The mountains at dawn were so much more
intimidating and I was hesitant to leave our camp. Everything had
begun to seem real and reality was much harder to deal with. I
tried to distract myself as we rode east around the lake. I
concentrated on naming the species of plants and trees we passed to
keep my eyes off the mountains but there were so many I had never
seen before that it started to remind me of the differences rather
than distract me from them. So I bantered with Steed regarding
horses and imps and everything I could come up with to keep him
talking. Chevelle rode quietly behind us, casually scanning our
surroundings. I wondered if he was enjoying the scenery or playing
lookout.
We rode a few days to and in the base of the
mountains. We had stopped to camp when, over dinner, Steed
announced he would be leaving us the next morning, heading east.
His easy humor had become a comfort to me during the long days, our
quiet evenings a pattern I knew I would miss. The disappointment
must have shown on my face.
He reached a hand up and brushed my hair
behind an ear. “Don’t worry, Sunshine, I will see you again.”
I smiled a little and he winked at me.
Chevelle stiffened at my side as he often did when Steed touched me
so casually and I couldn’t help but think of being alone with him
after tonight. My stomach tightened and suddenly in comparison the
mountains didn’t seem like such a big deal.
The next morning Steed said goodbye privately
to Chevelle and then both came to where I stood with the horses,
stroking one’s neck. “You’ll remember me, Butterfly?”
“
Always,” I smiled in
return.
“
Yes, well, at least as long
as he’s yours.” He patted the horse.
“
Mine?”
He smiled and swung onto his horse, nodding
to us as he spun and galloped east.
My horse knelt and Chevelle offered his hand
to help me get seated. My grin widened as he mounted his horse and
he looked back at me questioningly.
“
I’ll name him Steed,” I
announced proudly. Chevelle rolled his eyes as I patted the horse’s
neck.
Chapter Eight
Mountains
We rode quietly through the morning hours.
Chevelle seemed content not to talk but I was twisted up in anguish
trying to decide whether I was brave enough to ask him questions
and then which to ask. How much would he put up with before he
called it all off and hauled me back to the village for sentencing?
Our path began to get more defined, pushing us through trees and
between rocks, trailing upward so minutely I didn’t even realize
until I glanced back and saw we were now looking down on the base
of the mountains. I appraised the narrow path ahead, snaking high
through the vast rocky mountain, and turning back didn’t seem so
bad after all. I clenched my fists and pushed out the question I’d
been most concerned about asking but I was so tied up it twisted
into an accusation. “Watcher.”
My face flushed red with embarrassment and
fear as the word came out harsh. He spun to see me and I could not
place the expression on his face.
I panicked, and then I tried to recover.
“You’re my watcher.” It still sounded angry. “Why?”
He hesitated. “Frey…” His voice was gentle
and he seemed to be searching for a way to answer. He must have
decided I had no right to anger. His face turned hard and his tone
formal, “The council was concerned after you tried to choke Evelyn
of Rothegarr.”
I gasped. “What are you
talking about?” I was completely taken aback but the shock was
quickly turning to anger. I was offended;
did he really think I choked Evelyn?
I
remembered the speaker, his face as he struggled for air… I thought
of the thistle I’d grown in the back room at Junnie’s… Evelyn’s
face as she ran from the garden. I swayed; my eyes went out of
focus. I didn’t even realize I was falling until I felt Chevelle’s
arms around me; he was quick, catching me before the rocks
did.
He was kneeling, one arm
around me, my back against his leg as he bent over me. “I’m sorry
Freya. I thought… how could you not
know
?”
Embarrassment flooded through me. He was
right, and not only had I wished her to choke, I was too stupid to
see I had caused it, just as I had caused the speaker to choke. I
squeezed my eyes closed tight with shame and rolled away from him,
curling onto a rock. He didn’t speak but I heard him step away,
unsaddle the horses, and settle onto a rock several feet away. We
were both still until nightfall, when he retrieved a blanket from
the pack and laid it over me. I didn’t thank him, fearing what
would come out if I spoke.
The next morning, we were both quiet as
Chevelle saddled our horses. I had plenty to think of besides the
questions that had seemed so important the previous day.
I’d been convicted of practicing dark magic.
I had thought it was a mistake.
The images rolled through my
mind as we continued up the mountain. The lifeless body of a small
gray bird. A garden of weeds with roots as black as soot. The faces
of council as their speaker struggled to breathe. A thistle growing
in Evelyn’s throat, slowly choking off her airway. Chevelle’s face
when he had asked who showed me to fuse the crystal with blood. His
expression as he looked down at me yesterday…
how could you not know?
That image had
haunted me the most. It seemed so familiar somehow. He’d let his
guard down, and though strained with worry and fear, there was
something else there, sadness or maybe just plain
sympathy.
“
This is a good place to
stop for the night.” Chevelle’s voice broke my reverie. I hadn’t
noticed the entire day had passed. I glanced at the path behind us
and could see the lake below in the distance. It shook me from my
stupor.
I climbed down from my horse and sat on the
trunk of a fallen tree facing the mountain top instead of the view
below, preferring not to concentrate on the distance or height. I
watched Chevelle lead the horses to a large tree several yards away
where he spun his hand and formed a trough from bark and tinder on
the ground. I didn’t see where the water came from, but it filled
and the horses drank from it as he spun his wrist and grass from
the sparse patches here and there collected in front of them.
Movement caught my eye and I looked to Chevelle in alarm. Though he
appeared calm, he was staring in the same direction. I studied the
black mass that was approaching him. It was a dark cloak, moving
very fast. The full cape covered every part of whoever it was, a
large hood shielding their face.
Chevelle nodded in greeting
as I scanned the area, I didn’t see anyone else approaching so I
looked back to the couple. They seemed to be whispering, Chevelle
glancing toward me every few seconds. Curiosity burned through me
as they continued in hushed tones. And then a delicate arm reached
out and passed Chevelle something.
A
woman
. Her hand lingered in his during the
exchange and my chest felt like it was burning inside.
Were they whispering about me?
Yes, or hiding something, I knew. He continued throwing
glances at me as they spoke. I hungered to hear what they were
saying, enough that my mind spun, even wishing I were invisible,
because if they couldn’t see me, I could get closer and
hear
.
Pouting, my eyes fell downward. A small
scream escaped when I saw my arms. They were covered in tree bark,
the same bark as the tree I sat on. I bolted straight up to
standing and began hitting them as if my shirt were on fire, trying
to put out the flame, get the creepy bark off me. I looked up when
I heard Chevelle and the cloaked woman running toward me. But,
panicked, I couldn't keep my gaze off my arms for long. To my
surprise, they were now normal. My head came up again just as the
couple stopped in front of me. The woman gasped. It was Junnie. Her
cloak had fallen and she wore a surprised expression under her
golden curls.
“
Junnie!” I was so relieved
to see her.
“
Freya?” She didn’t seem
sure. She reached out slowly and stroked a strand of my black hair,
then dropped it quickly.
The shock of seeing her disappeared then.
“Are you here for council? To collect me?” My voice was colored
with the shame of being a criminal. Bird killer. Elf strangler.
She managed to look even more surprised. She
glanced at Chevelle and then back to me, forcing a smile. “Are you
alright, Frey?”
I stood in front of her
baffled, and then I remembered screaming. More
embarrassment.
So, I screamed. I was
covered in bark.
Her eyebrows turned up as she looked at
Chevelle again, who was mirroring her concerned expression. “Maybe
it’s time to allow her a few small lessons.”
Magic
? It took a moment to realize I had wished they couldn’t see
me, that I had unwittingly camouflaged myself.
This was going to take a while to get used
to
.
“
Tomorrow,” he said.
“Dinner?”
She grinned at him as she reached an arm
behind her, the cloak moving aside, and drew a bow from her back.
“I’ll get my own, thanks.”
He nodded once toward her as a knowing smile
stretched across his face. They turned in opposite directions, each
disappearing behind the trees and rocks of the mountain, leaving me
standing alone and confused. I sat back on the tree and shook my
head as I stared down at the bark. Chevelle returned as quickly as
he had left with two small furry animals slung over his back. As
his gaze reached the log that lay a few feet in front of me, it
burst into an orange flame. While he approached, a couple of small
branches formed a spit over the fire and he skinned and attached
the animals so smoothly I wasn’t sure exactly what had
happened.
As I watched him today, I realized he was
changing. Or, more likely, he was always so and I had just not seen
it. He wasn’t his formal, slower self, he was more relaxed and
apparently magic was intertwined into his routines. He didn’t do
much with his hands. I would have spent hours building the spit and
skinning an animal. Actually, I had never done either so it
probably would have taken even longer.
Then an old question came back to me. “How do
you hunt?”
“
Hmm?” I had pulled him from
his task.
“
You don’t have a
bow.”
He hesitated, as if deciding what to tell me.
“I use magic, Frey.” He looked like he was waiting for me to be
upset.
“
Oh.” I contemplated that.
“I thought maybe you had a knife.”
He smirked. “Yes, well, that
would have been easy enough.” He shook his head slightly and I
wondered if he meant it would have been easy enough to
tell
me he used a knife or
easy enough to actually use a knife.
I thought of Junnie. “And Junnie prefers to
hunt… for sport?”
He had that look again and I
wondered why he would be so hesitant.
Because I was dangerous? A practitioner of Dark Magic?
“No… some… some believe…
prefer
the meat not to be tainted by
magic. They feel it is more… pure.” He pronounced tainted as if it
were a ridiculous quote.
“
Is it? Tainted I
mean?”
“
I have lived on it for…” He
caught himself midsentence and started over. “Well, it doesn’t seem
to be but to each his own.”
He turned back to the fire.
Junnie came back into view carrying a large
animal over her shoulders. She dropped it down on a rock near the
fire and whispered a short thanks before she removed the arrow and
began to skin the animal. I glanced at the sizeable carcass and
then again at her. “I’ll be traveling fast and far and don’t intend
to stop and hunt. I will pack the extra with me.” I managed a
sheepish smile. It seemed like I needed things explained a lot
lately.
“
Where will you go?” I
asked.
“
Back to the
village.”
“
To council?” I almost
whispered. “They sent you to find me?”
Her eyes flicked to Chevelle and back. “No,
Freya. They will not know I saw you.”
“
They are looking for me?”
Terror was creeping in.
“
No. They will not risk
it.”
“
They are afraid,” Chevelle
said in a low monotone from his spot at the fire. Junnie shot him a
warning glance.
“
Afraid?” I asked doubtful.
“Afraid of what?”
“
The mountains.” Junnie’s
answer was curt. She returned to her work on the
gazelle.
They were quiet the rest of
the evening. As I dozed off by the fire I heard them start a
conversation in hushed voices. I tried to listen but exhaustion was
winning out and their words began to meld into dreams. I could hear
them as I was drifting, floating in a large dark lake. I wore a
white gown that spread out around me in the water, my now dark hair
bobbing with the ripples. I rose above, peering down at myself, and
the image turned to my mother, the dark water turned black, the
ripples turned to wind. I recognized the scene and as her pendant
began to glow the wind howled and the screams pierced my ears. It
was the same dream, but different now. I glanced around and saw a
village I didn’t know. Someone was coming toward me, an expression
of fear and sadness on his handsome face. His
familiar
face. He reached out to me
and I stepped toward him, tears streaming down my cheeks. He
wrapped his arms around me as I turned again to see my mother. A
howl of rage escaped her and I started to go to her but he held me.
He was restraining me; I thrashed against him as I tried to scream,
to tell him to let me go, but I had no voice. She reached her hand
out and I could not move, could not help her, though I knew she was
dying. I was imprisoned there, unable to move… unable to scream…
unable to save her. And then I couldn't see her, something was
covering my eyes. I struggled yet again but my body felt like lead,
cold, heavy, useless limbs.
And no
voice
. Darkness enveloped me and I was
under water, struggling to reach the surface, desperate for
air.