Harbinger: Fate's Forsaken: Book One (10 page)

While the rest
of the village ate supper, they must’ve snuck out to the hospital to teach him
a lesson. They’d made a habit of showing up during the day and tormenting him
every chance they got. They tripped him and then laughed as he smashed several
bottles of haywart ointment on the ground. But their laughter fizzled out when
he cleaned the mess without a word, and their faces went dark. Blows came next:
carefully-placed kicks in the shins and elbows to the ribs. They wanted to hear
him grunt in pain, cry out or curse — any sound that might give them an
excuse to haul him before the elders and have him banished. Kael’s shins were
swollen and bruised, it hurt to breathe, but thus far he’d not made so much as
a moan.

And now he was
going to pay for it.

He fought
against the instincts that screamed for him to freeze and instead got to his
feet. His knees were hardly bent straight before the sharp edge of a knife
touched his throat. It pushed against his skin, digging at the vein below his
chin but not breaking.

So this was it.
They were finally going to kill him. He supposed the elders wouldn’t defend the
death of a Bow-Breaker. And whatever fear they had for Amos was dwarfed in
comparison to their hatred for Kael.

He would not
moan, he would not cry. He’d straighten his shoulders and meet death with honor
—

“Where am I?”

He didn’t
recognize the voice at his ear. Though it wasn’t the high-pitch shrill he was
used to, it was decidedly female. The voice was rough, low, almost like a
growl. And it caught him off guard.

“Where am I?” it
said again.

He swallowed and
felt his throat slide uncomfortably against the edge of the knife. “Tinnark.”

A sharp exhale.
“The village in the middle of the mountains?”

“Yes.”

His body spun
around, forced by a strong hand. He blinked, and the next thing he knew, he was
staring into the face of the girl.

He’d gotten so
used to the smooth calm of her sleeping features that he wasn’t prepared for
the dark arches of her brows to be bent so low, or for her full lips to be
stuck in a serious frown. The wisps of hair that fell across her face cast
shadows over her skin, drawing every gentle line into one heart-stopping picture.
But for all her face surprised him, her eyes knocked the wind straight out of
his lungs.

They were the
color of spring: that blink of time when everything in the mountains turned an
astonishing shade of green. They were wild, dangerous. And they snared him.

She caught the
look on his face and her frown deepened. “What is your name? Tell me quickly.”

She seemed on
the verge of releasing him. All he had to do was answer this one question, and
she would let him go. She’d disappear into the night and take those deadly eyes
with her.

He forced his
lips to form the word, forced his lungs to push it out: “Kael.”

And the next
thing he knew, his feet left the ground.

He felt his back
pop and his ribs cry out in protest as she shoved him against the wall. She held
him there, using the weight of her body to pin him. He flailed his arms and
kicked his legs, but the knife slid back into place: a warning, a promise.

He froze.

With the other
hand, she tore at his shirt. He felt the cold air glance his chest as the fibers
split open, heard the clatter of his buttons as they struck the ground, and the
fight surged back into his limbs.

With a roar, he
shoved her back. She stumbled and he tried to dart past her, but he only got
two steps in before she had him wrangled by his collar and hurled back into the
wall. The arm that held the knife clamped across his chest like an iron bar and
he knew there was no escape.

At any second
she would see — and then she’d drag that knife across his throat and head
to Midlan for her reward.

When a second
came and passed and she still hadn’t killed him, he cracked an eye. He watched
her stare at the patch of chest exposed by his torn shirt. He flinched under
the pressure of her fingertips. He felt her trace the mark up and down: the
red, raised line that extended from below his collarbone and nearly to his
stomach.

Amos told him to
hide it at all costs, even from Roland. His powers could be explained away but
there was no denying the mark. Once anyone saw it, they would know what he was.

She took him
under the chin and he braced himself for the moment when she would snap his
neck — but it never came. She turned his head, gently, towards the fire.
He looked away as those strange eyes locked onto his.

All at once, the
pressure of the knife relented and she took a step backwards. She watched him
for a moment with the same wide-eyed shock that he watched her. “You are him,”
she breathed, so quietly it was almost a whisper.

“I am
who
, exactly?” he said. Now that the
knife hung loosely in her hand, his temper came back with a vengeance.

“Kael of the
Unforgivable Mountains.”

“Yes, I am.
Didn’t I just say that?”

“Kael the
Wright.”

He laughed. The
nerves, the stress of being very nearly skewered, the sheer ridiculousness of
what she’d just said all came bursting out his lungs. “You’ve got the wrong
Kael. I’m no Wright.”

Her frown was
back. She crossed her arms and the knife stuck menacingly out from the crook of
her elbow. “Don’t tell me I’m wrong. You know nothing about it.”

“I think I do,
considering I’m the one living in my skin,” he retorted. “I’m a whisperer, yes.
But I’m only a healer. Don’t worry — I’m sure I’ll still fetch some
gold.”

“I’m not going
to turn you in. I just can’t believe you’ve been here the whole time, right
under my nose.” Her gaze drifted to the fire, as if she had a sudden thought,
then her eyes turned back to him. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been
searching for you?”

“Me?” The fumes
from the burning stew made his head stuffy. He ripped the pot off the fire and
set it on the ground to cool. “Then you’ve wasted your time. Do I look like a
Wright to you?” He stood and spread his arms wide so she could see how very
bony he was, how his skin was so white it was practically transparent. He
blushed as her eyes wandered the length of him, but stood firm.

She tapped the
hilt of the knife thoughtfully against her chin. “Well, when you put it that
way … yes.”

Either the blow
to her head knocked something loose, or they’d rescued a mule by mistake. He
strongly suspected the latter.

He was no Wright
— one glance and that would’ve been obvious to anybody. Wrights were the
most powerful of all whisperers: men fated with all three gifts. They were
master craftsmen, healers impervious to disease and unbeatable warriors. The
last Wright, Setheran, had singlehandedly won the Whispering War. He shattered
a cliff side with his bare fist, burying himself and all the rebels in the
debris. It was his sacrifice that saved the Kingdom.

And to think
that Kael could ever measure up to a warrior like Setheran was … laughable.

“You’re —”

“Please,” she
held up her hand, “I have no interest in an argument. You mountain people carry
on pretty famously over the stupidest things. Let’s talk about something else.”
She looked down and pulled at the skirt of her nightdress. “Like why I’m
wearing the Kingdom’s ugliest, itchiest piece of fabric.”

If he hadn’t
already been cross with her, the way she snarled at the gown might have made
him laugh. “All the female patients wear them.”

“Do they?” She
let the dress fall back into place. “Well did it ever occur to you that I might
not like having winter’s vindictive fury blowing up my skirt? My privates
aren’t any less important than yours.”

Kael didn’t know
a thing about women’s privates, and the burn in his cheeks more than proved it.

An amused
half-smile took the place of her frown. “Never mind. Just tell me where you’ve
stashed my armor.”

He pointed to
the office and she walked away, flipping the knife high into the air and
catching it deftly every few steps. The moment she was out of sight, he tried
to collect his thoughts. What had he been about to do?

His stomach
growled, reminding him.

He got what
little of the stew was edible divided into separate bowls. He wasn’t entirely
sure how she was used to eating, but he tried to make the table look
presentable. Even after he’d scrubbed it down and settled the spoons just so,
it looked more prepared for operation than anything else. Well blast it, she’d
just have to manage.

“Is something on
fire?”

He’d prepared a
scathing retort. But when he saw her, his throat sealed shut.

It’d taken Amos
a week to clean all the grime from her armor. Every evening he would close
himself up in his office and work late into the night. He borrowed oil from the
blacksmith and grumbled about how filthy it was. But he’d done his job well.

Every inch of
her attire was black as the darkest hour of night. The high collar of her
jerkin nearly brushed her chin, and the hem fell almost to her knees. A wide
belt wrapped around her waist, framing her graceful figure. Gauntlets covered
the tops of her hands, ridged on their backs for the sole purpose of dealing
ending blows. They stretched down to her elbows, where they ended in deadly
points.

When she turned
to check the hearth, he saw the hood attached to the shoulders of her jerkin.
She moved, and the tight material that clung to her arms and legs caught the
light. He was certain now that they were made of interlocking pieces of metal
— so fine they were almost smooth.

“Who are you?”

She smirked at
his question. She had her hair pulled back into a pony’s tail, but a few
strands fell across her eyes, dulling their brilliance in shadow. “My name is
Kyleigh.”

He’d been
expecting her to say that she was an agent of the Earl, or perhaps even an
assassin. But a name made her at once less menacing. His eyes wandered to the
boots she had clutched in her hands, past the deadly spurs sticking out from
the heels, and down to her bare feet. “Aren’t you cold?”

Kyleigh
shrugged. “Rarely.” She dropped her boots next to the hearth and sat at the
table. “This is nice. It’s been a while since I’ve had a proper meal.” She
looked at him expectantly.

“What?”

She nodded to
the chair across from her. “Won’t you sit?”

He did, stiffly,
and tried to avoid her eyes. When she was dressed in rags and holding a knife
to his throat, he didn’t think much about the fact that she was a girl. But now
he was very aware of it.

“This is yours,
by the way.” She slid the knife across the table to him.

He grasped at
his belt and realized that his hunting dagger was missing. “You stole it.”

“If you don’t
want it nicked, you ought to keep it in your boot,” she said with a shrug.

He stuck it back
in his belt — just to spite her.

She rolled her
eyes and put the first spoonful of stew in her mouth — which she
immediately spat back out. “Ugh, what
is
this?”

“Well if you
hadn’t attacked me, it might not have burned.”

“I’m not talking
about the broth.” She dipped her spoon in and held it well away from her, as if
she thought it might be poison. “What’s this?”

“It’s a leek.”

“A what?”

“It’s a sort of
vegetable.”

She glared at
it. “Well I don’t eat prey food. Here, you can have it.”

And before he
could stop her, she dropped it into his bowl. “You’ve just had that in your
mouth!”

“What? I didn’t
chew it.”

He managed to
grab the leek before it sunk and flicked it into the fire. When he turned back
around, five more had mysteriously appeared in its place. “You are most
definitely not a lady,” he muttered.

He’d been so
used to talking to her however he liked that he jumped when she laughed. “Of
course I’m not a lady. If I were, I’d find the idea of eating off a
bloodstained table disgusting.”

He supposed she
had a point. “Just what are you, then?”

“Isn’t it
obvious?” She spread her arms wide. “I’m a knight.”

That might have
been the most ridiculous thing he’d heard all evening. “No you aren’t. There’s
no such thing as a woman knight.”

“I beg to
differ,” she said, propping her feet up on the table. She balanced the stew in
her lap and dug through it, making a face at every leek she found.

“Well I’ve never
heard of any women knights. And I’ve read all about them.”

“Have you?” She
raised an eyebrow. “Then surely you know how secretive the knights of Midlan
are, how their very names are forged to hide them.”
            Of course he
knew. Only the most elite of the Kingdom’s soldiers were recruited into the
army of Midlan, and only the most skilled of those became knights. They were
the deadliest warriors in all the Kingdom: nobody but the King knew how many
there really were, or what exactly it was that they did. But rumor had it that
they traveled all across the realm, doing the King’s most unsavory bidding in
shadow.

He supposed it
was possible that one of the knights was a woman. But these days there was a
price for joining the army of Midlan. And if Kyleigh was telling the truth, it
meant she was a murderer.

He suddenly lost
his appetite. “Who’d you kill?”

“Loads of
people,” she said, around a mouthful of charred squirrel.

“You know what I
mean.”

She must have
caught the serious edge in his voice because she set her bowl down and leaned
forward. “Kin or friend?”

He nodded.

“Neither,
because I have neither.”

“I don’t believe
you. Everyone has someone.”

“Well I don’t.”
She leaned back and crossed her arms defiantly. “The King’s goons slaughtered
my family, and I’ve been on my own ever since.”