03 - Sworn (28 page)

I wiped the dirt away with my sleeve.

“Thanks,” she said, and went back to watching the inn. “Tell me again about what my mother said to you?”

I thought back to the strange meeting in a town garden in Darmid, trying to remember whether I’d forgotten anything, choosing the words Rowan needed to hear to calm her nerves. “She said she loves you. She said she’s sorry for the pain the binding caused you, and that she wanted to tell you the truth before you—” I stopped myself. I couldn’t talk about Rowan marrying that monster. “Before. She just never found the right time. She said Ashe missed you, and never gave up hope that you’d come back.”

Rowan nodded and chewed on her lower lip. “Thanks. It’s too much to hope they’re here, isn’t it? My father would never come.”

I hadn’t mentioned the fact that Kel and Cassia had said her father wanted nothing to do with his strange and shameful daughter anymore. It was too hurtful, and until that moment hadn’t seemed to matter.
Perhaps the magic hunters’ actions have changed his mind…

“Anything is possible,” I said, “but it might be best to keep expectations low.”

She took a long, deep breath, and wrinkled her nose as she glanced at a pile of refuse behind us. “I’m trying. So we’re sure that Patience is on our side now?”

“Absolutely.” I was glad I hadn’t followed my training and forced my way into the girl’s mind to find answers. She was a victim in this. If she’d lied to us, she’d done it thinking she was helping. Her remorse had been genuine, once she saw that my father had lied about me—or at least, she thought he had.

I still wasn’t so sure.

Rowan was watching me. “You okay?”

“Just thinking. See anything?”

“I do now.”

Patience strolled casually past the alley, then ducked back in at the last moment.

“Subtle,” I noted.

She stuck her tongue out at me. “The soldiers are gone. They left again early this morning.”

Rowan arched an eyebrow. “That’s all you’ve got after all that time?”

Parience smirked. “Almost all.” She produced an apple from her pocket and handed it over. “People here are pretty nice. But be careful, okay?”

“We will,” I told her as Rowan took a bite of the apple and handed the rest to me.

The soldiers may have left, but if the townsfolk were friendly toward Severn they’d be watching for us, too. Perhaps there was no way for us to get in and out unrecognized, especially if we took Rowan’s aunt, but we could try to be away before anyone notified the authorities.

“While we’re gone, I need you to do one more thing.” I handed Patience the few coins I had in my pocket. It wasn’t much, but probably more than the girl had ever had for herself, and her jaw dropped. “Hold on to this for me. Buy yourself some more food now. If we don’t come back, find Florizel and get help. But this shouldn’t take long.”

“I’ll meet you back at the barn later.” She darted out of the alley at the far end, tucking the coins in her pocket as she went.

I took the heavy pack off my back and stowed it behind a dirty wooden crate, hoping we’d have a chance to come back for it. It would be too much trouble to carry with us now, especially if we needed to fight our way out. “Ready?”

“As close as I’m going to get.” Rowan closed her eyes. “Why am I so nervous? They’ll be happy to see me, right?”

“Absolutely.” My voice held more confidence than I felt.

She grinned. “Let’s go.”

I pulled up my hood to shadow my face, and we moved into the street. A few people glanced our way, but most were too busy to take real notice of strangers. They probably saw enough of those around there that it wasn’t remarkable. We passed by the front door of the red-brick inn and made our way to the back, where willow trees shadowed several wooden doors and curtained windows.

Voices drifted to us from around the side of the building, coming closer. Rowan glanced back over her shoulder as she tried the handle on the closest door. Locked. We hurried farther along the wall, and found the next one open. We stepped in without looking at where we were going, and I closed the door behind us.

A short hallway led to a sharp turn to the left. Down that way we found more doors, and dim lamps lighting the space between them.

“Any ideas?” I asked. I tried to sense whether a trap might be waiting, but all I got from behind the closed doors were muffled voices and a sense that there were people around. Nothing we didn’t already know.

She turned and knocked at the door next to us, then glanced up at me. “Better than asking the staff, right?”

“Certainly.” She could handle the talking. I’d step in with a different approach if things got out of hand.

A little boy opened the door, watched by a brown-haired woman standing behind him. The boy looked us over, then stepped back to hide behind the woman’s skirts.

“Hello,” Rowan said, and gave them a friendly smile. “I’m looking for someone, and wondered if you might help.” She seemed about to say something else, but stopped and leaned back.

The woman’s head tilted slightly to one side. “Have we met?”

Rowan quickly recovered her composure. “I don’t think so. Are there many here with you from Lowdell?”

A familiar face, then. No wonder she’d been flustered if this woman might have recognized her.

“No. Just a few came after the... Well, you know. The messiness.” She reached behind her and pried the boy’s hands from her skirt, then motioned for him to go away. He stepped back, stuck a thumb in his mouth, and watched us with solemn eyes.

“I’m looking for the Greenwood family,” Rowan said. “Are they here?”

The woman didn’t catch the slight tremble in Rowan’s voice that betrayed how important this was to her. Her already narrow lips tightened. “Can’t say they are. Don’t imagine most of us would so much as have broken bread with them if they did come.”

“Thank you.” Rowan hid her disappointment only a little better than she had her excitement. “Horrible about that business, isn’t it?”

The woman tucked her hair behind one ear and rested a hand on her jutted-out hip. “Unbelievable. First the mess with the girl, and then we got news about some trouble in Ardare. Magic hunters died.”

“I heard. And then in town...” Rowan shook her head as though in disbelief, leaving the air open for the eager woman to fill it with her words. I tried not to smile even as I appreciated her developing ability to manipulate a person without magic, letting the woman’s obvious inclinations and assumptions carry things forward.

“Oh, my. That was just the worst thing.” The woman had obviously switched to gossip mode. She leaned in closer, then shooed the child away. “The hunters took my husband. We all swore up and down that he never had nothing to do with magic, but you couldn’t tell them that.” I opened my mind to this excessively forthcoming woman and found that she didn’t much care in theory about losing her layabout husband, but seeing him dragged away had shaken her badly.

She didn’t notice my intrusion, and I closed myself to her. The private thoughts streaming behind her words weren’t mine to see. “Folks said that if he was convicted they’d be back for the children,” she continued, “so we lit out as soon as we could. Same story as everyone here, I suppose.” Her lips tightened. “None of them would’ve paid any attention to Lowdell if not for those Greenwoods. So no, I don’t know where they are. I suppose they either left town or the hunters took them.” Rowan’s brow creased at that, but the woman was too wrapped up in her own words to notice. “I’d say they didn’t find help from anyone I know.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I hope your husband gets out safely.”

The woman leaned out into the hallway as we retreated. “You sure I don’t know you?”

Rowan smiled sadly back at her. “Sorry. You must be thinking of someone else.”

We exited through the same door as we’d entered by. There would be little point in asking around further. When we were sure there were no people about, Rowan sat on the grass under one of the willows.

“That was Mrs. Dasmel,” she said. “She used to come into the library when I was working. She didn’t even recognize me. She looked right at me, we were talking
about
me... and nothing.”

“That’s good, if she’s angry with your family.”

Rowan looked up, dazed. “I know. It’s strange, though. Like the person I used to be doesn’t exist anymore.”

I held out a hand and pulled her to her feet. “She exists. I knew her. She’s still there, under the magic and the new experiences.”

“And the new hair color.”

I ran a thumb over the arch of one of her dark eyebrows, which only did a mostly decent job of hiding the wild red shade. “That, too. Are you all right?”

“Other than the fact that I’m now convinced my family is in danger? Sure. But we can talk about that at the barn. We should get out of here.”

We picked up the pack and headed out of town, taking a circuitous route through the fields, approaching the barn from the rear.

“Guys!” Patience popped up from the long grass well away from the farm, waved us over, and disappeared. She was gone when we reached the spot where she’d been, but it was easy to follow her dark clothing through the mix of dead yellow and new green grasses, over a hillock to an open field populated by a few sheep and a massive, dead tree.

“There are people working in the yard,” she explained.

“Thanks, Patience.” I would have sensed them before we entered, but this was better. No one had seen us, or at least they weren’t following yet.

“So what now?” she asked. “Where’s your aunt?”

Rowan appeared lost. “I don’t know. And I don’t know. I guess we go back empty-handed. Or you two do.” She squared her shoulders and looked toward the mountains. “I can’t just leave them now. If they got away, I think I know where they are. But you two should go back before the group gets too far ahead. I’ll be fine.”

Her announcement didn’t surprise me. I’d have been shocked if she hadn’t insisted on going. “Will you take Florizel?” I asked.

Rowan raised her eyebrows. She’d probably expected me to tell her to stay with us. To stay safe. “Flying will be faster, if she agrees to come with me.”

“It will. For both of us.”

Rowan’s eyes widened. “You don’t have to come. It’s better for you if you don’t.”

“I know.” My instincts rioted against the idea of going with her, as did a deep sense of family loyalty bred deep into my bones no matter how hard I fought against it. Going back, supporting my father, and doing what was best for Tyrea was absolutely the right thing to do.

But I couldn’t let her go alone. Not this time. Maybe my father was right, and there had never been any chance of us being together. We’d been racing against a ticking clock since the moment we met, whether the threat was from Severn, her countrymen, or my destiny. But time hadn’t run out yet, and I wasn’t done fighting.

I turned to Patience. “What story did you give the people when you came to town this morning?”

“I said my family lived in the foothills of the mountains, and they died over the winter from a bad sickness. Just made my way down and came to the first town I found.”

“And you think they believed you?”

“Sure. I’m believable, if not as adorable as I used to be. The farmer lady I talked to here was really sweet. Gave me pie.” Her shoulders drooped. “You want me to stay with them, don’t you?”

I crouched to speak to her face to face. “We’ll come back for you. Darmid is far more dangerous than this place is. Rowan and I can get in and out more easily if we can both fly, and it’ll be too hard on Florizel to carry you over the mountains. If you’re careful not to expose yourself, you could get more information here. See whether any of these people have useful magic, find out what else Severn has been up to.”

The girl nodded, though my words didn’t seem to comfort her any. “Be careful. And don’t take too long. Our people are going to get to Luid soon, and your father needs you.”

Interesting.
“Did he say that?”

She shook her head and hoisted her pack onto her back. “He just seemed pretty concerned about you not coming back.”

Patience shook our hands, then made her way slowly toward the white farmhouse.

“You don’t have to do this,” Rowan said to me. She turned to walk away from town, back toward where we’d left Florizel. “I don’t know how long it will take, and your father does need you. You can’t worry about my family when your entire country’s future is in danger. Not to mention yours, personally.”

I hid my surprise. I wasn’t accustomed to her pushing me away. “I’m not worried about your family, but I am about you. I won’t be able to focus on anything else if I don’t know where you are or whether you’re coming back. And don’t forget how important your aunt could be to Ulric’s recovery. Let’s go, try to find out what happened to them, and then decide what we’re going to do. Once we’re back in Tyrea, I can fly ahead if need be and meet up with my father.”

She gave me a relieved smile. “How long do we have?”

“A week at least before they get near Luid.”

“Then what happens?”

“I wish I knew. I don’t understand anything my father is doing anymore.”

We found Florizel grazing by a pond. She trotted toward us, ears pricked forward. “What is it? Where’s the girl? What’s happening?”

“She’s fine,” Rowan said. “We’ve had a change of plans. My family’s not here, and I’m going back over the border to find them. You don’t have to come, but I would certainly appreciate it if you did.”

Florizel lowered her head and thought for several minutes. “Are we going to the city again? I didn’t care for that at all.”

“No,” Rowan said, and smiled kindly. “No cities. Just an old house in the country. If they’re not there, we’ll come right back. Does that sound like something you could do?”

The horse nodded.

“So on to Stone Ridge?” I asked, and undressed.

Rowan turned around so I could put my things in her pack, but watched me over her shoulder. “It’s the most logical place to look. If they’re not there, we’re not going farther. We’ll never get out alive if we get in too deep.” She settled the straps more comfortably on her shoulders and twisted her hair into a knot behind her neck. “How long do you expect it will take to get there?”