Song of Blood & Stone (Earthsinger Chronicles Book 1) (2 page)

The girl’s mother sobbed, cradling her daughter’s head in her lap. “We don’t want any of that witchcraft here. Why don’t you go back to where you came from?”

A few people in the crowd stood, heads bowed, repeating out loud the Promise of the Queen Who Sleeps, a prayer of protection. Others pegged Jasminda with hard glares and accusatory expressions.

The town physician pushed his way through and kneeled in the spot Jasminda had vacated. The girl’s father met Jasminda’s eyes, his expression grateful. He nodded once but his acknowledgment did little to lessen the sting of the rejection surrounding her. His wife continued to cry, stroking the girl’s hair. As the physician performed his examination, the mother looked up at Jasminda and screamed, “Get her away!”

Jasminda stumbled back, pulling away from Bindeen’s grip. She retrieved her bag, which lay abandoned on the other side of the street. Bindeen moved to follow her, but she waved him off. Her body was weary from the use of Earthsong, but even wearier was her heart. It ached with renewed pain. She hadn’t thought these people could still hurt her.

Shouldering her bag, she pushed through her exhaustion, focusing on one step and then the next. The journey ahead was long, and she had no more time to waste.

The girl looming
above Jack looked like a mirage. She’d marched directly to his hiding place behind a cluster of coarse shrubbery and stood, peering down, head cocked at an angle. He went to stand, years of breeding kicking in, his muscle memory offended at the idea of not standing in the presence of a lady, but apparently, his muscles had forgotten the bullet currently lodged within them. And the girl was Lagrimari—not strictly a lady, but a woman nonetheless—and a beautiful one, he noticed as he squinted into the dying light. Wild, midnight curls floated carelessly around her head and piercing dark eyes regarded him. Her smooth skin was a confectioner’s delight. His stomach growled. When was the last time he’d eaten?

Her presence meant he was still on the Lagrimari side of the mountain range bordering the two lands and had yet to cross the other, more powerful barrier keeping him from his home of Elsira: the Mantle.

The girl frowned down at him, taking in his bedraggled appearance. From his position lying on the ground, he tried his best to smooth his ripped uniform, the green fatigues of the Lagrimari army. Her confusion was apparent. Jack was obviously Elsiran; aside from his skin tone, the ginger hair and honey-colored eyes were a dead giveaway. And yet he wore the uniform of his enemy.

“Please don’t be scared,” he said in Lagrimari. Her brows rose toward her hairline as she scanned his prone and bloodied body. Well, that
was
rather a ridiculous thing to say. “I only meant that I mean you no harm. I . . .” He struggled with how to explain himself.

There were two possibilities. She could be a nationalist who would turn him in to the squad of soldiers currently combing the mountain for him, perhaps to gain favor with the government, or she could be like so many Lagrimari citizens, beaten down by the war with no real loyalty to their dictator or his thugs. If she was the former, he was already dead, so he took a chance with the truth.

“You see, I was undercover, spying from within the Lagrimari army. But now there are men looking for me, they’re not far, but—” He paused to take a breath; the effort of speaking was draining. He suspected he had several cracked or broken ribs in addition to the gunshot wound. His vision swam, and the girl turned into two. Two beautiful girls. If these were his last moments before traveling to the World After, then perhaps he was not as unlucky as he’d always thought.

He blinked rapidly and took another strained breath. His mission was not complete; he could not die yet. “Can you help me? Please. I’ve got to get back to Elsira.”

She stole an anxious glance skyward before kneeling next to him. Her cool hand moved to his forehead. The simple touch was soothing and a wave of tension rolled off him.

“You must be delirious.” Her voice was rich, deeper than he’d expected. It eased the harsh consonants of the Lagrimari language, for the first time making it sound like something he could imagine being pleasant to listen to. She carefully worked at the remaining buttons of his shirt, pulling the fabric apart to reveal his ruined chest. Her expression was appraising as she viewed the damage then sat back on her haunches, pensive.

“It probably looks worse than it is,” he said.

“I doubt that.”

Jack’s chuckle sounded deranged to his own ears, so it was no surprise that the girl looked at him askance. He winced—laughing was a bad idea at this point—and struggled for breath again. “The soldiers . . . they’re after me. I have to get back through the Mantle.”

“Shh,” she said, digging into her bag. “Hush all that foolishness; you’re not in your right mind. Though I’ll admit, you speak Lagrimari very well. I’m not sure what happened to you, but you should save your strength.”

She retrieved a jar filled with a sweet-smelling substance and began spreading it over his wounds. The constant, throbbing pain eased a notch making it easier for him to breathe.

“What is that?”

“Just a balm. Helps with burns, cuts. Can’t do any more for you right now, but you can’t stay here. Storm’s coming.”

He laid his head back on the ground, closing his eyes to savor the slight reduction in pain. “A quick rest and I’ll be back on my way. Need to keep moving, though. Need to get back.”

She shook her head. “Back through the Mantle?” Her voice was skeptical.

He nodded.

“And away from the Lagrimari soldiers chasing you?”

“Yes.” Her palm met his forehead again. She thought he was delusional. He wished he was. Wished the last few weeks had been nothing but the imaginings of an impaired mind.

“The Seventh Breach ended almost five years ago.” Her voice flowed over him, as cool and comforting as the balm she’d used. “We’ve had peace since then. No way to cross the Mantle from either side.”

He shook his head, aggravating the hole in his upper chest, inches from his heart where an inconvenient bit of metal was still lodged. “There are ways.”

A crunch of boots in the distance set him on alert. He grabbed the girl’s wrist to halt her while he listened. The soldiers were near.

He opened his eyes and looked into her startled ones. “Shh, they’re coming.”

Her head darted from side to side and he could see the moment she realized that someone was indeed coming. Jack couldn’t let her be found helping him. Having seen firsthand what these men were capable of, he couldn’t let her be found by them at all. The Lagrimari army was filled with men unfit even for Elsira’s prisons. This girl had been kind, a trait his people didn’t believe the Lagrimari even possessed, but he knew better and felt the need to protect her. He wrestled himself to a sitting position, ignoring the daggers of pain impaling him with every movement, but her strong arms prevented him from standing.

“Hide here, and I’ll draw them away,” he whispered and motioned for her to crouch down. “They will find me anyway, but it’s best they don’t see you.” She frowned, looking back toward the sound of approaching footsteps.

As he agonizingly made his way to his hands and knees, the pain flared hot, threatening to blind him. With a tug on her arm, he pulled her behind the shrubbery and half crawled, half dragged himself back onto the narrow, rocky path. Her head stuck up over the grouping of rocks and shrubs, and he motioned for her to get down as he put a little distance between them.

The footfalls grew closer and he turned to face them, not wanting to draw any attention to the girl hiding only a few metres away.

Six Lagrimari men appeared from around the bend in the path. The sergeant spotted him, and a hard smile spread across the man’s narrow face. Jack only had time to feel a small amount of satisfaction at the purple bruise around the sergeant’s eye before a kick to his midsection stole his breath and his consciousness.

The first snowflakes
began to fall as Jasminda crept down the mountain. She followed the lantern light of the men who’d dragged away the unconscious Elsiran, staying a dozen metres behind. While she’d thought his tale fantastical, there was no doubting the six Lagrimari soldiers who'd appeared, or their viciousness toward him. She’d winced as they’d continued to strike him, long after he’d passed out.

He was an odd one, surely—his manner, his clothing, his perfect Lagrimari speech and accent. She’d never heard of an Elsiran who could speak the language. Even her mama had never been able to master it. And with his talk of crossing the Mantle, of course she’d thought him deranged. The magical border between the two lands followed the mountain range. The Mantle had stood for five hundred years and had only been breached seven times, each resulting in months or years of war.

Her papa had come over during the Sixth Breach. He’d been one of the soldiers stuck in Elsira as prisoners of war when the gap in the Mantle closed. After their release from prison, they’d been unable to obtain citizenship or find jobs, so the Lagrimari had formed settlements, shantytowns really, and eked out a meager living with the help of the Sisterhood. But Papa had met Mama and built a life with her. He never talked much of home or said anything about wanting to go back.

Jasminda had asked him about it, over and over, always afraid that as soon as the chance came, he would disappear into the mysterious country of his birth. He would reassure her that he wasn’t going anywhere—sometimes with a chuckle, sometimes with an exasperated sigh, and occasionally with a haunted look in his eye that made her stop the questions.

The Seventh Breach took place the summer of her fifteenth year. The fighting had ended before her family even heard about it, isolated as their valley home was. Jasminda was glad they didn’t find out until the breach had closed. She believed Papa’s words that he would never leave her—believed them until two years ago when he’d been proved a liar.

But now her own two eyes bore witness of Lagrimari soldiers on her mountain. The odd Elsiran had been convinced he was still in Lagrimar. That meant he’d crossed the Mantle without even knowing it. Was this the start of another breach war, or something else entirely?

The snow fell steadily as the men wandered down the mountain. They took paths that led nowhere, then would double back and end up bickering about how whichever of them who was supposed to be leading the way was stupider than a
fergot zinteroch
, whatever that was. They used Lagrimari words Papa had never taught her.

The temperature seemed to drop another few degrees as they quarreled, and she pulled her coat tighter. A whispered prayer to the Queen Who Sleeps left her lips, asking for protection during the storm. Following the men had been an impulse, one born of guilt. If she had believed the odd Elsiran, could she have helped him avoid the men? There was little she could do for him now, not until her Song restored itself, but she was unable to walk away and leave him to his fate.

It made no sense; he was nobody to her. Just another Elsiran. Except . . . He had not stared at her or been cruel. He had, in fact, shielded her from those men, put himself in their path so they would not find her. Why would he do such a thing?

More than curiosity motivated her, more than guilt. What more she could not say, but she followed the soldiers for hours as the storm began in earnest, pelting her with cold. The direct route she’d planned to take would have had her home and warm in bed by now, but she did not change course, even as the men took wrong turn after wrong turn. Dawn poked its head over the jagged peaks, and with its arrival came the crowing of a rooster. The soldiers stopped short at a fork in the path. Jasminda knew that crow all too well.

The men conferred for a moment and chose to follow the crowing. The mountain made the sound seem closer than it really was, but the sign of civilization could not be mistaken. Emotion battled within her, relief to be headed out of the storm and alarm that these strangers were now on a path that led only one place.

Her home.

The Elsiran had regained his senses by now, and instead of being dragged behind the men like a sack of beets, he stumbled along, his hands tied in front of him. The men climbed down the mountain, leaving the storm behind bit by bit. The snow and ice would grow worse over the next few days, but it would stay at the higher elevations. The valley where her home lay would remain lush and green, protected from the harsh weather either by the mountains surrounding it, or some lingering spell of Papa’s, or perhaps a little of both. But there would be no way out. These men would be trapped in an area that was only a two-hour walk from end to end. They would find her cabin; there was no way to avoid it.

She doubled back and took a shortcut she usually avoided, though it had been a favorite of her brothers. It involved a very steep climb, required scaling several large boulders, and brought her far too near one of the caves that peppered the mountain. She ignored the yawning black opening and focused on beating the men to her cabin.

Awake now for over twenty-four hours, she pushed herself far beyond exhaustion. Snow made the rocks slippery, and she lost her footing and slid down an embankment, skinning her hands and forearms. She picked herself up, ignoring the injury, and raced to her cabin, confident she had at least twenty minutes before the soldiers arrived.

She hurried to the barn, where she found the goats already awake, agitated and jittery, no doubt because of the storm. They were like her, craving peace and quiet. Any interruption to their routine or change in the weather troubled the sensitive creatures. She checked their food then barred the outer barn door to keep them from wandering.

Her next stop was the cabin, where she set down her bag and retrieved her shotgun. She carried a pistol with her on trips to town, but the shotgun was her favorite. It was almost an antique but shot straight and true. She loaded it with the shells she’d purchased the day before, then sat on the porch steps. Waiting.