by Daul, Amanda
It was time somebody knew. It was time that Arissa could allow herself to feel human again. She took a deep, ragged breath, avoiding Landon’s eyes.
“They came in the night,” her voice spoke softly, sounding groggy and tired. “It was late and I left to go to the other room. A moment later I heard this noise, the sound of shattering glass. I ran back to see what had happened. The window of our bedroom had been shattered. There was glass everywhere. I was suddenly really cold from the wind and I didn’t understand what had happened at first.”
“That’s when they took him?” Landon guessed, trying to help her along in the story. It was painfully obvious how difficult it was for her to dredge up the memories that had destroyed her so.
Fresh tears threatened to glisten in her eyes as she nodded. “I had only left a minute and he was gone. I knew something terrible had happened and I was so afraid it was because of what I had been doing under the General’s command. I had to find out if I was going to have a chance at figuring out who had kidnapped Cayl.
“I went to the Governor’s mansion immediately. I had already thought of ten different things that could have happened to order a hit on Cayl, but I needed to know for sure if something serious had happened.”
A cold shiver of terror flashed through her as she tried to allow her scared brain to relive it.
“I got to the mansion and, of course, everybody knew me and I went straight to the Governor’s office. I opened the door and he was lying on the floor, dead. I couldn’t tell what had killed him, but the next moment a group of militia soldiers came in behind me with guns. Obviously, they thought I had done it. I was standing over the body, I had been the only person on that floor and I had no alibi because Cayl was gone. Nobody believed me about what I had to say, all they wanted to do was arrest me.”
The liquid in Arissa’s mug had cooled down by now, but she continued to sip at it, just as an excuse to stop talking for a moment to gather her thoughts.
“I panicked. I couldn’t let myself be arrested, the General would have me sentenced to death the next day and Cayl would have been killed. I had to run. I’m just lucky that the majority of the General’s army is made up of clueless amateurs.”
“I couldn’t stay at home, but I had another safe house in Daer that no one knew about. I stayed there for a while and the only one who knew was this apprentice boy who Cayl had been training. Several times Cayl was able to smuggle letters out to me from wherever he was. I have no idea how he did this, but they always ended up with Jefferson, his apprentice. It was the only news I could get about him since no one seemed to believe he had been kidnapped, even though he was suddenly missing. Immediately after I received the last letter from him, Jefferson disappeared and I haven’t seen him since.”
“What made you finally start looking for him?” Landon encouraged, his voice remaining soft and heartening. It was obvious he empathized for her.
“At first I thought something would blow over and he would show up, but then I began to lose faith and I had more than my job and my name to lose. I had to do something because, evidently, nobody else was going to. I went back to our home to get Raze and I left.”
Thinking of Raze saddened her even more. She loved her stallion and hoped that he had somehow found his way home or at least off the dreadful mountain.
“I had no idea of where to start. I stayed hidden as much as possible. I didn’t enter any towns or villages until I came to find you a few days ago. After meeting a few groups of soldiers in the forests, word must have gotten out that I was on the run and before I knew it, I had dozens of people trying to kill me every day. It took me months of making countless circles around the entire country just trying to get rid of as many as I could. I was scared. I was terrified for my family. I didn’t know where to go. I was running blind until I got it out of a bounty hunter who tried to arrest me that they were bringing him to Vailwood.”
“You didn’t do it,” Landon whispered, his voice sounding shocked. It was the first time Arissa looked up to meet his incredulous gaze.
“Of course I didn’t do it. The Governor was my friend. I was either set up or just had a horrible stroke of bad luck being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Landon rose to his feet immediately, running his fingers through his hair, clearly aggravated. His eyes were dark, reflecting the subtle glow of the lamp. He turned back to Arissa with a miserable expression on his face.
“I am so sorry, Arissa. When I heard what you were being wanted for, I didn’t even stop to think that maybe you were innocent. I was too shocked and scared that they would come for my family because of our past together. Yasmine had just had the baby and my blacksmith shop had already been searched several times by guards. I know you too well and I should have known better before I assumed you were guilty. I’m sorry, Arissa. Please forgive me.” He was genuinely overwrought about this.
“Don’t worry about it, Landon. You were putting your family first and that’s exactly what I did, too.”
“You’ve got to be starving. I’ll make you something to eat,” Landon muttered as he turned toward the cupboards of the tiny kitchen. “By the way, what did you even live on while you were out there?”
“Anything I could find or kill.”
He didn’t answer right away. He worked studiously for a moment, preparing the dish in front of him. When he set it before her a moment later, she had no idea what kind of food it was and even though the last thing she wanted to do was eat, she began nibbling slowly. Her stomach immediately responded to food and she continued to pick at what appeared to be rice and some sort of shredded meat. It was delicious.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you were able to survive through all this. You were such a tough little kid when I first met you. When we were growing up, you were always the one picking fights with other people,” Landon recalled, chuckling.
For once Arissa cracked a smile, remembering their childhood together. “After my mother and father died, I thought I was going to have to fight to keep alive on the streets. I guess even after your parents took me in, it was a hard habit to break. Good thing I had you as a brother to pull me out of most of them.”
They shared a mutual smile and Arissa felt immediately enlightened that he no longer held the dark, threatening gaze when looking at her, like he had before.
In the next moment, Yasmine reappeared from the other room, her hair tied back with a torn strip of fabric and she was wiping her hand clean on a ripped piece of cloth. Her eyes were tired, but when she met Arissa’s hopeful, yearning expression, she grinned slightly and nodded.
Chapter Fifteen
Arissa spent over an hour sitting beside Cayl, who was still unconscious on a table. Yasmine had removed his ripped and bloodied shirt and now the wound was covered in a square of white cotton, tied by strips of rags around his torso to hold it in place. After escorting Arissa in to see him, she had briefly and quietly explained what she had done to help him. After removing the bullet, she had used an herb to knock him unconscious while she treated him and given him a strong dose of medicine. She had assured Arissa multiple times that she was confident that he would make a full recovery, but seeing him lying lifeless and abused made Arissa’s heart twist in agony.
She was shocked, and yet she wasn’t surprised at all when her eyes fell to examine the lengths of bruises trailing over most of his body. Some were old and nearly faded, but there were plenty of fresh ones that still stained his skin a sick, inky black. In one particularly bad place over his ribs, there was a subtle bump under his skin, indicating a broken or fractured rib that was healing.
Literally counting the seconds that ticked by on an old clock that was barely working, Arissa never let go of his hand until, finally, he stirred. Her heart leapt into her throat and she bolted upright, leaning ahead on the edge of her chair.
“Cayl?” she whispered, her breath catching on every inhale.
He moaned groggily but when he opened his emer
ald green eyes in a flash, Arissa smiled, gasping heavily as if trying to catch air again.
“Cayl, you’re alright,” she repeated several times, gripping his hand even tighter. Immediately he tried to sit up, but Arissa rose, gently pressing his shoulder back down to the table.
His eyes were clear and alert, but they were clouded with the familiar alarm and paranoia that Arissa had grown too accustomed to. His gaze darted around the room quickly, trying to take in their dark surroundings. “Where are we?”
“We’re at Landon’s. Yasmine helped us, she took care of your gunshot wound and your fever. We have to stay here for a little while until you feel better.”
Against her warnings and best efforts, Cayl quickly pulled himself upright and she could see the pain it inflicted instantly. His facial muscles were clenching in agony, his jaw becoming taut and prominent. “We can’t stay in one place. We’ll have to move.”
“Eventually, but not right now.”
He looked up to her again and nobody said a word for several moments. They had a way of nearly communicating together without speaking. Arissa had expected this reaction from him and was scrambling for something to say that would convince him. He could be just as stubborn as she was, but she was determined to make him see her reason.
Cayl spoke before she could think of anything to say. “If they find out we’re here, we are all dead. We can’t bring Landon and Yasmine into this anymore than we already have.” He attempted to stand on his feet, but he staggered and swayed, having to lean against the table he had been on.
Gripping his arm, Arissa shot back without thinking, almost feeling angry, “You can’t even walk! Cayl, we are safe here until you are strong enough to move again. Look, I’m in charge right now and nothing you say is going to make me change my mind. Do you realize how hard this is for me? Every single day, for the last three months, I didn’t know if you were dead or alive or where you were. I had nothing to go on and all I could do was hope and pray that I could somehow find you and we could return together to our home, to our family. I had to promise that to myself every day, just to keep me going. When I finally found you, I was so scared that I wouldn’t be able to keep that promise. But now that you’re here and you’re alive...I refuse to do anything that would ever risk your life again.”
His piercing green eyes never left her own dark glare all the while she ranted on to him. Nothing she said had been planned in her mind, it had simply been her temper taking over her emotions.
It worked though. Cayl’s gaze softened and then he slowly lowered himself back down to sit on the edge of the table again. Arissa watched as his expression quickly melted from tense and assertive to pained and sorrowful.
“I’m sorry, Arissa. For everything you’ve been through. I’m sorry I got you into this.”
“You didn’t get me into anything. We don’t even know why they kidnapped you. All I could figure out was that I was set up with the Governor’s death and they kidnapped you to use as bait because they knew they would never be able to catch me on their own.”
“Looks like they couldn’t catch you even with the best leverage they could get their hands on,” Cayl added, quietly.
Arissa leaned forward without wasting another moment, pressing her lips against those of her lover that she had spent so long yearning for, wishing that she could feel his touch just one more time. It was almost like a first kiss between them, as if unsure how to advance. The last thing on Arissa’s mind was what would have happened when they did find each other. Obviously, after what had just happened to them, something would change and it would certainly feel different.
However, the same strong connection that had always kept them together before was still evident and it was obvious Cayl could feel it too. He gripped the back of her neck, pulling her closer and deepening the kiss. When it grew even more intense, Arissa could feel him flinching from the pain he felt from the wound, but when she tried to back away, he gripped her tighter and wouldn’t let her go.
Even after the kiss broke, Cayl gripped her in a crushing hug around her shoulders, holding her tighter than she could ever remember. Her arms fit perfectly around his torso, resting her forehead against his strong chest. His skin still felt slightly warm from the fever, but definitely a lot healthier than the night before.
Neither attempted to break the embrace, Arissa just let herself sink into the moment of feeling his hand curl around the nape of her neck, his heartbeat in her ear. She traced her fingers on his bare skin and allowed herself to feel her love for Cayl deeply enough, that yet another tear broke free from her dark eyes.
It wasn’t until they heard the sound of slow, approaching footsteps when they finally broke the intense hold, but even after Yasmine entered the room, Arissa made no attempt to back away from him and Cayl wouldn’t have let her go even if she tried.
Yasmine spoke in a soft, delicate voice, almost sheepishly. “I couldn’t help but notice earlier, Arissa, that you are also injured.” She gestured to her arm. When she looked down, Arissa saw that it had begun to slowly start bleeding into her already ruined cloak. Without a word, she nodded, not wanting to risk her voice sounded choked up.
Arissa had only met Landon’s wife a few times, but from what she knew about Yasmine she could tell that she was an incredibly gentle and loving person. Her soft brown hair framed her petite, heart-shaped face and it seemed that a small, comforting smile was perpetually fixed into place, enlightening her pale blue eyes. Arissa had no idea where she had originally come from or how she had met Landon, but her medical skills were outstanding.
In only a few minutes, Yasmine had Arissa’s knife wound cleaned and bandaged. After Arissa kindly refused any pain medication, Yasmine vacated the room again to give them privacy.
“Okay, we won’t go for a day or two, but what happens after that? We can’t go home. We can’t do anything until we clear your name.”
Arissa nodded. “I’ll admit I don’t know where to even start. I’m sure it has something to do with what I was working on with the General. The only person who I knew of that might have been able to shed some light was the Captain and that’s shot to hell now that he’s dead.”
Cayl’s head snapped up, his eyes burning with intense surprise. His expression nearly startled Arissa. “Captain Lovett is dead?” his voice was high and too loud, filled with disbelief.
“Yes!” Arissa gasped, incredulously, feeling winded. She had not been expecting to hear this. “Cayl...I thought you were the one who killed him!”
Neither could quite comprehend the shock of the new information, a sudden silence filling the room again. Before either could speak again, Landon appeared in the room behind them.
“Come with me,” he rushed, not bothering to explain before darting into the small room beside them. Arissa had previously assumed it was a closet of some sort.
Cayl eased off of the table just as Yasmine entered the room, working quickly to clear away anything she had used to treat their wounds and shoved it into a box. Her eyes were wide and clearly frightened. Cayl rested his arm around Arissa’s waist, partially for the support, as they followed Landon.
He was hastily clearing away everything he could from the floor of the now-crumbling house and held the lantern over to see. Arissa noticed a faint outline on the floor, with a ring attached. It was a trap door, she realized, when Landon lifted it out of its pocket in the floor.
“I need you both to hide. There are patrols coming. You’ll be safe in here until you’re ready to travel again.”
Nobody questioned his words. Arissa muttered a quick thanks to Landon as she waited for Cayl to descend the ladder that disappeared under the floor. He took each step gingerly, but trying to hurry, while carrying the lit lantern that Landon had handed to him. Landon didn’t respond, only ushered Arissa quickly to the hole in the floor, giving her brief but firm instruction to not move or try to leave until he came for them.
She understood and lithely descended into the cellar wi
th Cayl. The moment her head was clear, Landon slid the heavy chunk of flooring back into its sunken pocket, and suddenly, they were sealed off from the rest of the world. Listening for a moment, Arissa realized the secret basement was soundproof. Compared to the noise she had heard a moment ago from Landon moving the items in the closet and Yasmine clearing away her medical supplies, the room they were in now was perfectly peaceful.
Stepping down off of the ladder, Arissa finally let herself release the huge, tense lungful of air she had been refusing to let go. Hopefully, they would be safe in this shelter long enough to plan another escape.
When she turned, she nearly bumped into Cayl, reaching out swiftly to steady the lantern that started swinging in his hand. He was gazing around the room, interested in something else for once and Arissa took advantage of the moment to do the same.
There was a medium sized cot pushed against the far wall and a small, crooked table with two broken chairs towards the middle of the room. One wall was nearly completely covered in jars and when Arissa held the light to them to examine them closer, she realized it was storage of food. Different types of vegetables and meats had been packed and sealed in these jars, always ready to eat. It was an ingenious idea that she had never thought of. Nearly a third of the jars held clear water. Surprising, since most of the villages’ water supplies was murky and distasteful. She wondered how long Landon and Yasmine had been stashing food in this secret room of the house she used to live in herself and never known about. It made her suspect that they knew something was coming that she didn’t. Or perhaps Landon was just being his wary, overprotective self.
The walls and ceiling of the room had been lined with a smooth, brown layer of boards. The floor had them around the edges, but the majority of the floor was covered with a large, oval rug the color of an evergreen forest in the winter months.
Cayl set the lantern on the table and slowly sat in a chair. It was surprisingly bright for the small room and filled it with nearly as much light as if they were above ground.