The Language of Souls (4 page)

“
Nil stavit una!
” one of the soldiers yelled out.

Solena threw a glance over her shoulder and saw her captor and a dozen soldiers, all pursuing her.

She sped up, running faster than she ever had. Her feet glanced across the slippery rocks, nearly making her lose her balance. As soon as she reached the riverbank, she dove cleanly into the water and was immediately enfolded in its icy grip. She gasped in shock, but struck out, using her most powerful stroke. She tried to jet downstream, but the current was churning hard around her, tossing her like a twig.

As she tumbled helplessly through the water, Solena winced as her knee struck a rock. The water swirled all around her, until she couldn’t tell which way was up or down. She had to get air before her lungs would burst. Making her best guess, she pulled for the surface, thrashing all the way, but it was no use. There was still no air. She tumbled again and again, striking against the rocky bottom. Her lungs cried out for air so loudly that she sucked in a mouthful of heavy water.

No, don’t breathe in
, she screamed at herself, but already her mind was fading. All her strength was flowing away. Drifting.... After living all her life in the sea, would she now die in the water?

Someone caught her around the waist. In her panic, she was sure he was pulling her down. She tried to yank away, but her captor was too strong. He soon hauled her ashore.

“
Anda se
, Rundan!” two soldiers called out to him. With hands like manacles, the soldiers grabbed her from his hold and thrust her face-down against the biting rocks. Her leathers clung wetly to her body and the soaked sack weighed heavily against her back. Cold rivulets of water dripped down her scalp and into her eyes.

Solena coughed out great rushes of water. She had no air to groan aloud, no strength to fight against them. She hated their hands on her. An overwhelming urge came over her, making her want to scream at them and tell them to let her go, but she couldn’t even talk. Not that they would have understood her words, or listened to her if they could, but at least they would have seen her anger. She would have been doing
something
.

The young man they’d called Rundan dropped to the ground and sat beside her, breathing hard. He said something to her, and she could have sworn she saw concern in his eyes, not anger. But that couldn’t be right. There was something wrong with her. The river must have weakened her mind, making her see things that weren’t there.

The remaining soldiers gathered around and began stabbing their swords into the dirt. With a silence that was more threatening than loud voices, they measured their hilts and kept glancing at her. Solena watched with numb horror. They were going to kill her. After all that had happened—almost drowning, being freed from the river—she’d die by the sword. Then why save her? Maybe they wanted the pleasure of watching her die. Maybe that was why they’d fished her out of the river.

Her captor, Rundan, barked out an order, but the other soldiers only laughed at him. Solena realized then how much younger he looked than the others, perhaps even as young as nineteen or twenty. Old enough to be a soldier, of course, but surely not old enough to be their commander. He leaped to his feet and bellowed at them until they fell back, some quickly and others with slow steps. He spat another string of guttural commands at the two soldiers holding her, and they released her, their manacle fingers slowly sliding off her arms, dragging cruelly against her skin.

In vain, Solena tried to raise her head. Rundan came to her and knelt beside her. She watched him warily. When he whipped a blade from his belt, she jerked in surprise. In an instant, he snipped off her votif.

“
No!
” The protest was torn from Solena’s throat, but it came out as barely a whisper. She watched in horror as he tied her votif to his belt. It bounced against his own votif with a
tink tink tink
as he moved.

Solena’s
fingernails bit into her palms.

Without her votif, she’d weaken and die of pain. It was worse than death by sword, which would have at least been quick. A moment ago she’d been tempted to think him kind.
Kind?
She was a fool.

Rundan pulled her to her feet. Every instinct inside Solena screamed to grab her votif from his belt and run, but she hesitated. She’d acted rashly earlier and nearly died in the churning river. Besides, even if she could have pulled away, she had no strength left. Her lungs ached. Her limbs felt as limp as waterlogged seaweed. She couldn’t run. She could barely stand. Since he didn’t seem intent on killing her, at least not immediately, her only choice was to wait for night and
try to get away while he slept.

Rundan didn’t dare take the girl to the tent he shared with three other soldiers, so he set her on a boulder inside the encampment and stood behind her, his hands heavy on her shoulders. Deep inside, he was shaking. If asked, he didn’t know if he could have named all the emotions running through him.
Anger
leapt to mind. He was angry at the men for gaming for the girl. He was angry with her for running away and nearly drowning herself in the river. For making him wet and cold.

He was scared too, not for himself, but for her. Couldn’t she see he was trying to help her? Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe when she looked at him, she saw the same thing he did when he looked at the other soldiers. The thought sickened him. It made him tired and frustrated, and all he wanted was to get away from camp, as quickly as possible.

He’d have to take the girl, as his father had ordered, and leave as they were, still dripping from the river, but they’d need dry clothes before nightfall or the mountain air would freeze them. He couldn’t loosen his hold on her though, not when the soldiers who’d played blades for her still hovered nearby, watching and waiting. They wouldn’t heed him a second time. Though he’d invoked the commander’s orders once, given another opportunity, they’d try to stake a claim on her. The sooner he got the girl away, the better for both of them.

From his post behind her, he bartered with one of the younger soldiers to ready his horse and pack some basic provisions for them.

When they were far from camp, the young soldier Solena now knew as Rundan led her into a thick forest. There was no path to speak of, so they wound their way through the trees, heavy with the scent of pine pitch and damp earth. Rundan pulled her along with one hand and with the other led a pack-laden horse behind them.

Solena fought him with every step, hating him. If not for him, she’d be searching the forests for wild tymia right then. She might have even found some by now. If she didn’t find it, Grandpeer would die. And if she didn’t break free and somehow
get her votif back, she’d die.

She hated them all, all those soldiers who’d surrounded her in camp. Every one of them. And especially the one pulling her along through the forest. He was the one who’d captured her in the grove. He could have simply warned her an
d let her go. But he hadn’t. He’d taken her to the army’s camp instead. And now he’d taken her votif.

Perhaps worse than all of these things, he’d made her hate. She’d always prided herself tha
t she’d never hated anyone. She’d been born with a gift for healing, something that had set her apart, made her special. Something she could take pleasure in when her memories of loss threatened to overwhelm her natural good humor. Healers took care of people. They were filled with compassion and concern. They sought to heal and not destroy. They certainly didn’t
hate
anyone. Now she could never say that again. He’d stolen that from her too.

Rundan stopped sudd
enly and glared at her. He didn’t even bother to mutter at her in his own tongue, as if he couldn’t be bothered to speak. It didn’t matter; his meaning was clear enough to her.

“
You’re
the one who took me captive,” Solena protested, her voice wavering slightly.

Earlier, as they’d hiked away from the army encampment, she’d noticed several soldiers following them at a distance. By sunset, the last of them had dropped off their trail and turned back, which was something to be grateful for. Only now, as the sky grew darker, a bitter chill crept into the wind. Umber and purple streaks painted the sky above them. Under different circumstances, Solena might have admired the rich colors, but now she felt only the clammy chill of fear. By nightfall, her wet deerskin would freeze against her skin. Which was likely the reason for her captor’s relentless pace, she realized with a slight pang of conscience.

Solena plucked at her damp tunic. “Do you have dry clothes?” she asked and pointed to the saddle bags slung over the horse’s back. Although she doubted he cared that she was shivering in her damp gear, especially if his plan was to kill her, she had to try.

Rundan plucked at his tunic too and pointed down the path.

Solena nodded in defeat and followed after him. She could hardly run now in her wet clothing and boots, with no idea which direction led to freedom. Even if she did escape, what good would it do? Her votif was still tied to Rundan’s belt, which left her with no choice but to stay close to him.

He came to a mound covered with tangled briars and pushed through the barbs to pull her into a small cave. After some hesitation, he left her inside. She stood close to the entrance, keeping a close eye on her captor—and her votif—as he tethered his horse and removed its burden. After tending to the horse, he returned to the cave, where he built a small fire and opened his bags, unpacking each as carefully as any good healer.

Solena continued to track every move he made. She leaned in closer when he began to remove clothing from the sacks. First, he held up a long-sleeved linen tunic that would easily cover her from neck to toe and then a woolen cloak, which was dry, where hers, which had been stuffed in her sack when she dove in the river, was still wet. He assessed her in one long sweeping glance, making her squirm, and set these items to one side. He delved into the bags again and pulled out leather leggings, a short-sleeved leather tunic, not unlike the wet one she was wearing, but man-sized and a pair of boots suited to his larger feet. These he set to the other side. There was one nyka, with a soft worked hide on one side and lush black fur on the other, but there were no other clothes.

Rundan scowled with evident dissatisfaction at the two piles.

Solena gestured to the pile she thought was hers. “For me?”

He handed the clothing to her and waited.

She motioned for him to turn around, but he shook his head and waved impatiently at the clothes in her arms. When she still hesitated, he grimaced, fingered the votifs on his belt, and then struck himself on the head with an imaginary rock.

“I wouldn’t,” she assured him.

He merely crossed his arms over his chest and raised one brow. He couldn’t know she’d never hurt anyone, even if she hated him, for his pain would become hers and she’d have to stay with him until she healed his wounds. It was just the way she was, had always been. Of course he couldn’t know that. As a soldier, weapons were likely all he knew and trusted.

Solena gave a resigned sigh and lifted the nyka up, holding it up like a curtain. Rundan nodded and held it for her, averting his face slightly. After quickly changing into the dry clothes, she tugged the animal hide down. He took the sodden leathers from her, wrung them out into the briars outside the entrance, and hung them on rocks near the fire, a strangely domestic gesture given their circumstances, one that made him seem less threatening somehow. A dangerous thought, Solena realized. She had to remain on guard. She had to watch him, could
n’t allow herself to trust him.

Then, as he removed his plate of chest armor, she realized she wasn’t so much “watching him” as staring. Though she knew the correct action was to turn her back, she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from him. She continued to watch him move, noting how each motion was performed with the efficiency of a trained soldier. He began to lift his tunic, exposing a strip of marble pale abdomen, and paused. His eyes met hers and held a glimmer of humor as he muttered something.

Solena spun to face the cave wall, her face burning. Though she’d seen many male bodies in her training as a healer—old men, babies, youths of all ages—this soldier was
not
her patient and she had no right to look at him that way.

And why gape at him
, she demanded, disgusted with herself. So he had the ridged stomach muscles of a dock worker. And strong shoulders, which tapered down to his waist, and those long, powerful looking legs.... So he was strong and well-made. As a soldier, he was likely accustomed to pitching tents and hauling gear and swords and all sorts of armor. All that meant was he was a nicely formed young man, which was no business of hers. He’d captured her and brought her into that awful camp, hadn’t he? Now he was taking her to the palace, or at least that was where she thought he was taking her, where the Odenian court would likely execute her; she’d heard the stories. And besides that, Solena thought with an inward grimace, he probably had a girl back in Oden wearing his mark of betrothal tied around her wrist. And—and
she’d
just looked at him like she had a right to, well, to look at him
that way
.