Ever the Hunted

by Erin Summerill

  “Let’s head back to Celize and talk to Delmar,” Cohen suggests, quietly, consolingly. “Maybe he’ll have another lead.”

  “No.” We need her. We would be foolish to leave. Even if she doesn’t know who the murderer is, Papa was after her for a reason and we need to find out why. If we turn away now, then Cohen and I have come all this way for nothing.

  I cannot give up this easily. Hopelessness wells up inside me.

  There is one thing I have left to barter. I unsheathe Papa’s blade and hold it on an open palm. A raindrop lands on the forged steel. Another on the sapphire. A steady sprinkle of moisture breaks through the branches and dots the area all around us.

  “What are you doing, Britt?”

  I ignore Cohen and step into the open, figuring if the woman were going to kill me, she would’ve already hit her target. It’s clear she’s a master bow-woman.

  “This—​this dagger.” I hold it out for her to see. “It’s all I have . . .” Emotion overwhelms me. But no matter its significance, the blade means nothing if we are captured by the guards and hanged for murder.

  “Don’t do this.” Cohen takes a step toward me. The break in his voice reverberates in the center of my soul, making me stop even though this has to be done.

  “It’s worth a great deal,” I say, pushing my voice to be a little louder. A little stronger. “I can see your windows are in need of repair. Perhaps you could use some supplies before winter.”

  Pressure builds behind my eyes. I’m suddenly grateful for the steady patter of drops that have begun to fall all around us. Cohen’s hand lands on my shoulder. His reassuring touch gives me strength to continue.

  “My name is Britta Flannery, Saul Flannery’s daughter. If you know anything about my father’s murder . . .” I tap my thumb against the sapphire. “I’ll trade this for information.”

  There’s a gentle patter of movement, branches bending, a crack, and a few leaves tumble to the forest floor a dozen paces away. Then we hear a zipping sound before a woman emerges on a rope and swings to the ground. She releases her hold and lands in front of us in a crouch.

  I stare, unblinkingly, at the older woman as she rises and approaches. A slight limp causes her body weight to shift side to side. She’s petite. Not much more than bone and firm muscle beneath wrinkles. Two spirited eyes, the color of the sky after a storm, blink at me from a weathered face.

  “Why didn’t you say who you were earlier, Britta?” A smile suddenly blooms. “I’m Enat.”

  I’m so shocked and relieved to see her and hear her answer that it takes a moment to recognize the absence of the feelings I’ve come to rely on. Her words register no warmth, no chill.

  Nothing.

  Chapter

  21

  THUNDER CRACKS OVERHEAD. A ZIP OF WHITE light illuminates the small clearing in front of Enat’s log home. What does nothing mean? Perhaps it has something to do with her being a Channeler.

  Raindrops hit Enat’s shoulders, her wild white hair, her freckled hands, and she doesn’t seem to notice. She’s a rock in a slow-moving stream.

  Cohen clears his throat. “Britta?” he whispers, waiting for me to say something.

  “You really wanna trade me that dagger for information?” Her lips quirk in a sort of challenge.

  “Y-Yes.”

  She snorts. “Keep your dagger, girl. You’re gonna need that blade, unless you have another?” When neither of us answers, she tips her head. “Come inside. We’ll talk.”

  She ambles into the cottage, and it takes a moment to overcome my shock to follow. Cohen keeps a hand on the pommel of his sword as we enter the two-room tree cottage. A table, chairs, and a fireplace fill one room. The other holds a bed.

  “Go on, sit down.” She gestures to the table as she hangs her bow.

  Cohen’s wary glance tells me he is just as confused about her shift in attitude. He moves to the chair against the wall. I take the one beside him as Enat sits across from us.

  “Briiiitta.” She draws out my name, almost like it’s a treasure. Her alarming blue eyes hold me in place as she props her elbows on the table and leans closer, poring over my features in deliberate study. “You’re persistent if anything. I like that about you.”

  I shift in my seat and scrape my feet against the floor before settling to cross my legs at the ankle. Should I thank her?

  “And resourceful,” she goes on. “Somehow you convinced one of Celize’s land Channelers to tell you where I live and give you a charm to see your way here.”

  She doesn’t seem angry or irritated. If anything, she seems pleased.

  “You’re also brave.” She glances at the slender bow strung on her wall and then me. “You didn’t bat an eye at my arrow.”

  Cohen grouses about her aim under his breath. Beneath the table, I smack my knee into his and he grunts.

  “It wasn’t bravery. It was necessity,” I explain. “We don’t have much time. Cohen’s been charged with my father’s murder. And we have only an eight-hour lead on the guards who are after us.”

  Cohen thumps my leg in return, no doubt wary of sharing too much information.

  “We need answers.” I don’t hesitate to say this. Enat is a smart woman, and we would risk losing her assistance if we mince words. “You’re our last hope.”

  She leans back in her chair and rubs her chin as if forming a response, deciding what she’ll share.

  “I knew your father,” Enat says, reluctantly, almost as if there is a catch to her admission.

  I search myself for the telling sign of truth and again nothing. Cohen must see my frown because his brows rise subtly in question. I give a dismissive shake of my head. It’s not something I can explain now in front of her.

  Cohen leans forward, eyes catching briefly on mine before he directs all his attention to Enat. “A lot of people knew him, but he was coming to meet you when he was killed. You know anything of that? What he was after?”

  Trust Cohen to toss caution aside and cut to the point.

  Her focus tightens a fraction, lines pinching around her eyes. “You tracked me down. You don’t know why?”

  “No, we don’t,” he admits.

  “You’ve come all this way. Surely you must’ve learned something about me. Any stories of interest?” Enat scrutinizes Cohen like she’s testing him. Or toying with him.

  “We heard you practice black magic.” I blurt out the only rumor I’ve heard, wanting to prove our efforts despite our knowing scratch about her.

  Cohen stares at me. I shrug.

  “You have good instincts, girl.” Enat pounds a fist on the table and grins. This old gruff woman, I’m liking her more and more. “I’m the type of person who requires a forthright and honest answer, or I’ll not deal with you.” She looks pointedly at Cohen before she turns to me. “Your father wanted to pay for a spell.”

  “No.” The word comes out before I realize I’ve spoken. Even if I cannot discern her lie, my internal gauge doesn’t need to tell me she’s wrong. I knew Papa. He’d never take part in black magic.

  “He needed someone to break a curse.” She places her elbows on the table and leans toward me.

  “You’re wrong,” I tell her. “My father didn’t know anything about spells or magic or Channelers.” Papa’s stance on magic was clear. I won’t judge what I don’t understand, Britta, and I won’t ever get involved in something I cannot control, and that includes magic. The words he spoke about Channelers are ingrained on my memory.

  Enat is wrong. She must be.

  Her ocean-colored irises sharpen. “It’s the truth. Your father wrote letters and left them in a hollowed trunk that was charmed so no one else could take them except a certain courier.”

  Duff Baron.

  “After his first couple letters, when the seriousness of the situation was cause to fear someone might intercept them, I left a charm for your father. Sprinkled on each letter, the charm cloaked the messages. So any intercepted would appear blank.”
>
  If I hadn’t just walked through a tree where no path had been visible earlier, I’d think she was a loon. Still, her claim blindsides me like the day one of the king’s guards informed me of Papa’s death.

  My eyes are riveted to her as she pries open the bottom drawer of a knotty dresser beside the table and withdraws a box. Reddish wood shows beneath the cracked yellow paint with the remnants of tiny white flowers. The feminine touches on the box don’t seem to fit with Enat’s gnarled hands and gruffness.

  After producing a tiny iron key and opening the lock, Enat withdraws a pile of folded letters.

  “The answers you want are here,” she says, more subdued now, as if she can tell she’s shaken my world, and I need a moment to find balance. She offers a sad smile. It’s mixed with other emotions I cannot name. “All your father wrote in the few months before he passed is in this box.”

  Any hope I was holding that Enat was wrong about Papa vanishes the moment my fingers graze Papa’s signature.

  Oh, Papa.

  Cohen’s arm rests on my chair, lending comfort. Enat pushes away from the table and stands. “Take your time” is all she says before she’s out the door with her bow in hand.

  I’m dazed like walking through a dream as I sift through the correspondences. I read one dated five months ago.

  I’ve checked out the cities that were attacked, and all evidence and accounts from the locals tell me the murders were at the hands of our own men. Shaerdan’s kinsmen aren’t attacking us—​we’re attacking ourselves.

  Someone in the king’s inner circle is lying to him, manipulating him into calling up more troops.

  Cohen taps the letter. “I’ve spent the last year and a half around the king’s inner circle. I cannot think of a single man who’d betray the king and go to these lengths to start a war.”

  Just as Enat said, the letters span three months. Some claim a turn in King Aodren’s behavior, that it’s become erratic. That his decisions make little sense. Papa thought King Aodren’s health was declining due to some kind of magic. He had dropped weight, no longer spoke at court, and spent long hours in his private chambers. Mentions of the war scatter the pages, as well as the king’s brash decision to call on boys as young as fourteen to serve in the army.

  As I browse the stack, following the familiar curve of Papa’s scrawled handwriting, Cohen’s statement rings in my head—​We all have our secrets.

  Rage surges through me, a sickle cutting me to the core, sharp and swift. I can hardly stand to read the letters, let alone hold the truth of Papa’s lies to me in my hands.

  How could he have kept so many secrets? I’m overcome with the urge to rip the letters to hundreds of little pieces. To shred them until they’re unreadable.

  Anger burns hotly in the backs of my eyes and threatens to spill down my face, but I hold it back.

  “Britt.” Cohen’s hand rubs my back, coming to rest between my shoulder blades. “You don’t have to read them all right now.”

  “The captain is on his way to Celize.” I force myself to open another letter, but I have to pause and bat a traitor tear off my cheek. “Maybe he’s already reached the city. We don’t have the luxury of more time.”

  I want to ask him why he isn’t shocked by Papa’s mounting pile of secrets. Just thinking the question pricks me with such ugly, uncomfortable feelings, it’s better to push them away.

  “Cohen, did you know Papa was writing to Enat?” I wonder aloud.

  His face twists with confusion. “If I knew that, we wouldn’t have come all the way to Celize. Why?”

  “No reason. I’m sorry.” I rub my arms, which have chilled from the gentle rainstorm echoing outside the cottage. “Papa never mentioned a thing to me.” My throat clogs. “It’s overwhelming to read it all now. I don’t understand why he didn’t . . .” trust me.

  When I had no one else, after Cohen left, I always believed I had Papa. And now this discovery takes that truth and taints it, making me feel like I only ever had a ghost of my father.

  Cohen’s hand moves to cover mine. His thumb traces my fingers, then dips and rises over my knuckles. “He trusted and loved you more than anyone in this world. Don’t do that. Don’t think you were anything less.”

  “I won’t,” I lie. “I just . . . I’m angry with him,” I admit. “He should’ve told me.”

  A glint of something I don’t understand flickers in Cohen’s eyes. There, and then gone. He sits taller in the chair. “He must’ve had his reasons. Let’s keep reading. We’ll figure this out.”

  I nod glumly and flip to the next letter, dated four months ago.

  I snuck in to see the king and found him unconscious today . . . When he finally opened his eyes, he was disoriented. His words were nonsense. He said a woman’s voice was in his head.

  I asked about the attacks and the war, and he knew nothing of it.

  The confusion in his eyes was real. I believe him. He doesn’t know the country is headed to war.

  The last letter, dated three months ago, reads:

  The king addressed the nobility and inner circle. He was a different man from the one who woke in his chamber the other day.

  I suspect something darker is at work on him.

  I believe he’s under the control of a Spiriter. It’s been years since I saw it, since before Rozen left us. When he talks, his eyes look glazed. It’s a sign his spirit has been taken over.

  And if I’m right, whoever is controlling him is pushing our countries toward war. Thousands of innocent people will die if the bind isn’t broken. Will you, can you, help me?

  Seconds, minutes, hours—​I don’t know how long I sit and stare at his writing. My thoughts volley to the glimpse I caught of King Aodren, the tall and lithe young ruler. I’m dumbfounded that someone could take control of him like he’s a carriage to be driven.

  Papa was a shrewd man, with far greater knowledge of our world than I possess. He was painstakingly dedicated to the king. Even though he was old enough to be the king’s father, they had a friendship. Papa, more than anyone, would’ve known the truth. Even though it pains me to read his words now, I believe them.

  Enat’s door swishes open and she enters, bringing with her the fresh scent of rain and the musty odor of these woods.

  “Are there no more letters?” I ask.

  “No. That’s all of them.” Something about the downward drop of her gaze makes me wonder if she’s lying.

  “Who is controlling the king?”

  “Likely the same person who killed your father. And I have no answers to that.”

  Disappointment floods me, washing away the hope that our search was at an end. Though she gave us more information than we had before, we still don’t know who killed Papa. The guards are probably already in Celize. If we don’t turn over the murderer, then the captain will have us hanged. “You’re certain there are no more letters?”

  “No more.” I may not have my internal judge working, but there is something off in her tone.

  “Do you know anyone else he may have met with in town?” I press. “He was murdered in Celize. There has to be someone who knows something.”

  “I know your father was certain the person controlling the king was in his inner circle or one of his guards,” she says. “A Spiriter has to be close by for the bind to work.”

  That leaves us with six men to choose from in his close circle of advocates, and twenty-four guards. Thirty is too many to track down. We need to narrow the list somehow.

  “Why push the country to war? That’s what we need to figure out,” Cohen says, fist rapping against the table. “If we know who would gain the most from a war, then we’ll slim down the pool of probable murderers.”

  All this mention of Papa and his death makes me feel loosely stitched together. I cross my arms around my waist. Despite how angry I am, if there was ever a time I wished Papa were alive, it would be now. He could help me see through the confusion.

  “There are those in your c
ountry who would like to see the ports of Shaerdan fall to Malam,” Enat says. “You’re a rich country but stuck between the mountains and Shaerdan. Without ports to open trade with the islands and the great lands north, you have no gains. You’re forced to pay taxes to Shaerdan on all your ore.”

  “Are taxes and money reason to start a war?” I lift my chin, working through her rationale.

  A sardonic laugh falls from her lips. “Men have gone to war for less.”

  I glance at Cohen, thinking of the conversation we had earlier about his brother. His expression is placid as the smooth surface of a river, though certainly something more is churning beneath.

  “Where do we go from here?” I ask.

  Enat reaches for the letters and gathers them into a stack. “It’s been many years since I concerned myself with what goes on in that town, but there’s a man who may know something.” She taps the folded papers into a neat pile and places them in the box. “Millner Barret.”

  Cohen straightens in his seat, his expression cracking and shock showing through. “The Archtraitor?”

  “The very one.”

  “My father’s enemy?” She must be jesting.

  She shakes her head and a smile curves her lips. “They weren’t enemies. Millner was one of your father’s closest friends.”

  Chapter

  22

  I FEEL LIKE THE WIND HAS BEEN KICKED OUT OF me by this little old woman. “How can that be? Papa searched for the Archtraitor for years and couldn’t find him. He’s a rebel and a murderer.”

  “You’re telling me the story your papa told the king.”

  Shaking my head, I form a protest on my tongue just as she continues. “Your father and Millner worked together long before the king and his inner circle closed the border. After the drought and the old king’s death, people were afraid. They were convinced Shaerdan was the cause. Aodren was a wee thing, so his inner court took over and the king regent stepped in to lead. Channelers were hunted, and the border was closed.

  “Millner was the only member of the inner court who disagreed. He refused to hang the Channeler women who were brought in. Eventually, he spoke out. That’s when guards were sent after Millner, and his family was tortured and killed.