Mohan grimaced.
“Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere.”
“It’ll hurt a lot more once the alcohol wears off. Are you okay to walk?”
He nodded.
She felt down his arms and chest. “Let’s get you back to Liera’s so I can examine you.”
“So this is what it takes to get your hands on my body?”
She could hear the smile on his face and threaded her arm through his to help support his weight. He’d be fine.
“Gindean’s Keep, worth the beating, I’d say.” He paused as she started back up the path.
Her ankle burned with each step, but she didn’t think it was broken or even sprained. “Shut up and walk, Mohan.”
“Ilythra?”
“Yes?” When he didn’t say anything further, she turned to face him.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah, just don’t try it again,” she muttered, but her chest welled in relief. She didn’t have too many people she could call friend. Perhaps only one.
* * *
Ilythra eased out of bed, careful not to wake Mohan. She’d debated whether or not it was a good idea to take him back to Liera’s but didn’t have much choice. All her gear was in the young healer’s house. Relaxed in sleep, with a lock of hair falling over his forehead, Mohan had the aspect of a small boy—a small boy who had been in a bad fight...and lost. Purple ringed his eyes, his bottom lip was split and a nasty bruise swelled one side of his jaw. She’d gotten little sleep after she’d put him to bed and dressed his wounds, but the sun would be up soon.
“Where are you going?” His voice scratched the air.
Ilythra moved to the mug of water she’d placed on a trunk near the bed. “You’re awake.”
“I always wake up when a woman leaves my bed.”
“Can you sit up?”
Grimacing, Mohan pushed up against the wall to a sitting position.
“I’d wager that’s only part hangover.” She reached for a jar, sprinkled some its contents into the water and handed it to him. “The whole thing.”
Mohan drained the cup. “If you’re going poison me, I’d like a final request.” He winked, but with his eye swollen almost shut it didn’t quite have his usual charm.
Ilythra laughed. “You’re in no condition. What happened last night?”
“What didn’t happen?” Mohan closed his eyes.
Ilythra settled on the bed. “I already know it involves a woman, and my ears are not delicate. Tell me.”
“Okay, I met a woman and after a while she took me upstairs to her room.”
“At the tavern?”
“Yeah.”
“While we were, um, well, let’s just say I was in a delicate position when I heard a sound outside the room. I rolled off the bed toward my sword as the door burst open. I didn’t reach it but managed to fend the three brutes off.”
“You fought naked?”
“There wasn’t time to get dressed. What choice did I have?”
“Mmm. Impressive. Not very many men could, you know?” Simply from a feminine perspective he would have been magnificent. Long, sinewy muscles rippling under his golden skin. She shook off the image. “Go on.”
Mohan shrugged. “How was I to know the girl belonged to one of the men? I mean, she certainly seemed receptive enough. Anyway, I pulled on my trousers, grabbed my shirt and sword and ran out the door.” The bed creaked as he shifted position. “There was one more waiting outside. I ran into his fist. The next thing I knew, I was between two of the brutes, being dragged through the forest. And then you showed up.”
Ilythra stood. Footsteps sounded outside the door. “Liera’s awake now.”
“And we need to go.” Mohan groaned. “I’ve had better mornings.”
“How long do you think before the townspeople come looking for us?”
“Sooner than we’d like.” Throwing off the blanket, Mohan swung his legs out of the bed and tried to stand. Ilythra wrapped an arm around his waist to steady him.
“Dizzy?”
“Yeah, a little.” He leaned against her, a grin on his face. “I should be dizzy more often. You smell good.”
“Be serious, Mohan.” But a smile touched her mouth. She helped him sit back on the bed. “You should probably rest for a few days, but we can’t risk it. You stay here—don’t move yet. I’ll get you something else that will help you.”
“Don’t worry, the world is moving too fast for me to attempt to go anywhere right now. But hurry. I want to be out of here by first light. If we put Liera in danger, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Me too.”
Liera was feeding sticks to the fire in the stove when Ilythra walked in. “Good morning.”
“And a good morning to you. I didn’t hear you come in last night.” Liera didn’t turn.
“It was late. And Mohan was—”
“Drunk?” she asked.
“Yes. There was an altercation with a few townsfolk.”
Liera spun, worry clear on her face. “He’s okay?”
“He will be. Where’s the Arnica Montana?”
Liera pointed to a jar.
Ilythra retrieved the herb then walked back to the room, Liera on her heels.
“Oh.” Liera stopped in the doorway, staring at Mohan. Her hand covered her mouth and she reached out as if to touch him before it fell to her side. “Who did this to you?”
“Idiots,” Mohan mumbled as he accepted the cup Ilythra offered.
Ilythra turned to Liera. “We leave this morning.”
“He’s in no condition to travel.”
“Liera, I killed two of the men who were beating him up. I don’t think that will go over too well with the town.”
Her eyes grew large.
“Will you be okay if we leave you here?”
“Yeah, they don’t have another healer. They have to be on good terms with me.” She nodded. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Just take care of him.”
“I will.”
Ilythra helped Mohan stand. “Come on, let’s get out of here before the town tries to drown both of us.”
Chapter Seven
The flames roared against the invading wind hissing down the chimney. Bredych rose to throw another log in the fire and fan its rage before returning to his seat. King Farial didn’t have nearly enough servants in his wretched castle. He sighed. His visit was almost at an end. There was only one more issue on his agenda before he returned to Greton. Bredych glanced at the youth sitting in a corner, staring at the wall. He’d saved the best for last.
It had been a productive summer overall. He’d listened to the arguments. Too delicate, too difficult to carry without breaking. Dangerous. The Rugians. But the answers and a purse full of Jartas gold had convinced Hilith, the trader, to extend his route to include Greton once again. He hadn’t given it all to him, of course; he wasn’t simple. He’d only let him see and smell it, feel the weight of it in his hand. Then he’d given him half. The rest he’d promised to hand over in the halls of the castle at Greton.
By next summer, the glass would travel to Jartas and then... He shrugged. Gold. It had taken him quite a while to convince Erhard to make an attempt where his father had failed. It was always a mistake to assume parents were infallible, a fault some never overcame. But now the spark of greed glittered in the king’s eyes.
The thirst for stockpiling wealth was a lust he couldn’t understand. Gold was impersonal, cold, but what it could buy—now that was different altogether. And the Rugians were the best warriors money could purchase. Even back in the castle at Jartas, where the Rugians were little more than myth, their name brought fear.
Of course, he didn’t care much for the eastern warriors.
His nostrils flared as though he could smell their presence. Animals salivating at the sight of a few coins, but useful animals nevertheless. And Erhard would never suspect that half the profits from the glass never made it to his treasure. It would have been simpler to use the stone but in the end not as stimulating. He’d learned from experience that savoring a victory won by outthinking an opponent was sweetest.
He held up the wine to the light of the flames, watched the delicate crimson shimmer and waver from translucent to shadowed. When he reached for Crioch, the swirling shadows in the wine snaked alive to finally coalesce into a face. Ilythra. She was near. So very close, he could almost taste her, taste the power radiating from her, power that would soon be his. All he had to do now was wait; she’d come to him. He closed his eyes, breathing the wine’s fumes with her image shimmering behind his eyelids, and drained the goblet.
* * *
“What did Taliba say to you? You’ve never said.”
The air was heavy. Even the occasional puffs of wind, laced with hints of rose and ripe grain, moved reluctantly. As he sat behind Ilythra on Tashi’s back, Mohan closed his eyes, lulled into a half doze by the horse’s familiar gait.
Ilythra was quiet for a while. “Nothing and everything.”
Mohan returned her silence. He’d wanted to ask her as soon as she’d left Taliba’s wagon but never found the opportunity. He wasn’t sure she’d answer him even now. They were three days out of the village, and there’d been no sign of pursuit. He wondered if Ilythra would agree to a fire a tonight. His mouth watered, thinking of fresh meat instead of berries and roots. He wasn’t a rabbit. He needed meat. Mohan arched his back. The pain had lessened, and Ilythra told him the purple blotches on his face had begun to fade into the same sickly yellow that covered most of his torso.
Another errant breeze blew through the grasses along the roadside with a soft hiss, teasing free a lock of Ilythra’s dark hair and tickling his cheek with it. Her hair smelled of lavender and something else, deeper, muskier, a scent that was unmistakably Ilythra.
“She said I was pulled by three forces. But I was aware of one, would overcome another, yet it would be a third force that would kill me—if I let it,” she added, her voice devoid of emotion.
“What’s the third force?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s difficult.”
“Yeah.”
He detected a slight strain in the careful cadence of her voice. “And the other two?”
Tashi’s hooves echoed dully off the hard packed trail as they slowly made their way to Jartas.
She tensed then relaxed, her voice a quiet whisper. “No idea.”
* * *
Mohan’s question echoed in her head. Who or what were the forces the seer mentioned? One was certainly the Siobani, the other? The man shrouded in red? Or his stone, Crioch? Were the forces the stones and not the people who held them? If that was so, then what was the third force? Her own stone? Teann? How could that be her undoing? She sighed. Rather than solving the puzzle, thinking about it seemed to tie the knot tighter. One thing at a time. Her grandfather had always cautioned that piling problems only buried you. Taken one at a time, anything could be overcome. What would you have done, Grandfather? It wasn’t a fair question. Had her grandfather lived, she’d never be here, fighting against the wind. Looking for a people who were so well-hidden even history had forgotten they really existed. Haunted by a man in a red haze who had left a young boy to starve and stolen another from his bed. And Zeynel.
Ilythra breathed deeply, savoring the scents on the warm air. One thing at a time. Rescue Mohan’s brother.
Wild thyme tumbled onto the roadside and every so often, Tashi would crush the leaves under her hooves, releasing its pungent fragrance. A soft wind brushed her cheek and a sudden peace descended. Zeynel had smelled like wood smoke and thyme. It was funny how a simple fragrance brought his memory, and the way she felt when she was with him, into stark relief.
Her mentor, her friend. She was on good terms with many of the traders, but she wouldn’t call any of them friend. Mohan was the closest thing she had to friend and soon she’d have to leave even him. Her adult life had been one of goodbyes.
She recalled Liera’s shape, blurred in the predawn gloom as they rode away, with a feeling of melancholy. When she had left Maelys, it had been as a student leaving her teacher; now she was leaving as the teacher. It would have been nice to spend more time with the young healer.
A sense of urgency, of needing to be somewhere else, had pestered her since speaking to the seer. One thing at a time. Rescue Mohan’s brother.
The dreams had become more frequent. The red haze, now shadowed and indistinct, as though filtered from a distance, haunted her nights. She’d checked her wall daily. She was as protected as she could make herself. Zeynel had never said how completely the walls protected her though. He’d only said they’d shield her exact location and keep him from invading her sleep. Her thoughts. She shuddered. Had he somehow bypassed her protections? Damn it. I will find him. I will find the trader, the keeper of Crioch. Find him and kill him and put an end to this.
Maybe that wasn’t what her grandfather or Zeynel would do but they were both gone. Justice. Revenge? It didn’t matter to her as long as he was dead.
But in her dreams, she was running away, trying to put as much distance as possible between them. So what was it? Was she running or chasing? The hunter or prey? A shudder ran down her spine. Either way, she was ready.
The occasional sound of buzzing insects or the croak of a toad competed with the sound of a small creek running parallel to the road. At midday—when the creek had swelled until it earned its name, Ohari River—they halted to rest in a grove of trees. A blackened circle and haphazard stack of firewood betrayed a frequented resting place for travelers.
Ilythra led Tashi to a nearby clump of grass, hobbled her and returned to the clearing. Mohan had gathered kindling and watched her with an expectant gaze.
She waved her hand. “We’re far enough away now. If they’ve followed us this far, they’ll follow us all the way to Jartas, and I’d rather deal with one thing at a time.”
Mohan lit the fire then sat nearby, searching through his pack. He produced two potatoes and placed them near the coals to roast. He glanced up. “Nothing fancy today, unless you’d like to set a trap and wait.”
“Are you tired?” Ilythra’s heart sped. His bruises had been severe. What if he was still bleeding on the inside?
“Not more so than yesterday.” A sparkle gleamed in his eye. “Why, are you thinking of putting me to bed?”
“I’m thinking of checking your bruises again.”
“Why? You already have.”
“Because sometimes you bleed inside.”
Mohan’s eyes squinted in concentration. “How do you stop that?”
“You go in and stop the blood the same way you would on the outside—sew it up.”
“You don’t strike me as much of a seamstress.” He looked doubtful.
She grunted in agreement. “Let’s hope you never have to find out. Now, off with your shirt.”
“Usually, when a woman tells me that, I’m a little more enthusiastic.” His ever-ready grin was somewhat dulled.
“Usually, when I tell a man that, he obliges.”
Mohan smiled and pulled off his tunic.
“Have you been more thirsty than usual? Headache? Sick to your stomach?” Ilythra checked his heart rate and then gently prodded Mohan’s abdomen.
“No, just tired.”
“Okay.” She pressed on a dark purple bruise just below his ribs.
Mohan winced.
“Did that hurt?” Alarm filled Ilythra. She couldn’t lose him now. Not like this.
“It usually does when you push on a bruise.�
� He reached for his shirt.
“Mohan, be serious. I want to make sure I didn’t miss anything.”
The Benai reached up and grasped Ilythra’s forearm. “That’s how Zeynel died, isn’t it? Bleeding on the inside.”
Ilythra swallowed, surprised by the sting of tears behind her eyes. She could still see him there, lying in a Heleini tent, face waxen and pale. There had been nothing she could do. “Yes.”
“Really, I feel fine, just a little sore and tired.” He stroked her jaw, his eyes soft with compassion. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll drink any potion you make me without complaining.”
Ilythra glanced toward the afternoon sky, blinking back tears. “I’ll set a trap. You need some meat. We’ll stay here tonight, let you rest.”
Mohan stretched. “And will you wait on me?”
She hid a smile. “Don’t push it, Benai.”
* * *
Mohan stretched, breathing in the predawn air. The land was changing, the patch of forest thinning to open meadows and rolling hills. He glanced toward the camp. No doubt Ilythra was awake. He felt a surge of tenderness toward the healer. She’d been worried about him. Twice during the night, she’d woken to lay her fingers on his neck and both times, even though he tried to give no indication he was awake, she’d whispered for him to go to sleep.
Should he tell her what he knew? Mohan shook his head. Was it right to break a Benai oath for affection? But she was Ilythra, the keeper of a stone—surely she had a right to know. Taliba would have told her if it were the right thing to do. Or would she? He pushed aside a branch with more force than necessary, returning to the campsite. He’d planned to ask Taliba before they left but... He felt his still-tender face with his fingertips. Circumstances had interfered. After they found Tarak, he’d convince Ilythra to come with him, back to the Benai, so he could ask the wise woman if he should break the oath.
When he returned to the camp, Ilythra was sitting before a fire with a mug of something hot in her hands and a bundle of clothes in her lap. She threw the bundle at him as he neared. “Put these on.”
Shawna Thomas Page 8