The Queen of Mages (26 page)

“There must be some way,” Katin pleaded.
“Put me aside, or… perhaps a disguise?”

The princess rolled her eyes. “It’s only
been three days, girl. Are you that anxious to be away from the
only princess you’re ever likely to meet?”

“I just… I’m not used to this sort of thing,
intrigues and being in such danger. I just want to… to be able to
breathe a little.” What she really wanted was to escape this place
and make for Hedenham, to see if Dardan and Amira had returned, or
at least to visit Amira’s manse. The servants must be in despair by
now, wondering what had become of their mistress. And poor Sara!
She was probably still in Hedenham, cooped up at the Tarians’
manor, frightened out of her wits.

There was a narrow servants’ door in the
corner of the antechamber, but unlike the one Amira had used to
escape from Prince Edon, this one was kept locked day and night.
Taya’s two old maids had keys, tucked deep into the bosoms of their
servants’ dress. And they were always together. Katin might be able
to overpower one of them, but even that would be risky.

Taya walked over and plopped onto Katin’s
lap, running a finger down her cheek. “Be patient, my peach. These
intrigues take time to bear fruit.” Katin glanced over at Juliet,
who was staring daggers at her, gripping the chair’s armrests so
hard her knuckles turned white.

Katin had had enough. She grabbed Taya by
the midriff and pushed her off, then stood. “Your highness, I mean
no disrespect, but I am
not
your bedgirl to be toyed
with!”

Taya’s slap so surprised Katin that she
stumbled and fell to one knee. She began to rise, but Taya’s voice
came cold. “I did not give you leave to stand. Now attend me
closely, girl.” She bent down, cupping Katin’s chin in one pale
hand. “I am helping you, just as you helped me. But I am still your
princess, and not to be trifled with.” She pushed Katin’s head away
roughly. “Leave me, the both of you.”

She sauntered to her bookshelf and pulled
down a tome. Katin stood and followed Juliet to the adjacent cell,
meekly closing the door behind her.

Katin wanted to cry.
No, I will not.
But she did. The tears dripped down onto her silk, soaking through.
Would she never be free of this monstrous family?

Juliet sat on her bed, staring. For once,
she didn’t look angry. She just watched Katin, her hands folded on
her lap, her fiery hair thrown back over bare shoulders.

Katin slid down to the floor, sniffling. It
wasn’t the slap or even Taya’s harassment. Katin had been
safe
. Ensconced in the manse in Callaston, no one paying
attention to her, no one threatening her. Growing up on the streets
of Cleavesport had meant unending vigilance. There had been no one
to protect her, no one to hide her. She’d had to find abandoned
attics, hidden cellars, even once an air shaft deep within a
merchant’s manse, accessible only by a rope she’d hung down from
the parapets above. She’d lived there a month, until one day a maid
threw open a window and saw Katin—Karen, then—crouching amidst her
stolen bedding and food.

She’d taken a risk with Taya. She’d told
herself it was the only way she’d stay alive. Now Amira might be in
more danger by Katin’s words, and the thought made her sick.

And so the tears came flooding out. She
cried more, but quietly, lest Taya become annoyed by her sobs.
Juliet merely watched. Each tear carried away a little of the grief
and anxiety, until Katin was left numb.

The cell only had the one narrow bed and a
little nightstand with a hand mirror and a brush. Juliet was not
the sentimental type, and seemed to have no keepsakes or trinkets.
But now she moved over on the bed, leaving a clear space. Her eyes
were still hard, but at least she wasn’t scowling.

Katin hesitated, then climbed onto on the
bed, pulling her feet up under her. “Thank you.”

“She does it only to torment me,” Juliet
said at last, looking at the door. “She knows how I feel.” She
meant Taya’s teasing; she would never care that Taya had struck or
scolded Katin.

How the
vala
felt about her lady was
obvious; Katin just didn’t understand why. “Does she feel the
same?”

Juliet shrugged. “I don’t know. She was the
one who…” Her hand clenched into a fist and then opened, several
times. “She’s so forceful.” She fell silent, and looked away.
“She’ll use you.”

Katin glanced at the door. She would have to
behave. Taya could caress her cheek all she wanted if it meant
Katin might get a chance to escape.

Dardan’s horse picked slowly through the
brush. They’d stayed off the roads ever since Foxhill Keep, which
meant slow going, but it was no doubt safer. If Edon sent men after
them, they could not risk being easily found on the Thorncross
road.

In the light of that burning branch, hidden
in the woods beyond Foxhill Keep, Amira had explained her power to
him, and why Prince Edon wanted her so badly. If Dardan had not
seen Edon tear down the walls of the keep with nothing but a
glance, he’d have called her mad, no matter his love for her. The
idea that a person could use their very mind to create fires and
death was upsetting enough, but for it to be the province of the
woman he’d fallen in love with, the woman he’d become
betrothed
to…

And yet he had no choice but to stay with
her. They’d run for three days since the keep, sleeping as they
could in hollows and clefts, by riverbanks or nestled in a grove of
poplars. Aside from the food in Amira’s pack, which was meant to
sustain one woman for a few days, they had no other provisions.

That, at least, had not been a problem. The
morning after Foxhill Keep, Amira simply waited in a clearing until
food came wandering by—as it happened, an elk. It froze, startled
to see her. She held up a hand, there was a
pop
, and then
the elk dropped to the ground, dead.

She’d explained to Dardan that she could
push this “ember” of hers at anything she could see, even into the
brain or heart of an animal, killing it instantly and with no fuss.
Once he’d gotten over his initial shock, he’d asked if she could
cook the meat the same way, but when she tried she just ended up
charring it. Instead they built a campfire, and Amira provided the
spark, saving him from several minutes of rubbing sticks
together.

He sawed off the elk’s haunch and lashed it
to the back of his saddle; it would keep for a day or two at least,
in case they found no more large game. Nuts, berries, and leaves
made up the rest of their meals. Dardan knew just enough to
identify the poisonous plants from the edible ones, but gathering
them was tedious work. Still, he reflected, it was better than
being Edon’s prisoner. Or dead.

He had no idea what had happened to the rest
of the men. His father, Liam, Old Ban… the guardsmen, the
townsfolk. Or Calys, or even Katin. Once they’d escaped around the
side of the castle and made for the trees, there was no going back
to look. He regretted leaving, but how could he have let Amira run
off into the darkness alone? If only he’d known about this power of
hers. Why hadn’t she told him?

Well, it was obvious, wasn’t it? He couldn’t
imagine what it would be like to discover having such a power, much
less trying to explain it to someone else. Witchcraft was nothing
more than a superstition in Garova, but then nobody had ever met a
real witch. To suddenly become one must have been terrifying for
Amira.

He glanced at her as they rode along,
descending along a gentle slope into a little dell. She’d always
been a lively girl, but since the keep she’d been subdued. He’d
ranted at her, once, the morning after Foxhill Keep, demanding to
know how she could have been so cruel and foolish as to conceal the
truth from him. She had not argued; instead her face had gone white
and she’d turned away while tears fell. Dardan had felt so awful
that he said nothing else for hours, and now—

—his head spun at the sound of an arrow
whistling through the trees. It missed his head by inches, and
before he knew it he had slid off his horse and drawn his
sword.

Amira still sat on her horse, glancing
around in startlement. “Get down!” he shouted at her, and she
dropped clumsily between the two stallions. Dardan crouched between
their mounts, trying to see into the shadows beyond the trees.

Leaves crunched as men approached. “Come on
out, you,” a rough voice said. “We ain’t gonna hurt you any.”

“That arrow didn’t seem too friendly,”
Dardan shouted back.
Bandits. Just our luck.
Several men had
melted out of the forest and surrounded them. The largest wore a
rusty mail hauberk and a kettle helm. The others were all dressed
in browns and greens that would blend in to the woods easily,
camouflage made all the more effective by the dirt and filth that
caked them.

“We just want the horses,” the big man said.
“Man’s feet get tired, walkin’ through this wilderness all
day.”

Dardan pulled his horse a little closer. The
bandits wouldn’t hurt the valuable beasts, if they could avoid it,
which made them effective shields.

He glanced at Amira. Her face was set in
determination tinged with fear. Dardan whispered, “I can’t kill
more than one or two, even if they don’t have more archers hiding
in the trees. Can… can you stop them?”

She met his gaze with those beautiful gray
eyes. They could make his knees weak, but now he was almost shaking
in terror. But he could not show it. Not to her.

It seemed forever before she nodded. “I’m
coming out,” she shouted, “to offer you even more than you could
have dreamed.” How could she make herself sound so confident?

Amira stood up straight and took off her
leather cap. She held her hands wide and stepped out from between
the horses.

“By Chaos, it’s a girl,” one of the men
said. The others muttered as well, and someone whistled. It made
Dardan’s blood boil to think what they’d do to her, but she stayed
calm and kept her eyes on the big man.

“A better offer, girlie?” he asked, and
looked around. “I think we just hit the king’s own treasure, boys,”
he laughed. The other men cackled, as well. Two of them held bows,
the rest swords or axes. The bowmen had each nocked an arrow, but
they hadn’t drawn yet.

“Oh, I haven’t even gotten started,” Amira
cooed. “The offer is this: Leave, or I will kill all of you,
starting with you.” She pointed at the big man.

Some of the men laughed at this absurd
display of bravado, but one or two looked worried. They had the
wits to wonder why an outmatched traveler—a woman, no less—would
say something so obviously foolish.

The big man didn’t laugh either. He had been
holding his own sword out from the start, and hefted it now. “I got
a sense of humor, the boys all says, but that ain’t funny.” And he
stepped forward. Amira pointed a finger at him.

The
pop
that emitted from his head
was startlingly loud in the still woods. The big man fell to the
dirt, no more gracefully than the elk had, and slid down the slope
at the edge of the dirt trail. Smoke rose from his ears. Dardan’s
bowels clenched, even though he knew exactly how it had
happened.

The other bandits began to shout. One of the
bowmen started to draw, and he dropped next as Amira’s finger
trained on him. The other bowman yelped and ran.

Two of the bandits lurched forward, shouting
and swinging their swords. Dardan leapt out and intercepted them,
slashing one across the leg and pushing the other back down the
path. Dardan had years of training under his belt, at Luther’s
hands, and the bandits were no match for him.

The second bandit tripped on a rock and fell
as Dardan swung at him. Then he heard Amira cry out. Dardan left
the bandit sprawling and sprinted back to the horses.

Amira was on the ground, half-buried under
another bandit. Dardan made to stab the man, but Amira scrambled
out from under him and it was clear he was already dead. She had
drawn her own dagger, and spun back and forth, searching for
threats. But only one of the bandits was still in sight. It was the
man Dardan had wounded, limping away through the trees. Everyone
else had fled.

Dardan kept careful watch for several
minutes in case the bandits made another go at it, but the big man
had clearly been their leader. Seeing him die just as Amira
predicted, when she had wielded no weapon, had no doubt terrified
the rest. Dardan still felt his heart thumping in his chest.

He checked on the horses and saw that they
were unharmed. They were not war horses, but they had been
well-trained in Hedenham, and they had moved only a few steps away
from the fight.

Amira sat on a boulder, taking deep breaths,
her head down between her knees. Dardan knelt on the soft earth
beside her. “Are you all right, my dear?”

She brought her head up. Her eyes were red,
but tears had not flowed. “Yes. That was easier than I’d…
hoped.”

“You did well,” he said, trying to reassure
her. But she shook her head angrily, stood up, and strode away.

Dardan wanted to follow her, but he held
himself back. He was the one who’d insisted they stay off the main
road. Running into a nest of bandits in the woods was just bad
luck, and she could hardly blame him for it. This was still the
safest path to Thorncross.

And Thorncross was the safest destination
Dardan could think of. Even if Edon wasn’t chasing them, they could
hardly saunter back into Hedenham Town. Dardan didn’t know if Duke
Loram Arkhail could help them, but it was their best chance. House
Arkhail had their ancestral keep at Thorncross, a few days’ ride to
the north. There, at least, they could rest and recuperate… if they
could avoid any further ambushes.

———

Just now, Amira seemed to want to be alone,
so Dardan went from one bandit’s corpse to the next, taking
anything valuable. A few coppers, a few silvers, one good dagger,
one decent but rusty sword. He took the bow and quiver off the dead
archer. It was a poor piece of work, but better than no bow at all,
which was what they’d had so far. The mail hauberk on the big man
was too hard to remove by himself, and it wouldn’t fetch a silver
from a blind man anyway. The kettle helm would at least provide a
little protection for one of them. He took it and tied it around a
saddle strap. Lastly he guessed which of the dead men was the
smallest, and struggled to pull the man’s clothes off. Amira wore
her borrowed armor over nothing but her underclothes, and the
bandit’s wool trousers and tunic would serve better.

Looting the bodies came curiously easily to
Dardan. He’d seen little of death, he was glad to admit; he did not
fancy himself a hard man who would turn a callous eye to misery and
pain. But he felt no pity or remorse for the bandits. The choice
between his life or theirs was an easy one.

Finally Amira came back and insisted they go
on. “Maybe there’s a bounty for these bandits somewhere,” she joked
lightly, and Dardan was glad to see her in better spirits. But he
watched the trees closely as they rode along.

They found a wide stream as it grew dark,
and luck granted them an overhang where spring floods had carved a
sheltering hollow. They’d be hidden from sight, unless someone
happened to stand directly across the stream.

Dardan gathered firewood again, and Amira
brought the kindling alight with a glance. In minutes they had a
crackling campfire. He carved two hunks from the elk’s haunch and
spitted them on a branch. They roasted slowly over the fire, juices
dripping into it and sizzling.

Amira watched him over the flames as they
chewed on the blackened meat, but she said nothing. Her eyes were
hooded, her face drawn. She’d kept her honey-golden hair up in a
tight bun most of the time, but now it made a drape over her
shoulders. It was dirty and dulled by sweat and travel, but it made
her no less alluring. Dardan silently reminded himself that they
were not married yet.

They finished eating, and Dardan felt
drowsy, but Amira stood. “I feel filthy, and these clothes are
stiff and smelly. We both need washing.” She went over to the
stream and began to undress.

Dardan felt his cheeks burning with
embarrassment, but he could not make himself turn away. Amira
paused once, to glance over at him, but when he didn’t move, she
shrugged and continued peeling off her leggings.

She kept her underclothes on—she’d had to
hack the bottom off her shift to fit it into the wool trousers—as
she waded into the stream and dunked her clothes, beating at them
with a rock to get the grime out. The flickering firelight did not
illuminate her well, but Dardan’s mind filled in the blanks. He
felt his trousers getting tighter and finally tore his gaze
away.

He was amazed that Amira had not once
complained about being out in the wilds. Every other noblewoman
he’d ever met would gasp with horror at the prospect of sleeping
under the stars for even a night. And now here she was, washing her
own clothes in a cold stream.

After a few minutes she sloshed back onto
the shore and laid her wet garments out by the fire. “Don’t let
pride force you into discomfort, my lord.” She did not attempt to
cover herself. Her wet shift clung to her breasts in a most
unladylike way. She stared at him, unflinching. “I’ll throw you in
the river myself if you don’t go wash,” she warned. “Prince Edon
can likely smell you from here.”

Dardan was too embarrassed to argue. He went
over to the stream, staring out into the darkness and pretending
that his betrothed was not sitting a few yards away, watching him
undress. How could they ever have a proper marriage after this? It
was scandalous.

Ha! Scandal? No one will ever know but
us, will they?
The surrounding forest was quiet but for the
sounds of insects and little nocturnal creatures scampering about,
and the stream burbling by slowly. Only the trees and the hares and
the elk would know, and they would never tell.
Or would they? A
week ago I’d have laughed at the idea of someone starting fires
with their thoughts. Maybe the trees
will
gossip when we’re
gone.

Dardan still wore the same fine wool shirt
and vest and trousers he’d had since they’d left Tinehall for
Foxhill Keep, good travelling clothes that did not particularly
mark him as a noble. He saw no reason to dress fancy for riding
across the county. Normally he’d have a formal suit rolled away in
his saddlebags for when they called at some other noble’s estate,
but in their haste to depart Tinehall Liam hadn’t packed one for
him. Thus what he wore was all he had, plus the leather cuirass and
mail hauberk he’d borrowed from one of the Tarians’ guardsmen. He’d
felt bad for depriving the man of his armor, but Count Asmus had
insisted that the heir to Hedenham be decently protected.