Lorst Slid back a step, looking over at Cael as he reappeared. She crouched on the ground, dress pooled around her. Dim light reflected off her pale bosom. Her eyes were a green so bright, they glowed.
As if in a dream, I realized that I’d never seen abilities so strong.
I tried grabbing another dart, but my hand didn’t work as it should. Fingers felt numb and weak. Lorst knew I was no threat to him. I managed to get one of my hands into my pouch and fumbled across the vials.
“A Reader?” Lorst said, leering at Cael. “Some say it is the Great Watcher’s greatest gift. But that’s not all she is.”
He knelt beside her. She scooted backward, pushing away from the slender knife he gripped. The small bag she carried dislodged as she moved and she kicked it away, closer to me.
“You know what I am thinking right now, don’t you?” Lorst said.
Cael nodded once, kicking backward to get farther away.
“I’ve not seen strength like this since leaving Elaeavn, and only then from one of the Elvraeth. My barrier is nothing to you, is it?”
Lorst slid forward until he was looking in Cael’s eyes. A dark smile crossed his face, both menacing and angry at once. Cael shook her head slightly. Even where I lay I could smell the fear on her.
I finally found the vial I was searching for, but my fingers wouldn’t follow my thoughts and slipped off it, my hand falling back out of the pouch.
“Then you know I will not hesitate to kill one of the Elvraeth,” Lorst said.
He started to Slide forward. I saw it as little more than a shimmer of blackness. In that instant, I knew I had to move or lose Cael completely. As long as he had the necessary strength, Lorst could Slide anywhere. Distance became little more than a thought.
Lorst grabbed Cael by the arm, still Sliding, and pulled her with him.
I lunged.
Little strength remained in my body, barely enough to move my hands, but somehow—somehow—I managed to leap after Lorst. Willpower. Reserves of strength. Simple stupidity. Possibly a combination of them all.
Pain raged through my body. I like to think that I did not scream.
I knew little about Sliding. It was rare enough that the Hjan I’d faced and Lorst were the only ones I’d ever met who could Slide. I didn’t think he was Hjan, but what if I was wrong? Would Orly have made that mistake again?
No. He would have made a different plan.
Lorst Slid easily, with exquisite skill. I could follow, but only if I managed to grab hold of something on him. I grabbed his boot.
The world seemed to shift around me. Colors flashed as if moving past at incredible speed. Air whistled in my ears. Even the pain seemed for subside.
But only for a moment.
Then everything crashed back into place. My body thrummed with pain, my gut burned in agony. Darkness snapped into place. Lights of the city were gone, replaced by a cloudy sky and a dim blanket of stars. Even the wind changed, gusting and blowing against my face.
We were out of Eban.
I saw it all in an instant. The city sat below us in the distance, lights from hundreds of lanterns little brighter than the stars in the sky. The ground was rough, rocky, as it twisted away from the city toward the north. Mountains would loom to the west, but I saw nothing of them. Smoke from an unseen fire drifted with the wind.
“Galen.” Lorst spat my name and kicked me in the chest, sending me rolling away. “You delay me.”
I managed to land facing him. I couldn’t help but be impressed with his strength. Even carrying the two of us as he Slid, he managed to completely leave Eban and reach the winding mountainous road leading to Cort. Such a trek would take me nearly a day and he’d managed it in an instant.
Pain ripped through my stomach and I couldn’t move. Arms and legs seemed to defy my commands. I felt something in the palm of my hand and distantly remembered that I had managed to grab one of my vials. Not much good they would do me now.
I attempted to speak, but even my jaw didn’t work as it should. Words came out jumbled and breathy. Soon I’d be unable to even breathe.
Lorst laughed again. I hated the sound nearly as much as I hated Orly’s laugh. “You thought the price too much for a simple woman. But you’ve learned she’s more than just a Reader, haven’t you?”
“Lorst—” I could say no more than that, surprised that my lips cooperated enough to form his name.
“Galen. You were never strong enough to be a part of this. It’s beyond your ability.” He looked over at me, darkness threatening to overwhelm the green surging in his eyes. “Now you will die, alone, outside of your adopted city. Fitting.”
Were it untrue, I couldn’t even disagree.
I watched him Slide, reappearing almost atop Cael, knife slicing toward her chest.
I closed my eyes. Even though I had dispensed death so often that I grew accustomed to it, I couldn’t watch Cael’s death.
There was a soft gasp. And then silence.
It was done.
6
Lying on the ground, the scent of smoke mixing with the bitter tang of my own blood, I waited for the Great Watcher to reclaim me. I heard a soft shuffle, an inhaled breath, and sighed as I waited for the finishing blow.
A fitting end.
It never came.
Something rustled in my pouch. I felt fleeting surprise that Lorst would pilfer my remaining supplies. My hands were pried open, disarming me completely. Not that I was a threat.
A soft hand touched my forehead, stroking my hair away as another unclasped my cloak, sliding over my stomach. I felt another surge of hot pain as the knife was removed, tossed to the stone in a slight clatter of metal on stone, and then another surge of pain as a finger probed my wound.
Slowly I flickered my eyes open. Cael.
“This is deep,” she said.
Cold flared in my wounded side from her fingers.
“Perhaps too deep for my skill.”
I swallowed weakly. A deserved fate. “And poisoned,” I managed to croak.
She leaned forward and kissed my forehead. Some of the heat left my face. “Then may you return to sit by the Great Watcher.”
I felt warmth of her body against me as she leaned in, her breasts pressing into my chest, as she kissed my forehead again. Another surge of clarity worked through me, as if her kiss pushed back the effect of the poison, if only briefly. I wished that she would leave her lips there, holding them pressed against me as life faded from my body, but then she pulled away.
She stood and then staggered, stumbling to land on the rocky path almost on top of me.
“You…” I said. “Where?”
She tapped her arm and showed me a small cut, just the slightest weal of blood pooling, marring her otherwise perfect skin. “Perhaps Orly will have his prize,” she said.
Lorst had gotten her. Even that small injury meant death; poison seeped through her veins. “Why does he want you?”
“Not me,” she said. Her breathing quickened slightly.
“Then what?”
For a moment, I didn’t think that she would answer.
“He acquired something that wasn’t his.” She let out a long, slow breath, as if speaking the words were painful. And possibly they were.
I tried to laugh but couldn’t muster the strength. “He said the same about you.”
“I only took back what belonged to us.”
I grunted. “Us?”
She nodded.
I had heard Lorst mention the family but had paid little mind to what he said. “You… Elvraeth.” It would explain much.
“I am Cael R’da Elvraeth.”
I sighed. Elvraeth. Cael was nearly royalty. Part of the reason I didn’t mind my exile was the absence of such politics. Even in death, they chased me.
But would not catch me. My body grew weaker, the effect of her kiss fading. Soon I would be unable to even speak. I was ready for the fate I deserved.
“The crystal,” I said,
suddenly understanding the soft blue glow I had seen. My mouth almost couldn’t form the words. She shifted and her soft curves pressed against me. “How would Orly come to possess one of the five crystals of Elaeavn?”
“A long story,” she answered. “How is it that you know of them?”
From her tone, I could tell she bore some responsibility. Were there the time, I’d love to hear the tale. The srirach worked slowly, but I had already lost all muscle use except my voice. Soon enough, my lungs would fail.
“My mentor…” I couldn’t finish and couldn’t tell her what Della, and then Isander, had warned me about the crystals. “What now?”
Even I—exiled from Elaeavn—understood that Orly could not have one of the crystals.
“Now,” she started. Cael sagged, her head coming to rest on my chest. “I’m sorry, Galen.”
Sorry. One of the Elvraeth apologized to me. I was nothing but an assassin. Anything that happened to me was clearly deserved. I tried to lift my hand, wishing I could touch her, but failed. Were I not dying, I doubt I would even have tried.
“I deserve this, Cael,” I managed. My voice was soft, failing. It would not be long.
She smiled sadly. “I am the Reader, Galen. I know that you do not.”
I said nothing, not knowing what to say. Usually, I watched death with a dispassionate eye, but I did not want to see Cael’s death. I wondered briefly how many of my emotions were forced.
“None,” she whispered.
I smiled. At least I would die with the lie.
Cael took a deep, heaving breath. “Will this be enough?” she asked.
“What?”
“You have the tchinth extract.”
I tried to roll away but could not move. She had pilfered my pouch. “You’re the Reader,” I said, knowing she had already tried it.
She coughed. “You don’t know.”
“It’s weakened. Diluted,” I admitted.
There was only so much I could do with the tchinth Orly had poured into the wine. The powder itself was a potent poison when mixed with liquid. When heated, it changed, becoming an agent of healing. I didn’t know if diluting it in wine would affect the healing properties.
She coughed again and struggled to sit upright. Slowly, she managed to reach up to my mouth and she poured what remained of the vial between my lips. Tchinth tasted both sweet and sour, stinging my throat as it trickled slowly down into my stomach.
“You waited,” I realized.
She nodded and I saw the strength slowly returning to her eyes. “I had to know.”
“And if it did not?”
“Then I would have done everything in my power to destroy the crystal.”
Destroyed. I did not even think it possible to destroy one of the five crystals. Few knew they existed, and fewer still understood their connection to the people of Elaeavn.
“But it did,” she said. Then she leaned toward me and kissed my forehead again.
“When did you know?”
“When I first touched your mind. Then again when Lorst attacked.”
I shivered, suddenly aware that I could move my fingers again. “I don’t think we should linger,” I said. “Lorst will not be the only one after you.” Nor after me. I was hunted now as well, and with a price even higher than hers.
“No,” she agreed. “And… Lorst will heal.”
I managed to roll my head to look where I expected Lorst to have fallen. The road here was rocky as it sloped slowly toward the Devn Mountains, winding along the outer edge of the massive mountains as it snaked toward Cort. Enough of the dirt remained that I saw tracks in the road. There was little blood, only a drop or two that likely came from Cael. Lorst was gone.
“You didn’t kill him.”
“I could not.”
“The knife?”
She held out empty hands to me. “I didn’t keep it.”
“Then how?” I asked, turning to look at her.
“I’m not completely defenseless,” she said.
Her eyes suddenly flared a bright green and I felt her within my head. Whatever she did was cold and angry, tearing through my skull.
“Enough,” I said.
The sense shifted, softening. No longer painful, now it was almost… pleasurable. I felt it linger, like her lips on my forehead, and I shivered again.
“Enough!”
She smiled and her eyes faded, leaving only flecks of green.
“Lorst is gone, then.”
“For now,” she agreed. “He managed to Slide away as I touched his mind. There is something there I don’t understand…” She shook her head. “It left him injured but he will heal.”
I wouldn’t have been as kind. “You could have stopped him sooner.”
“Possibly,” she shrugged. “I don’t know. There was something about him that made what I did difficult.”
I met her eyes and wished for a moment that I’d never met her. This was to have been an easy job. Now it appeared to be my last—at least in Eban.
“Can you walk?” she asked.
I flexed my legs, surprised that I was able to move them. Muscles in my arm twitched. The wound in my stomach ached but didn’t hurt as expected. Perhaps the tchinth was not as diluted as I had thought. I laughed, holding my stomach as I did. Cael’s eyes flared briefly as she watched me. I wondered if she ever talked to someone without Reading them.
“You are not as easy to Read as you think,” she said. She tilted her head, eyes flaring for a moment. “Why do you laugh?”
“I’ve worked with Orly many times. Each time I meet him, he tests me, attempting to kill me, always failing. This time, he did more than that. He saved me. Us.”
Cael tilted her head, smiling. “Fortunate that he acquired the tchinth. I understand that it’s quite rare.”
I nodded. Tchinth was rare. I’d not been able to acquire any in nearly two years, though I didn’t have Orly’s resources. Still, there was something about the way Cael mentioned the powder.
I felt shaky and weak as I stood. Worse, I felt vulnerable. I doubted that I could manage to defend either of us were it to come to that. Thankfully, Lorst had given us the key to escaping the city.
“I will be of little use until I regain my strength,” I told Cael as we slipped back into the shadows.
“Then, for now, I’ll protect you.”
She placed her arm around my waist, giving me just enough support to keep upright, almost as if we were little more than intoxicated lovers of the sort I’d seen at the Durven. Were life only so simple.
I felt her smile and heard a soft chuckle.
Damn.
“There are things that are meant to be private,” I said as we neared a bend in the road.
“Why private?” she asked. “It’s not as if your thoughts are particularly quiet.”
I grunted. “It’s not as if I am strong enough to keep them quiet.” I had never thought of myself as particularly weak until I met Cael.
She nodded agreement. “I’ll try to refrain,” she said and paused, looking over at me. “What will you do now?”
In darkness where only one of the Sighted could see, I saw her face. Soft, delicate, eyes pale with none of her strength now visible. Her dress tattered, ripped in places from scooting away from Lorst. The small cut on her arm now faded, only the hint of dried blood as evidence that she had been injured. A wide rip in the middle of her dress exposed the pale flesh of her stomach.
She chuckled soft and low. I did not cringe.
“Lorst will return.”
She nodded.
“You will return to Elaeavn.”
“You know that I must.”
The crystal must return to Elaeavn. One day, I would learn how Orly had acquired one of the crystals. “Does Lorst know about the crystal?”
Darkness clouded her face. “I don’t know. He must, though.”
“This was about more than the gold for him. We would not be here,” I said, sweeping my arm around th
e night, “if that were all this was. He would simply have killed you or taken you to Orly.”
She nodded.
I realized then that as much as she Read me, as transparent as I was to Cael, I knew little about her. There was more to this than simply obtaining the crystal. Cael had needed me. How much of this had she planned? Could she have planned?
Damn Elvraeth politics. Somehow I had been pulled into it again. At least I couldn’t get exiled again. Once had been enough. Other than abandoning Cael to travel alone, there was little I could do except go along.
As I looked at her soft face, I felt a surge of conflicting emotions. She stared back at me with eyes so pale that it seemed unlikely that she Read me, but still I couldn’t be certain.
Cael helped me to walk. I felt a reserved longing with her touch and struggled to keep my mind clear from her influence.
In the light of the moon overhead, I saw her smile.
An exile, now I was going home.
7
My skin still burned where the knife had cut me and I flexed it, looking over to Cael, who lay near the small crackling fire, eyes now closed, her dark hair tousled around her and pooling on the hard path. Fatigue had overwhelmed her nearly as soon as we stopped. Days without adequate food and water would do that. Too much longer like this and we would be forced to find a village to stop in and rest. I knew such delays would be dangerous, understanding only too well the type of person who hunted us: Men like me.
Thin smoke drifted into the darkness of the night. With my Sight, I saw the trail easily, noted how it twisted toward the clouds, blowing back toward Eban. I hated that I had to leave, but the price on my head would be nearly the same as was on Cael. For me, there was no return.
Cael rolled over and looked up at me, not as tired as I had thought. “You could rest.”
I shook my head. “Not until we’re safe.”
“You don’t intend to sleep until we reach Elaeavn?”
That hadn’t been my plan, but how could I sleep when I didn’t know whether she’d be safe? How could I relax until we’d returned the crystal?
“You still haven’t told me how you acquired that,” I said, motioning toward the pack where she held the crystal. It made us a target, but it was more dangerous than that. Probably more dangerous than I knew.
The Forgotten (The Sighted Assassin Book 2) Page 5