Ever the Hunted

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Ever the Hunted Page 13

by Erin Summerill


  “Might only be a skirmish,” Jacinda says. “I’ve heard no word of a formal declaration. Still, you shouldn’t tarry long in Shaerdan. Judge Auberdeen assigned armies from the coast to meet at the war front. Don’t know how long it’ll take the kinships to assemble, but as soon as they reach the border, you won’t be getting into Malam.”

  “We’ll be returning to Malam soon,” Cohen says in a definite way that causes me to think he has plans other than what we’ve discussed.

  “Anything else you need?” Jacinda’s hand squeezes mine.

  I’m startled by the gesture, and my arm locks at the elbow. But I don’t yank away like I might’ve done with anyone else. “You’ve done more than enough. More than anyone else would’ve ever done.”

  A genuine earnestness fills her face, dark brows arching over her bright eyes. “After what you did for me, I couldn’t look the other way when you were in need.”

  What I did for her? I still don’t understand it. This may be my only chance to ask what happened with the dog. “I could tell he was close to death. And I know I helped him . . . but how?”

  “You—​you don’t know?” Her disbelief sets me on edge.

  I step back and cross my arms, torn with wanting to ask Jacinda questions and wanting to leave well enough alone because I’m afraid to know the truth.

  She covers the space that I just took, studying my face as she crowds me. “You’re not from around here.” It sounds like a question, but it’s not. And somehow, from an answer I’ve not given, she appears as if she understands something more than before. “Don’t know much about you, Britta, but what you can do is a gift.”

  My focus drops to my scuffed boots to contain the clash of apprehension and interest jangling through me. “Like—​like your gift with the water?” I make myself ask. My heart is a firefly trapped and fighting to get free from the jar of my rib cage.

  “Not quite—”

  Her answer is cut off by the creak of the door. Cohen looks at both of us and then cocks his head. “You’re certain the sleeping concoction will last eight hours?” Oblivious to our conversation, he approaches Tomas’s side and nudges the guard with the toe of his boot.

  “Aye. Perhaps ten if you’re lucky,” Jacinda tells him.

  “Then we’ll plan on riding hard for the next eight hours. Doubt they’ll be any friendlier when they wake. Do you have anything left for him? Sleeping draught? Or death serum?”

  A smile flashes across Jacinda’s face. “Forgot the death serum at home,” she says as she pulls a small vial from a pouch at her waist and kneels beside Tomas. “But I’ve got enough draught.”

  Cohen huffs out a disappointed sigh. “That’s too bad. Thank you once more, Jacinda.”

  I jab him with my finger. “You don’t want to be acquitted for one murder only to be charged with another.”

  He leads me to the door and throws a glance back at Tomas. “If it were his, I might not mind.”

  I try to give him a chastising look, but it’s broken when I snort a laugh.

  Cohen is walking down the hall when Jacinda calls me back into the room. “What you asked about . . . You should be prepared: with a gift like yours, there will be people who won’t understand. Won’t welcome it. Be careful. Even here in Shaerdan.”

  In the little she’s said, there’s much to be heard.

  I cross the room and squeeze her hand. “Thank you for everything.”

  We claim our weapons from the captain’s carriage, where they’ve been locked away. After slipping my dagger into my boot, I toss the keys into a nearby pile of hay and start to untie the guards’ horses while Cohen readies Siron.

  “No, leave them,” Cohen says.

  “If we leave them, it’ll only help the guards get to us faster.”

  The joking side of him gone, he looks haggard from days of not shaving now complemented with purple bruising. “True. But we have to think ahead. Once we find out who killed your father, we’ll need the guards to believe us. Not charge us with another crime. Sometimes it’s hard to look past a grudge to see the truth. Captain Omar will be spittin’ fire when he wakes from the draught and realizes we escaped a second time. Hell, the man will be wanting blood. If we add theft to the charges, Omar will make certain we’re both hanged.”

  “Except they’re not really his horses. He stole them and their uniforms. He’s more a thief than I am.”

  Cohen rests a hand on one of the stolen mares, rubbing along the animal’s neck. “I doubt he’ll see it like that.”

  True enough.

  “Besides,” he says, “the guards don’t know where we’re headed. These horses are better suited for the carriage. Not a chase. They’re no match for Siron’s southland pedigree.”

  That’s true as well—​Siron is a far stronger and faster horse; however, Cohen doesn’t know of the conversation I had with Captain Omar. I chew my lip. Study the pile of hay. “They don’t need to track us. Captain Omar knows we’re headed to Celize.”

  Cohen’s hand slips from the horse. “What? How?”

  “I was trying to reason with him,” I explain. “You were unconscious, and I thought they might kill you. I was doing what I could to plead our case, hoping he’d understand, perhaps let us go. Or at the very least, let us live.”

  His jaw pulses under the wild twining of his short brown beard.

  I lift my chin. “I did what I thought was best. Captain Omar is a man of reason. He’s bound and determined to see justice served. That’s why I explained we were looking for the murderer. It wouldn’t make sense for us to go to Celize if you were really a murderer on the run.”

  Eyes on the stable’s rafters, Cohen stretches his neck side to side, and lets out a slow exhale. “I understand your rationale, though not sure I agree with you about Omar. He’s delivered plenty of cruelties, regardless of justice.”

  He reaches out and grasps my wrist. My focus immediately shifts from his face to his hand as his thumb slides over my skin, tracing the raw marks left by the manacles. “This, for example,” he murmurs. “He could’ve kept you restrained without causing injury. He let you sleep in them when they were too tight.”

  There’s not enough air in the stable. My entire body is attuned to the connection where his fingers linger, shooting my veins with liquid fire.

  I shrug out of his hold and push my foot back. Then another. “It’s nothing. Certainly not the worst the captain’s given me.” This is said to change the subject.

  But then Cohen is in my space, hands seizing my upper arms. “What do you mean?”

  The alarm and worry he usually keeps hidden from his tone are bold and bright as Shaerdan’s clothing. It traps me in place. His eyes scan my body from head to toe. The attentiveness unsettles, like he can see through me and into me, and everything I don’t want him to see.

  “Tell me,” he urges.

  “It’s nothing.” Scant more than a whisper. “I was a prisoner for a week. Broke a rule. So the captain punished me.”

  “How?”

  Shame at how I was tied up and whipped fills me. I struggle to move away from him, but his fingers hold tight, pressing into my skin. “How, Britt? Tell me, please.”

  He won’t let this go. It’s too difficult to look him in the eye and explain how foolish I was to run off after Tomas shot the fawn. Instead, my sight sticks to the knuckles of distance between his toe and mine as I recount the entire awful story. When I reach the end, explaining how the captain gave me only five lashes, Cohen’s grip is nearly bruising my arms.

  “You’re cutting off my circulation,” I jest, and pull away from him.

  “I—I’m sorry.” He blinks. A dark cloud of fury and remorse shifts over his earthy eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Are you all right?”

  “I wasn’t being serious. Don’t start treating me like a weak girl now.”

  Cohen steps around me and is lifting the back of my tunic before I realize what’s happening. I leap forward and cross my arms tightly agains
t my waist to pin the material down. “Are you trying to undress me?” My pitch squeaks up.

  He doesn’t even seem chagrined. Same old straight-faced Cohen. “May I see?”

  I hesitate, fingers kneading the clenched material.

  “To make sure it’s healed and see that you don’t need anything for it.”

  Perhaps that would be all right. It’s not as if I can see behind me. Holding my hands tight to my ribs to keep the tunic in place, I turn around, remaining a statue as Cohen takes his torturous time peeling the material up.

  “Dove,” he says as though the nickname breaks him. His ragged exhale hits my bare back, enticing a shiver to dance through me a moment before his fingers connect with my skin and make mincemeat of my thoughts.

  His hands tremble behind me. “I’ll kill the bludger.”

  The sentiment does flipping acrobatics through my core until he abruptly drops my top.

  “It’s healing fine,” he says with a slight rasp while staring at a spot above my head when I turn to face him.

  He speaks the truth; I feel it. Though Cohen cannot even look at me. Is my back that repulsive? His reaction increases my shame tenfold. He must think me a fool to have earned the lashing.

  Chin up, I take a big step back and, forcing indifference into my voice, I say, “No need to kill the captain. It’s in the past. We should get going and make use of the next eight hours.”

  Since Captain Omar knows where we’re headed, it would be pointless to travel through woods that will slow us down. Our only option is to ride hard and fast to reach Celize.

  Siron’s energy is high. His power thunders beneath his midnight coat. Hooves pound against the dirt road as trees fly past. I revel in the rush of the wind, knowing that when we stop, the freedom of this moment will be over. Hopefully when we reach Celize, the man Cohen calls Delmar will know where to find Enat. With only eight hours’ lead, there’s not much time to locate her.

  Near dusk, we pass the road that leads to Padrin. Sitting behind Cohen gives me a clear view of the muscles clenching around his neck and jaw. I can only imagine he’s thinking of Kendrick’s betrayal. Having intimate knowledge of the hurt from losing a friend, I give him time with his thoughts while I focus on the shades of autumn that bleed across the horizon.

  But when tension spreads down his shoulders and to his hands, which grip Siron’s mane like a lifeline, I take a deep breath and pull my gaze from the sky. My arms wrap around Cohen’s back, and, for the first time in fifteen months, I hug my friend.

  Chapter

  19

  THE OCEAN IS A ROLLING FIELD OF THE BLUEST crop I’ve ever seen, filling our view two days after escaping the guards. The sea touches the horizon, swaying and moving like a living, breathing being beneath a lid of white clouds and sunshine. It’s possibly the most beautiful thing in this world.

  Cohen slips off Siron at the edge of the mammoth trees and motions for me to stay behind as he darts into the open farmlands that spread out before Celize. Leaving Siron, I follow Cohen, regardless. He needs a lookout. The first farmhouse has three rows of clothes strung up in the yard. How many men live here? A half dozen? Hopefully they won’t miss a few items.

  While monitoring the area for any movement in or around the home, I gesture at a billowing linen seaman’s frock, wide enough to fit Cohen. He frowns at the suggestion but snags it quickly, along with a pair of breeches and a jerkin. He grabs similar clothes for me while I keep watch until we’re back in the safety of the woods.

  The short navy breeches and linen shirt, combined with a blue bandanna to cover my hair, turn me into the perfect shipmate to Cohen’s sailor attire. When he steps into full view, jerkin fastened to his taut body and sleeves puffing around his arms, I cannot hold my laughter—​it bursts from me like water slipping past a dam, swift and free and explosive. Cohen’s eyes lighten, and one side of his mouth tips up as he’s carried along in the wave. It only lasts a moment until he straightens his face and makes an incensed sound.

  “Stop yer laughing,” he says, sounding gruff and serious in perfect Shaerdanian. “I’m warning you, mate, I’ll send ye between the devil and the deep.”

  His ship talk surprises another roll of laughter from me. I salute him as though he were my captain, saying, “Aye, aye, sir,” and a full smile cracks his lips.

  Together we snort and carry on like we’re kids once again, escaping Papa’s chores instead of running from the king’s guard.

  It’s a release we both need before heading into Celize.

  Great white birds with bright orange beaks swoop on the salty wind, where, beyond them, white-painted clay buildings climb the cliff that faces the ocean. Their orange rooftops and brightly painted shutters remind me of the strange birds. After we leave Siron, we make our way down a narrow road that winds between buildings. Garments hung from clotheslines flap above us like seagulls, snapping in the wind that beats against the cliffs.

  Delmar, another of Cohen’s informants, owns a blacksmith shop sandwiched between a stable and other merchant buildings. Stepping out of the quiet street, we enter Delmar’s shop. Heat from the forge licks at our faces, bringing with it the smell of steel and sweat. Near the source of the blaze, Delmar, a giant of a man, dripping from the heat, pounds a mallet against something I cannot see. His arms, thick chunks of muscle darkened with a crop of black hair, work to bring the mallet down in consistent timing.

  “He doesn’t like newcomers,” Cohen cautions over the clang, clang. His hand briefly touches my arm, a staying gesture, before he moves deeper into the shop. I find a place to rest by the door when Cohen and Delmar step out of view. Though surely they cannot have been gone long, it feels like hours. After a while, the heat plays tricks on me, turning my mouth dry. My tongue swells and I need a drink, but my waterskin is with Siron.

  I don’t see the harm in escaping for a moment. A little cool air would do me some good. I crack open the door and glance along the road. It’s clear, so I slip outside into the ocean breeze. And oh, it’s so refreshing. It’s tempting to stay there, but the alley next to the stable is a safer choice.

  On my way there, I nearly overlook the smithy’s neighbor—​a small shop with a sign that looks a day away from falling apart. Something about the dappled peeling green and blue paint hooks my attention. The twisting curved symbols are familiar. My sight narrows. I’ve seen those overlapping circles before.

  Yes, on my dagger.

  I pull the blade from my boot and hold the ivory handle up to examine it against the sign. The intricate carvings on my blade match the faded shop sign. What does this mean? Did Papa purchase the blades here in Celize?

  I push through the unlocked door.

  An older woman with parchment skin and watery eyes glances up from where she’s sitting at a table covered in bottles of liquids and tied bunches of herbs. The space around her, crowded with shelves of books and jars of dead things, is infused with the cloying scent of sandalwood and roses.

  The old woman squints at me and then at the dagger clenched in my hand. “Something you need?”

  “I, uh . . .” My grip, which had closed to cover the carvings, loosens around the handle. “The marks on your sign,” I say while keeping my chin down. “What do they mean?”

  She doesn’t seem ruffled by my sudden appearance in her shop with a dagger in hand. Chagrined at my odd entrance, I quickly slip the blade into my boot and mutter an apology. She points at a chair.

  “Oh, no. I cannot stay. I only wanted to know about the sign.” I consider telling her that it matches the etched shapes on my blade, but push the information away.

  “Most people who walk through my door are drawn here,” she says, and I almost expect her to glance at my ankle where the blade presses against my skin. “Sit. I won’t take much of your time.”

  I take in the skin sagging under her chin and her rounded dress. She seems harmless, so I relax, allowing myself a moment longer. “What sort of shop is this?” My question is light and
carries a lilt to hide my Malam accent.

  “It’s not a shop. It’s an Elementiary.” The herbs in her hands drop to the table. She dusts her fingers off and then makes a sweeping gesture. “An Elementiary is like a school. Girls come here when they show signs of having the Channeler gift. I offer them guidance and tools. Most feel drawn to others like themselves. That’s why you’ve come, yes?”

  Her words pluck specific thoughts from my mind like meadow flowers pulled into a bouquet. The well, the festival fire women, the moonflowers. All of them come together at once, begging questions in an unsettling way.

  When I don’t speak, she takes a handkerchief from her pocket. The small square is stitched with the same design on the shop sign and my blade’s handle. “See the overlapping rings, each different. They represent the four energies that govern our world. Wind and water. Land and flame.”

  “Channeler energy,” I say, mostly to myself in puzzlement. Why would Papa’s daggers have Channeler symbols on them? Did my mother give them to him? Is this proof she was a Channeler?

  Her spotted skin stretches over her hand as she reaches for a sprig of rosemary and binds it to a vine the color of eggplant. “Aye. Would you like to learn more about them?”

  Yes. Yes, I would. I have so many unanswered questions.

  Knowing time is short, I quickly walk between wooden crates, looking over jars of peculiar things. Claws of a bird float in pinkish liquid. A tapestry hangs in the back of the shop, above stacks of books. It’s woven with the same Channeler symbols on my dagger, except placed differently. Each symbol rims the edge of a circle like a compass, and in the center is a fifth symbol, the stitching still a shock of blue, considering how old the tapestry appears.

  “It was passed down from my grandmother’s mother.”

  I spin around to find the woman resting against a cane. She points at the symbol in the center. “That’s the sign of ether. The fifth energy.”

  “Ether?”

  “Spirit.”

  My mind suddenly latches on to the clergyman’s words. “Is ether what Spiriters control?”

 

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