Shouldn’t Wenda have seen two souls?
* * *
Rhiain dug her claws into the earth and locked her whimpers behind her jaw. Her fall had driven the crossbow bolt deeper into her wound; her flesh throbbed and burned.
Edvard stuck his head out of the wide opening in the hollow tree and listened. After a long pause his shoulders relaxed. “I don’t think they heard us.”
“I can hearrr them,” Rhiain growled. Human hearing was pitiful.
He tensed. “Then we’d better make a run for it.”
Rhiain climbed to her feet and gingerly put her weight on her hind leg. She winced. “I can’t run like this.” The admission hurt her pride. “You’ll need to rrremove the arrrow.”
Hesitantly, Edvard came closer and touched the shaft sticking out of her.
“Don’t trrry to be gentle,” she growled. “Do it fast.”
Unfortunately, Edvard lacked Lance’s strength. It took him three excruciating pulls to work the shaft free—and it felt like he gouged out an ounce of her flesh in the process. She tore furrows in the dirt and clamped her jaws shut. Blood ran down her flank.
The earth darkened, and she had the macabre thought that the tree’s roots were drinking up her blood.
Edvard removed his tunic, revealing a lean but muscled chest, and pressed the cloth to the wound. Rhiain panted. She’d grown too used to Lance’s healing on the journey; she wanted the pain to stop. The injury throbbed unrelentingly.
Cub. Snivelling infant. She called herself names to block the whimper rising in her throat.
“So who won the battle?” she asked to distract herself.
“We did,” Edvard said proudly.
“Was Fitch injured? Lance, Sara?”
“All unscathed,” Edvard reassured her.
She paused to listen, but the legionnaires still sounded some distance away. “Did Fitch’s plan work?”
“I don’t know,” Edvard said shortly. “I was back with the wagons.”
Pity touched Rhiain. Edvard couldn’t fight well because of his twisted leg. Rhiain hated being injured; being crippled would be awful. She brushed her shoulder against his in commiseration.
Edvard flinched. “I’m not a coward,” he said hotly. “I asked to ride up front, with the Grasslanders, but Fitch refused. He said it would be a waste of a horse.”
Rhiain didn’t know what to say. Fitch shouldn’t have said something so cruel to his brother—even if it was the truth.
“I neverrr said you werrre a cowarrrd.”
“No, but you thought it. Don’t deny it.”
Rhiain flattened her ears. “So you’rrre allowed to call me a monsterrr, but I’m not allowed to think?”
“I never called you a monster.”
Rhiain growled. “Yes, you did, to that legionnairrre.”
His mouth parted in surprise. “That was a lie, to make him believe I was afraid of you.”
Her ears perked up. “So you aren’t? Even with these teeth and claws?” She pulled back her lips and unsheathed her claws.
“Of course not.” His face flushed. “You’re beautiful.”
“Hunh,” Rhiain grunted, feeling pleased. “I’ll accept that you lied, if you’ll believe me when I say I neverrr thought you werrre a cowarrrd.”
Edvard smiled shyly. “Agreed.”
“—this way,” a man’s voice called from nearby.
Of necessity, they both shrank back into the shadows. Rhiain eyed the opening to the hollow with relief. It looked narrower than she remembered, not as easy to see inside.
Another voice floated their way: “...much longer?”
“...don’t want to go back empty-handed...latrine duty for a month.”
Edvard’s hand suddenly tightened in her mane. Rhiain almost nipped him. The voices weren’t that close.
And then she saw it, too. The opening was smaller. Wood creaked as the tree trunk twisted around them, tightening a few inches. The smell of rot thickened.
“The Undying,” Edvard breathed. She could smell rank sweat on his skin.
She nudged him with her nose, silently asking what he meant.
White showed around the rims of his eyes. “I thought we’d be safe. In the stories, it always takes all night for them to entomb you.”
Rhiain didn’t know who or what the Undying were, but the fur on her back rose and her ears flattened.
Time dragged as they waited for the legionnaires to give up. She and Edvard pressed together, shivering as the wood grew closer and closer, shutting out the sunlight.
Finally, they couldn’t wait any longer. “Me first.” Edvard slipped out of the hollow trunk. Rhiain started to squeeze through after. The Undying sensed that its prey was escaping and closed faster. She grunted, stuck. Her hind claws scrabbled.
A short legionnaire dashed forward, spear in hand.
Edvard lunged at him, stabbing him in the throat with the crossbow bolt before he could call for reinforcements. The legionnaire fell, choking on blood.
The cedar’s grip on her hips eased, as a root reached for the fresh blood. Rhiain burst out, scraping her fur on both sides of the opening.
Panting, Edvard shoved the dead legionnaire inside the Undying. Without a word being said, they limped away.
From a safe distance of fifteen feet, they turned and looked back. The half-rotted tree cast a long shadow, and the entrance was now no wider than a crack. Faintly, Rhiain thought she heard wood creak and a voice groan, “Blood...”
Shuddering, she turned away, toward Edvard. “Thanks,” she gasped. “It was verrry brrrave of you to attack him with just an arrow.” Edvard had the heart of a warrior. Of course, he was Fitch’s brother.
* * *
“Make way!”
Lance cursed quietly as three mounted legionnaires in shining breastplates and red cloaks forced their way through the crowd on the arched stone bridge.
He let out his breath when they rode past Willem’s wagon without pausing, heading for the gate tower at the other end. Still, it would be naïve to think the attack on the governor’s villa hadn’t caused their urgency.
Two of the grain wagons and most of the freed slaves had already slipped through Tolium and across the river. There remained only the third wagon, driven by Willem, plus Sara, Lance, Relena and about a dozen other women and children, carrying baskets.
The guard at the south gates had let them enter with barely a glance because it was market day—Willem had planned well. But it had taken time to roll through the city when the avenues were crowded with folk buying and selling everything from lemons and squawking chickens to whole wagonloads of grain.
Lance had breathed a sigh of relief when they passed out of the city proper onto the arched stone bridge across the broad Tolus River, but apparently he’d relaxed too soon.
The legionnaires reached the other end of the bridge and ordered the gate closed. A loud outcry rose from the legitimate merchants and travellers on the bridge, but soon a smaller gate opened up and traffic trickled forward again. Lance stood on the wagon bed and shaded his eyes. The legionnaires waved all the Temborians through, but questioned all the Gotians and Elysinians before letting them proceed.
As long as none of the freed slaves panicked, they should be fine. Lance, on the other hand, still had his slave brand.
And, peering over the stone balustrade, he saw that the drop to the river below had to be at least forty feet—not good odds.
&n
bsp; “Ideas?” he asked Willem, sitting again.
“Nothing we can do except keep going,” Willem said.
Grimly, Lance acknowledged Willem was right. They were neatly trapped.
He wasn’t the only one to feel that way. One of their party, a blonde mother with an infant in a sling and a toddler, stopped walking. Her eyes wide with panic, she grabbed the toddler’s hand and headed back to Tolium. Losing suction, the baby began to cry, attracting notice.
Lance stood up, then hesitated. The toddler would likely remember him as the one who’d cut his arm, and would scream bloody murder if Lance approached. Could he send Sara?
Fortunately, Relena neatly intercepted the blonde and scooped up the toddler. “Escaping, was he? He takes after his father.” A subtle reminder that the father had gone with the rebels and was waiting for his family to rejoin him. Relena talked softly to the mother and crying baby, soothing both. She stayed with them right up to the gate, baring wrist and shoulder when the guards searched for slave brands.
The shorter legionnaire frowned at Relena. “Don’t I know you? Aren’t you one of the governor’s slaves?”
Relena’s broad face stayed serene. “You must have me confused with someone else. I am a free woman.”
The legionnaire fingered his sword-hilt and asked a few more questions, but in the end let her pass.
Soon it was the wagon’s turn.
A square-chinned legionnaire prodded at the grain bags, making sure no one hid underneath, while the short legionnaire examined Willem. Lance held out his bone brand without being prompted.
The short legionnaire instantly became more alert. “Where is your master, osseon?”
“I bought him a couple years back,” Willem said.
“Do you take me for a fool?” the legionnaire said. Excitement glittered in his eyes. “He’s a prime specimen. Freeborn or not, no Gotian could afford him. Where did you pick him up?”
“Lance belongs to me,” Sara said unexpectedly.
Lance held his breath, leery of what else she might say.
“You?” The short legionnaire squinted at her simple braid and plain dress. “You don’t look like a noblewoman.”
She stared down her nose at him from the wagon box. “I am Lady Sarathena Rem—-”
Lance discreetly kicked her ankle before she could complete her name. He leaned forward and whispered to the legionnaire, “She’s travelling incognito, but look at her skin colour. Look at her eyes. Let her pass, before you get her angry, or she’ll see that you’re never promoted or posted to the capital.”
The legionnaire, whose short stature and green eyes proclaimed him an Elysinian, studied Sara uneasily. Her regal expression combined with her very blue, very Temborian eyes, made him back down.
“Ah, my apologies.” He raised his voice to his colleagues. “Let them pass.” He moved out of the way.
Willem lifted the reins, and the oxen plodded through the gates. The three of them were silent until the bridge lay a mile behind and the traffic had thinned out.
Then Willem stared speculatively at Sara. “I never noticed before, but her eyes are real blue. In the right clothes she could pass as a noblewoman, easy.”
Lance rubbed dried blood from his nostrils and didn’t meet Willem’s eyes.
Willem tried again. “What was that name you called yourself? Lady Sara-something?”
“Lady Sarathena Remillus.”
“Remillus? Like the Primus who was in and out of power a few months back?”
“Yes,” Sara said.
Lance suppressed a groan. Sometimes he really wished she would lie. But, disconnected from her soul, she didn’t seem to see the need for it.
Willem seemed to be working his way up to being angry. “You’re the former Primus’s daughter? A noblewoman?”
“Yes.”
“Sara was born a noblewoman, but she’s renounced that way of life. It isn’t who she is now,” Lance told Willem. “She’s not going to betray your cause.”
Willem set his jaw, unconvinced.
Lance looked him dead in the eye. “Are you going to tell Fitch?”
“He’s my chief. He needs to know,” Willem said shortly.
Lance had been afraid of that. Even if Fitch didn’t start doubting Sara’s loyalties, he would probably try to make use of her status, either as a hostage or a spy. Lance almost would have preferred being captured by the legionnaires.
* * *
“Lance,” Sara said after the supper meal of barley broth that evening, “we need to talk to Loma.”
Lance looked up, blinking. He’d been staring into the orange flames of the campfire, and he felt like there was sand in his eyes.
Two miles out of Tolium, they’d driven the wagons off the road and into the shelter of the forest. Edvard and Rhiain had rejoined them, Rhiain’s fur still wet from swimming the river. Lance had healed her. Sensitive to the way she made the newly freed slaves nervous, Rhiain had left to hunt, and after one look at him Relena had shooed everyone else away.
Lance ought to have been happy and relaxed. Instead he felt dull-witted, stunned by fatigue. Even seeking his bed seemed like too much work.
Sara’s words registered, and he frowned. “What? Why do we need to talk to the Goddess?”
Instead of replying, she slashed her knife across her wrist. Bright red blood spurted.
Swearing, Lance lunged forward and clamped his hand around her already-slick wrist. “Stop it! How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t hurt yourself.”
The Goddess filled him, creating a warmth in his hands like holding them over a crackling fire on a miserable rainy day. The blood began to slow—
Sara cut herself a second time, higher on the same arm. “Ask Her if the baby is in danger.”
Cold fear filled him like water rising. The black shadow in the corner of his mind stirred. He pushed it down with logic. “If there was anything wrong with the baby, my touch would heal it right now.” The first cut closed, golden brown skin knitting together.
“Ask.” She made a third cut.
Lance grabbed for the knife, but she held it out of reach. “Stop it.”
“Not until you ask Her.” Sara’s blue gaze was pitiless.
Lance’s mouth dried with fear. He didn’t want to ask—which meant she was right and he needed to.
He gulped in a breath. “Goddess of Mercy,” he prayed as the third cut’s bleeding slowed, “is our baby in danger?”
“Yes.” Her presence began to fade.
Sara made a fourth cut, deeper this time, lacerating her skin.
Time to face the black thing hulking in his mind. “What is the danger?”
Her answer devastated him.
“Sara is soulless, but her body has forged a connection to the baby’s soul. The soul is in a tug-of-war between them. Right now, Sara’s body is winning. If the connection between the baby’s body and soul snaps while the baby is still in the womb, the baby will die.”
No. Lance bowed his head as grief sliced through him. Their baby. Guilt bludgeoned him. He should have prevented this. He Wore the Brown. He should’ve known Sara was pregnant, should’ve asked the right questions when Wenda described the soul as “small as a mustard seed.” But he’d wanted so bad for the woman
he loved to come back to him.
“If the connection remains until the baby is born, what will happen?” Sara asked.
“The soul is connected to both bodies only because the baby is physically part of Sara. When he is born, one of the connections will break, either Sara’s or the baby’s, whichever is weaker.”
He. Even drowning in guilt and fear, Lance noticed the pronoun She used. Sara carried a baby boy. A son. Somehow that made it worse. Not that he would’ve ached less for a daughter, but somehow knowing the babe’s gender made it, him, more real.
Lance struggled to think, searching for a way out of the nightmare that had swallowed him. He spoke through numb lips. “And if the baby is born without a soul?”
“He will refuse nourishment and die within days...” Her voice faded.
Sara made another cut.
Lance dropped to his knees in despair, still holding Sara’s bloody arm. He listened, mute, while Sara calmly asked more questions.
“Can the baby’s soul split, leaving half with each of us and then keep growing?”
“No. The rending would dissipate it.”
“If I, or the baby, die without a soul what will happen?”
“Nothing. Mek cannot collect something that is not there. You will cease to be.”
Sara took this news with perfect calmness, but Lance felt as if jackals were eating his entrails. His son lost forever, gone as if he’d never been...Tears wet Lance’s face.
“Is there any way to obtain a new soul so that both I and the baby have one?” Sara asked.
“Another may gift it.”
Lance felt a sudden trickle of relief. A way to escape the crushing pain. He opened his mouth—
Soul of Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) Page 25