have pretended to help me? You might even be the Blade that killed my father.”

  No, he wasn’t, but he couldn’t lessen this blow. He couldn’t even apologize. He backed toward the door.

  “You used me. You pretended to help me. You listened while I told you about my father, yet you said nothing.” She stepped forward and jabbed his chest with the sword’s tip. A prick of pain formed above Martyn’s sternum. “Get out. Now.”

  Martyn spun on his heels and strode from the cabin. Don’t look back. Don’t give in to the pain aching through his chest. Don’t beg for her forgiveness. This was how it was supposed to be. How it was always supposed to be.

  He stuffed the buckskin trousers and vest into a saddlebag, swung onto Wanderer, and nudged the horse into a trot. He didn’t pause to look back. He didn’t even turn Wanderer toward Old Man Bendwick’s cabin.

  He’d left nothing behind.

  22

  “I can’t believe I got talked into this.”

  “Stetterly’s lady should put in the last piece. It’s only fitting.” Leith balanced on the edge of the bell tower, its roof digging into his stomach. A rope wrapped around his waist and shoulders and disappeared into the tower where it looped over the iron bolt holding the church bell. Sheriff Allen gripped the other end. “I won’t let you fall.”

  Renna balanced on the rim of the bell tower’s windows next to him, a rope also tied around her waist. The wide legs of her divided skirt flapped around both of their ankles. She gripped the weather vane at the peak of the bell tower with one hand, and held a piece of slate tile with the other. Just below the peak stone, a gap in the slate tiles waited for her to insert the missing piece. “I know, but I can’t stop thinking about slipping and falling in front of the whole town.”

  Leith glanced down. On the ground below, the townsfolk stood in a mass of figures staring up at them. “That would be a bit embarrassing. But it isn’t going to happen. I have you, and Sheriff Allen has both of us in case we slip.”

  Renna sighed, stretched to reach the slot, and tried to ease the slate into place. It jammed against the other pieces around it. “I think I’m going to need two hands.”

  Leith adjusted his grip on the weather vane and wrapped his other arm around her waist. “I got you.”

  “You sure?” Renna’s voice spiked higher. Her fingers remained white-knuckled on the weather vane below Leith’s.

  “Yes. You can let go.” Leith braced himself to take her weight in case she slipped.

  Renna pried her fingers from the weather vane, though every muscle remained tense beneath Leith’s arm. She worked the tile into place and pressed it into the wet mortar the workmen had placed there a few minutes before they’d abandoned the roof to let their lady install the final piece. “There. Done.”

  “Now you’d better turn and wave to let everyone know.”

  Renna grimaced, twisted in Leith’s grip, and waved at the townsfolk. They cheered, and some of the men threw their wide-brimmed hats into the air. Some of the women waved back, and the children hollered louder than anyone.

  “Can we get down now?” Renna’s fingers tightened into a claw-like grip on his arm.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to admire the view a while longer?” Behind them, the Spires Canyon furrowed into the ground, but beyond it and in every other direction, the trackless prairie rolled onward and onward, miles and miles of yellow and green waves, broken only by the patches of freshly tilled fields. The endless sky curved above them, merging into the prairie at the far off horizon.

  Though, if she looked over his shoulder, she’d sp
ot the walls of the cabin Leith was building, a cabin he’d so far kept a surprise.

  “I can admire the view just as well from the tower.” Renna’s back was stiff. “Please help me down.”

  “All right. Hold on to me. That’s it.” Leith steadied her as she lowered herself into a sitting position on the edge of the bell tower. Hands from inside helped her the rest of the way to safety.

  With a grip on the edge of the roof and a support post, Leith swung himself into the bell tower and landed on his feet. Ranson stepped out of the way, as if he’d been waiting to help Leith inside if he needed it.

  After Leith and Renna untied the safety ropes, they followed Ranson and Sheriff Allen down the set of stairs that circled the outside of the bell tower all the way to the ground floor.

  At the door to the church, Leith gave Renna a slight push. “Go on, Lady Faythe. Make your speech.”

  She scowled, but by the time she turned back to the crowd, she’d replaced the scowl with a serene expression. She stepped onto the front step, her back straight, her head high. “Five years ago, my parents were killed and Stetterly’s church burned to the ground. But today we celebrate our rebuilding from the ashes.”

  Leith stayed in the shadows. This was her moment to truly be Lady Faythe, and he wasn’t going to take any part of that away from her.

  As she continued the speech he’d heard ten or eleven times already, he leaned against the wall and stared upward at the interior of the church. The vaulted ceiling rose several stories above him, slitted windows in the second story providing shafts of light. A parapet ran under the windows, spanning the ends of the four massive beams that had been rafted down the Ondieda River from Walden. Rough wooden benches filled the large room, but at the far end, a small dais provided just enough room for the minister to stand when he visited them as part of his circuit. Behind the dais, a doorway opened into the bell tower, which was flanked on either side by storage rooms. A cellar had been dug under one of the storage rooms, complete with a well.

  In a little under three weeks, he and Renna would have their wedding in this church. He was ready. Of course he was.

  So why did he still feel like he didn’t have a place at Stetterly?

  Sheriff Allen’s heavy tread stopped near Leith. “That went well.”

  “Yes.” Leith turned. “Now that the church is finished, you can have the men store the arrows in the far storage room.”

  Sheriff Allen folded his arms across his stomach. “You really think there’s going to be trouble? We haven’t seen any sign of Rovers since last fall.”

  “That’s why I’m worried.” Leith glanced at the open doorway, where Renna still stood finishing her speech. “Everyone from Arroway to Walden was having trouble with Rovers last fall. After spending a lean winter holed up in some hideaway, they should be out in droves once again. But we’ve seen nothing. Walden, Uster, and Duelstone haven’t seen anything either.”

  “Maybe everyone decided to return home.” Sheriff Allen shrugged. “They lost the war. What else can they do at this point but try to build a new life like the rest of us?”

  “Maybe some of them, surely not all of them. Not all at once.” Leith shook his head. He couldn’t explain the itchy, crawly feeling down his back. Something wasn’t right in Acktar. “Especially not in the spring when farmers are alone and vulnerable while working their fields and the cattle herds have to be driven far from the towns to find green grass.”

  Sheriff Allen made a huffing sound, and Leith wasn’t sure if it was in continued disbelief or beginning agreement.

  He met Sheriff Allen’s gaze. “This reminds me too much of the summer after the Blades drove the last of the Rovers out of Acktar. What has them running scared now?”

  A frown curled Sheriff Allen’s mouth, and his gaze sharpened. “King Keevan’s armies were unable to do anything effective against the Rovers last fall. And no one else has done much against them, besides when you scared them away from here.”

  “Exactly.”

  Lord Alistair had written last fall that all the tracks Martyn had found in the Sheered Rock Hills went west. Were they going west because they were leaving…or because they were uniting?

  He wasn’t sure what he feared more, that something worse than Rovers had scared them out of Acktar or that someone had figured out a way to gather them once again into a lethal force.

  “I see.” Sheriff Allen nodded. “I’ll have the arrows moved into here today, and I’ll tell them to keep up the practice.”

  “We’d better move all the supplies that can be spared into here as well.” Leith gripped the hilt of the knife buckled to his belt. “If trouble comes, we have to be ready.”

  Sheriff Allen braced a hand along the thick, stone wall. “Then it’s a good thing you designed this church to be a fortress.”

  And oddly fireproof, down to using slate tile instead of wooden shingles. But if anyone had noticed that detail, they hadn’t asked.

  Would it be enough? Leith also rested a hand on the cool stone. He had to trust God’s will would be best. But that didn’t guarantee safety. Didn’t promise that Stetterly would survive to see the summer.

  Trust. It didn’t mean Leith shouldn’t do everything in his power to protect and prevent the tragedy he feared was coming. Trust didn’t mean making unwise choices.

  Trust meant using the resources, skills, and knowledge God had provided, and trusting God with the outcome.

  Leith eased the brick into its spot on the floor and reached for the next one. The kitchen of the new cabin was coming together. Earlier that spring, the men had taken a break from building the church to raise the walls with logs floated down from Walden.

  A knock sounded against the door post. Leith glanced up as Jamie stepped across the threshold. Leith waved at the stack of bricks he’d set to the side. “Here to help?”

  Jamie nodded, picked up a brick, and tapped it down. The ends of his sleeves fell several inches short of his wrists. They’d have to find new clothes for him. Again.

  They worked in silence for several minutes, but a furrow remained on Jamie’s brow. Finally, Leith perched on his heels. “Something on your mind?”

  Jamie sat back on the half-finished floor and rested his arms on his knees. “I’ve been thinking a lot. About the future.”

  “And?” Where was Jamie going with this? Jamie would be fifteen later that summer. If this was about noticing girls…Leith wasn’t prepared for that conversation. At all.

  Was it too late to send Jamie to Walden and have Lord Alistair take over?

  “I…” Jamie swallowed, drew in a deep breath, and blurted out, “I want to be a minister.”

  Leith blew out a long breath. This he could handle.

  He took a moment trying to form the right words. “If you’ve prayed about this, and you feel God is calling you in that direction, then you should pursue it.”

  Jamie remained stiff. “I have to start studying now, and I need to spend some time in Walden since we don’t have the books I need here. And then there’s the years of apprenticeship with various ministers around Acktar.”

  “You’ve put a lot of thought into this.” Leith sat back on his heels. Would he ever be that sure what God’s calling was for him now?

  “I wrote Jeremiah Alistair. He’s planning to be a minister too. Since I’m a little behind, we’ll probably end up training together.” Jamie rocked and gripped his knees. “But I wasn’t sure what you would think. Or Brandi. I’ll be gone a lot. I might not even end up at Stetterly when I’m done.”

  “You’ll still be family no matter where you are.” Leith rested a hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “And we’ll all be very proud of you.”

  Jamie nodded, but he still didn’t relax. “Do you think I’ll be able to be a minister? What if they don’t let me be a minister because I used to be a Blade?”

  Leith raised his eyebrow. “You were the Thirteenth Blade for all of a few hours. Yes, you have the training of a Blade. But you never
killed anyone except during the war. I don’t think it should be a problem.”

  Though, what did he know? Until last year, he’d never even stepped foot in a church except to burn it or kill the minister.

  “But aren’t ministers supposed to be peaceful and all that? And I’m not. Not totally.”

  That’s what this was about. Leith rubbed a hand along the hilt of one of his knives. Always be prepared. It was ingrained into the fiber of their muscles and bones.

  But how did that match with a God-fearing and blood-free life? When should someone defend himself and when should he peacefully surrender?

  “There’s a difference, I think, between being prepared and being a warrior. As a minister, you won’t be called to be a warrior, not like you were in the war. But it’s wise to be prepared.” Leith rested his arms on his knees. “Rovers know ministers tend to be peaceful and unable to fight back, making them easy targets, especially now that they have to travel long distances, often alone, to visit all the towns. Last fall, two ministers were beaten and robbed while on their circuit.”

  Jamie hugged his knees, and kept staring at the floor.

  Leith squeezed Jamie’s shoulder. “Maybe someday Acktar’s prairie will be safe for travel, but right now it isn’t. It’s a good idea for everyone to know how to defend themselves and their families, including ministers.”

  Jamie lifted his head and finally grinned. “You think so?”

  “Yes. Absolutely.” Leith dropped his hand from Jamie’s shoulder. Hopefully he’d never have to ask Jamie to walk into battle again. Jamie deserved to leave the fighting and bloodshed behind, even if Leith didn’t know how to completely let it go himself.

  Jamie’s muscles relaxed. But only for a moment. He met Leith’s gaze. “And what about trouble here? The Blades will be back.”

  “Yes.” Leith released a breath. “I’m surprised they haven’t returned already.”

  That was the heart of his edginess. The Blades should’ve come looking for Leith. But he hadn’t seen any sign of them. Neither had Martyn.