03 - Sworn (14 page)

“We’ll be fine,” I said, sounding more optimistic than I felt. “It’s all temporary, right?”

His smile tightened. “It is if I have any say in it.”

I frowned. “What does that mean?”

He swallowed hard and looked back over his shoulder. “Just that things are complicated. But as long as I can leave my family behind when this is over, we can be together. No one will stop us. Not even the king himself.” His expression warmed, melting me as the corners of his eyes creased. He leaned in closer, until his lips brushed mine. I sensed his magic, cold and dark, and felt I might drown in it as easily as I could in the depths of his green-flecked eyes.

“I want you,” he whispered. “And I swear I will do whatever it takes for us to be together.”

I pressed my mouth to his, trying to make the moment last, then stepped back and looked more closely at him. He was wearing his mask. Unreadable, and still keeping something from me. I was reluctant to ruin things by pressing harder. He’d promised not to keep secrets to protect me, and I’d try to trust that promise.

“You’d better get out of here before your father sees us,” I said. “Neither of us needs any more trouble.”

He nodded and left without another word. After a moment to calm myself, I stepped back into the cooking tent. All was quiet, save for a few women sweeping scraps of food off the hard-packed dirt floor.

“Can I help with anything else?” I asked the old woman in charge.

She shot me a suspicious glare. “No, no. You go on and report back to the royals. Tell them what we’re up to.”

“That’s not what I—”

She waved off my explanation. “We don’t need your help. If you want to be useful, do it somewhere else.”

I tried to catch the attention of the others, hoping for at least a sympathetic shrug, but they looked away.

I am useful,
I told myself as I stepped out into the sunlight and headed away from the camp.
Or I will be once I get in control of my mind and my magic.
Practice was what I needed. Instruction would be better, but if I sat around and waited for Ulric to assign someone to do that, I’d be dead and rotted to the ground first. I’d tried to ask Griselda for help, but Laelana refused to let me near. The Sorcerers would have been a great help to me had they been free. Qurwin Black and Griselda were both teachers at Albion’s school, and the others surely had skills they might teach me about.

I would find a way. In the meantime I would test myself, see what I could do now that my magic levels were back to normal and I was well away from the confinement of the cell walls in Ardare. I’d already spent too much time avoiding what I feared.

I will live up to my potential,
I told myself.
Damned if I won’t. Dorset Langley took so much from me. He won’t have this.

My magic surged in me as I passed the last ramshackle cabin, and a wave of nausea soon followed. “You’re not going to kill anyone,” I muttered. “Relax.”

No one stopped me as I made my way farther into the woods. Leaf-buds dotted the branches of the trees in this area, which I supposed meant there was water somewhere in the ground. If I could just sense what was far below, bring it up...

I closed my eyes and listened with my magic instead of my ears, and got nothing—no connection to whatever water might be there.

Control your expectations,
I reminded myself. I tried to enjoy the peace of the forest and the lack of pressure. My time imprisoned with Ulric had been non-stop work, constant evaluation, and the knowledge that my success might be the difference between death and freedom for both of us. It had kept me focused, and I’d learned to use my emotions to direct my power.

So what’s wrong now?

For one thing, I didn’t like using rage and fear to drive my magic. Effective as it may have been, it felt wrong, as though I were encouraging those emotions as I used them. I wanted to let go of them and let my magic flow through me as Griselda had taught me, but I couldn’t. Everything felt wrong. Not just the fear, not just the memories that attacked me when I thought about drawing water, but something deeper. I felt broken and disconnected, and didn’t know why.

I continued my walk, careful to note landmarks and to stick to my northerly course so I’d be able to get back. Comforting as it was to know that I would have an airborne search party if I got lost, I preferred that Aren not have to do that.

I climbed exposed tree roots that stuck out from an eroded cliff. I still felt nothing. The people weren’t lying when they said there had been a dry spell.

If I couldn’t work with water, I would try something else. Seeing Griselda had reminded me that I hadn’t so much as attempted an illusion since the morning we left Ardare, when I’d used my surplus magic after our escape to create the illusion of a herd of flying horses and riders, all of them exact copies of me and Florizel. It had been enough of a diversion to allow the others time to escape. Florizel and I had made it out, too, though just barely.

The ground leveled out, and I found a small patch of thin, sickly-looking grass. I remembered Griselda’s advice. Inanimate copies were supposed to be the easiest thing, and it would be best to start small until I figured out where I truly stood.

I pictured a second clump of grass beside the first.

A faint green shadow appeared and slowly solidified until it was almost convincing.

It should have pleased me. It wasn’t much compared to what other people could do, or even compared to what I had done before, but it was there. I also wasn’t experiencing any backlash, the unintended and unpredictable consequences of using magic. That meant that I had learned control, at least enough to not endanger people. But when I reached out to sense my magic, to feel that warmth within me, it had lessened. Only a small amount, but enough to set anxious wings beating in my throat.

I stood quietly, surrounded by the sounds of branches rustling in the breeze, and felt it slowly return.

The high-pitched nervous feeling eased, but I still didn’t like it.
Maybe I just need to practice more, get my strength up.
I’d been avoiding using magic since the incident at the border, and had used it so hard before that. I would keep working, and would become useful. That was the important thing. Start small, work up, hope that the horrible feelings I now associated with working huge and dangerous magic would fade.

I walked away. When I looked back, the illusion had disappeared.

Time for something a little harder, then a long rest to see if the magic came back more quickly. I closed my eyes and remembered our escape from Ardare. The magic had been so strong then. It had been in control of me as much as I of it, but it had followed my commands. I let that feeling come over me again, allowed myself to be swept away by the memory.

You can do it again,
I told myself.
You are a Sorceress. And the magic will return. It is yours.

I pictured Florizel, my loyal friend. Aren had said that flying horses couldn’t help their fearful instincts, but she had shown incredible bravery back in the city. She had once defied her herd’s leadmare to attempt to rescue the stallion Severn had taken captive. She’d stayed with me when magic hunters captured me, and had followed us to the city. That had allowed her to tell Aren where to find me. And though she’d confessed to wanting to flee after Aren, Nox, Kel and Cassia went into the fortress to get me, she had come when she heard danger. Maybe she didn’t think of herself as brave. Maybe she didn’t like acting that way. But she could be.

I hoped she was doing well, wherever she had gone.

She took shape in my mind. A fine-boned horse with a cloudy gray coat, darker on her nose and stockings, with cream-colored mane and tail. Her wings were that same creamy, cloudy white, big and powerful. I pictured her gentle brown eyes, the dappled pattern of her coat.

Something crunched through the dry, leaf-littered forest.

I opened my eyes and there she was, standing still as a rock not twenty paces away, every detail perfect. Far too perfect for it to be my work. A fly landed on her flank, and she flicked it away with her tail.

I squinted. “Florizel?”

“Rowan?” She stepped forward. I held a hand out, and she snuffled at it with her warm nose. “Thank goodness!” she whinnied. “I was beginning to think I’d never catch you away from those horrible people. Is everyone all right?”

I wrapped my arms around her neck and laughed. “Everyone’s fine for now. I thought you had left us.”

“I couldn’t. But people are not always so kind to my sort as you’ve been, and I didn’t want to come into the camp.”

“Well, your timing is impeccable. Where have you been?”

She tossed her head, nodding to the north. “About a day’s journey that way, by your reckoning. I came to tell you to find me there if you need me. You go straight that way until you come to a deep ravine. There’s a giant tree on the far side, and you go toward the mountains from there. I’ve found a place to stay. Lots of grass, and there’s a spring beneath. It’s not much, but I’m eating well. Lonely, though.”

“I’m so glad you came. I’ve missed you.”

She hugged my shoulder with her chin and stepped back.

A spring. I might be able to do something with that.
If even a little water came to the surface, I could try to summon more. Ulric might widen the opening if that were a problem, crack the earth to give us access to more. I’d seen him split the rocks over a cave and open a hole in the earth to swallow enemies. Surely he could do this, too.
And then, if we could get the people of the village to move—

Florizel snorted, and her eyes widened at something behind me.

“Hello, Florizel.”

I winced. It seemed just thinking of people could summon them now. I turned to see Ulric picking his way over some fallen logs and making his way closer.

“Hello,” Florizel murmured. She rarely spoke around him. I couldn’t blame her. The man gave off an air of danger that made me wonder how he’d ever managed to secure the good will of his people. Of course, he’d gained my trust, once. And the people in the village seemed pleased to have him back.

A chill crawled over my skin as he fixed his icy stare on me, and I wanted nothing more at that moment than to sink into the shadows of the forest and disappear.

“Rowan,” he said. “I need to speak to you. Alone.”

Florizel shuffled sideways, obviously unsure of what to do. “You can go, I’m fine,” I told her, and hoped that was true. “I’ll remember where to find you.”

She nodded and trotted through the trees until she reached a clear place where she could take off without hitting branches on her way up. A moment later, she was gone.

I watched her go, keenly aware that Ulric’s attention remained fixed on me. When I turned back, I found his expression disconcertingly unreadable. Calm, yet with the sharpness of a hunter fixing on its next kill. And, I thought, a hint of wariness.

He doesn’t know about my problems,
I realized. Aren had said that Ulric questioned my loyalty. I didn’t know whether things would be better or worse for me if he knew I was less capable now than I’d been before. I swallowed around the lump in my throat and pretended I had nothing to be worried about.

“Where’s Aren?” I asked.

His eyes narrowed. Calculating. Judging. “Why do you ask?”

“I never see you without him anymore. I wonder why you came alone.”

The corners of his lips turned up, though I couldn’t call it a smile. “He’s making friends with the leadership. Doing the work I asked him to do. Makes me wonder why you’re not doing yours, why you’ve wandered so very far from camp all alone.”

My stomach turned to stone, but I refused to let my fear show. “I’ll get back soon. The others had no more work for me, and no interest in friendship. I thought it would be better for all of us for me to use my time working on my magic.”

“Alone?”

“You’ve made sure there was no one to help me.” I bit my tongue too late to hold the response back. Still, I couldn’t regret my harsh tone. Perhaps if Aren wasn’t going to stand up to him, it would fall to me. I needed to gain the man’s respect somehow, and it seemed my magic wasn’t the way to do it. “I want to help,” I continued, my voice surprisingly calm and even. “If you’d just let me.”

His expression didn’t change. “And how will you do that? Are you in full control of your magic now? Are you no longer a danger to anyone?” He stepped closer. “Do you no longer fear what you will become if you accept it?”

I gritted my teeth. “I saved your life and everyone else’s back in the city. Does that mean nothing?”

He nodded skyward. “You’re as fearful as that horse. Yes, you saved us. You acted when you had to. You killed a man who would have killed you, and what has it done to you?” His eyebrows drew together in a mockery of sympathy. “You haven’t changed, and training you now would be a waste of time.”

“Then let me help some other way.” Magic wasn’t the only way to gain his respect. Laelana had done it with her strong will and her refusal to let him control her. Lying belly-up in the dirt like a beaten dog wouldn’t do anything for me.

“Go on,” he said. His voice sounded disinterested, but that sharp gaze never wavered.

“Did you hear what Florizel was saying about water? She found a source just a day’s journey from here, back toward the mountains. Longer if we had to take the people around by roads, but still. If we could convince them to move the village, surely that would get you further on Laelana’s good side.”

His eyes narrowed again. “You would tell them to move farther from Luid?”

My heart quivered, but I pressed on. “They need this. The merfolk need this. And—” My words dried up.

“Laelana is well aware that there is water elsewhere, if not so close,” he said evenly. “She feels they’re safe here. They’ll move when it’s in my best interest for them to move, and not before.”

I swallowed hard. “Another idea, then. Griselda Beaumage was my teacher for a time. She knows me, and seems willing to speak with me. Laelana has been cautious, but isn’t as wary of me as she is of you. She must have picked up by now on the fact that you have no use for me.”