Unwilling (Book One of the Compelled Trilogy 1) (19 page)

“How did you find me?” She asked after a while. He pulled back slightly, to stare into her eyes, the fire light twirling across his skin.

“I’ll always find you.” He said simply, as though her question was ridiculous and she should already know the answer. They gazed at each other and Rowan swore Jace was going to kiss her, she shocked herself to find she wholly wanted him too, but someone cleared their throat and they broke apart, remembering they had an audience.

“Glad your back.” Pickard said smiling. And a chorus of ‘me too’s’ followed. Rowan and Jace settled down together by the fire, their knees touching, making Rowan blush repeatedly.

“How did you track us?” Pickard asked as Jace served himself up some of the left over stew.

“Your all like a thousand horses, trampling everything down, a blind child could have followed you!” Jace exclaimed, swallowing his bite. “Fell down a cliff on my way over here though, don’t worry it wasn’t too bad,” he assured Rowan upon seeing her stricken face. Still Rowan looked him over more intently as he continued. “Thought my head was going to cleave straight off my shoulders I was rolling down it so fast! I would have been here sooner, but I had a hell of a time climbing out of the damned thing.” He laughed and Rowan thought it was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard, making her feel light and she was surprised to find that she was still smiling.

Jace and the others talked well into the night, leaving Rowan utterly exhausted by the time Jace and her were finally left alone by the fire. “I’m glad you’re back too.” Rowan said awkwardly, embarrassment filling her at how she had reacted to him earlier. Proper young women do not go around hugging young men like that.

“Don’t ever leave me like that again.” He said cogently, his tone leaving little room for Rowan to protest even if she had wanted to. Which she didn’t. He did not sound angry, maybe a little hurt, but it seemed he was more making a request to her than anything else.

Rowans eyes darkened a shade. “Okay.” She accepted
, I’d be willing to chop off my own legs before subjecting myself to that devastating sorrow again
. “Well, I think I’m going to retire, it’s been a long day and I’m sure we could both use some rest.” She stood and Jace stood with her.

As they walked Rowan noticed he had no blankets of his own. “Would you like some of my blankets?” Rowan offered.

“No I’m fine. Thank you though.” He smiled at her.

“Don’t be stubborn Jace, I have plenty.” Rowan said, stopping by her pallet. He looked as if he disagreed, but she saw the exhaustion in him win out.

“Thank you.” Jace said gratefully as Rowan handed him a few blankets. He made his pallet relatively close to hers, still a good five feet away though. Rowan was dissatisfied by the distance but thought it was for the better, lest she doing something, unpredictable, in the night.
Like crawl into his covers and kiss him
, she thought and blushed though no one else could hear her thoughts.

Just before she drifted off Rowan swore she heard Jace say he loved her, but she was half-asleep and could not be certain.

That night she slept dreamlessly.

FIFTEEN

TWO WEEKS AGO- JULY

“I don’t know if I can hear another one.” Rowan sighed, squatting on the ground.

“We don’t have to go, we could just stay in the woods and stop looking.” Jace responded, leaning against a tree. Sun streamed through the canopy and illuminated his face, making him look otherworldly.

“I can’t do that.” Rowan answered.
But God’s I want to,
she thought bitterly. Jace said nothing as Rowan stood, rubbing her eyes in frustration.

Elias was everywhere and nowhere at the same time and Rowan found that they just kept going in large circles, backtracking to places they had already been and she was growing more frustrated with each wasted day. She would track down a lead, only to get there and find the village burnt to the ground, charcoaled bodies lay strewn about the dirt roads as if they were merely rocks. Or stumble upon a cottage or cabin, the inhabitants disappeared completely, or worse yet, brutally murdered.

At one site, set back in the woods, they had found a hand sticking straight up through dirt just outside the front door of the cabin, as though the person beneath it had been buried alive and they were just able to reach up through the mound of earth before they asphyxiated.

“The trees are growing thin.” Rowan observed, placing her palm against a smooth tan tree. As they drew closer to Daria, the Shining Capital of Lamarina, held in the east, they found that the outlining areas were really nothing but one large town, melted together with practically invisible borders. The forest was growing thinner, the trees smaller. Rowan noticed there were fewer animals and even though there was still many miles of forest left between their group and Daria, Rowan could not help but feel trepidation for when the trees finally ran out, as if she would be exposed.

The towns and villages they came to were still spread far apart, though Rowan did know they were getting closer together the nearer they got to the capital. The people in the towns were often too afraid to talk to Rowan; the last town they had passed an old couple had been kind enough to let Rowan and her accompaniment stay in their home. When they found out Elias was Rowan’s brother however, the couple threw them all out the door, saying they would not play host to the devil or his kin.

The stories grew worse and worse as they went, to the point Rowan dreaded finding any sort of civilization at all. If the people were not being downright hostile toward her, they were telling her the worse sorts of tales she could possibly imagine.

In one community called Fredeal, where everyone walked around with no shoes and would gather at night to sing sorrowful songs with their hands clasped together in a wide circle, Rowan and Jace had stumbled upon a young woman in the Market. She was swollen with pregnancy and waddled more than walked. She had long brown hair and soft chocolate colored eyes.

“He’s a dark haired blue eyed devil that man.” She had whispered to Rowan and Jace, leaning close to them, eyeing the people that passed. “He came here not too long ago, carried a big old sword he did. He began stabbing people, this cold look in his eyes. Bodies piled up all over they did.” The woman had shuddered, her eyes darting to the dirt ground beneath them, as though she could still see the blood and bodies from Elias’s visit. “Took us days to clean them all up, my poor husband was gone from dawn till dusk. Hasn’t been the same since then.” She wandered off then, lost in thought about her husband who hadn’t been the same since Elias had come to visit. Rowan tried to imagine Elias standing where she was, stabbing people to death, and failed.

They had moved on quickly, following the direction multiple people had pointed them in, toward the capital, always toward the capital. The next settlement they made their way into, Kalasakie, they hadn’t gotten any help in the Market. That was surprising to Rowan, usually they could find at least one person willing to gossip, but no one was in the Market at all, all the booths boarded up and empty, spider webs dangling at the corners of the abandoned booths, their tenders gone and hiding in their homes.

Jace and Rowan had wandered around, hoping to run into any townsperson. Any time they did happen to run into someone and ask about Elias though, they clammed up and hurried off. Rowan and Jace had taken to knocking on doors, feeling discouraged. Most were slammed in their face with a curse. Just as Rowan began to despair that a single soul wouldn’t talk to them, they came across Agatha.

Agatha lived alone in a small, creaky house. “That’s okay though, I’ve got me hound to keep me company.” She had told them as she ushered them through the house to her kitchen, where she promptly sat down at a rickety table. Agatha was a crumbling old woman, with gray wispy hair. She had a big bald patch at the top of her head and was always moving what little hair she did have around to try to cover the glaring blotch of skin.

“So, has my brother Elias been here?” Rowan said to her. The old woman fidgeted with her hair, seeming to forget she had guests. “He has dark hair like mine, and blue eyes.” Rowan told her, hoping to jog old Agatha’s memories.

“Oh yes, he’s been through here.” Agatha nodded at them, her eyes squinting as though it was hard for her to see. “Don’t you worry about me any though; I’ve got me Buster to keep me safe.” Agatha smiled at a dog, who lay curled up on the floor beside Agatha’s chair. Though the dog was huge, it appeared as old as Agatha was, its once dark brown fur turning a sickly muddled color with age. Rowan didn’t think the dog could protect Agatha from a dust mite, much less her brother, though she didn’t say so aloud.

Agatha sat there and smiled at her dog. Rowan shared a glance with Jace and cleared her throat. Agatha jumped, swiveling her head, her squinty eyes now wide with surprise. Soon enough they were squinting again.

“Yes the blue eyed devil was here.” She said in that shaky voice of hers. “I saw him one day when I went to Market to get some food for my sweet Buster. He was handsome, though, I suppose the devil would be. He’d been arguing with a young man when I noticed him. He was sitting atop a huge beast of a horse,” Agatha moved her hair to the left, her eyes dazed as she recalled the story. “He leapt off it so fast I wasn’t sure he had moved at all, one minute he was atop that horse o’ his, and the next he was on the ground grabbing that young man by the collar.” She moved her hair back to the right and patted it down. “He called for some rope and the most terrifying man I’d ever seen, with black soulless eyes, and a wicked twisted smile, has a burn mark on one cheek ” Agatha fanned her face, frowning. “Well he brought yer brother his rope and that devil tied it to Radar’s, that’s his name, Radar, he sold me olives once. Foulest thing I ever tasted.” She pushed her hair back to the left absently, running her fingers through the thin gray strings.

“He tied it where, Agatha?” Rowan prompted gently, not sure she even wanted to hear the tale.

“Tied it to his feet he did. Then he tied it to that horse o’ his and he rode it all over Market, dragging Radar behind him. It was the worst sound I ever heard, that Radar made. But at the end, he made no sounds at all. Yer brother rode that horse for hours and hours until Radar’s back was so jagged and bloody; his skin was all peeled off. We could see his spine ya know? Just poking out through his back. When yer brother was done he hopped off that horse of his. He bent down real low and untied Radar, poor boy’s blood was pouring out all over the place and what did I say his name was?” Agatha asked, scrunching her nose.

“Huh, Radar, Ms.” Jace responded slowly.

“Oh, sure, yes yes. Radar just lay there in a ball, sniveling.” Agatha still stared at the wall, her eyes shining. “Two young men went and tried to help him, but yer brother just spoke to them all soft, strangest thing I ever seen.” Her hair went back to the right, “he handed him this great big sword and those other two young men cried. Blubbering like babies, with good reason too.” Agatha drew a deep breath, wringing her hands together. “They started hacking their hands off, slamming that sword down over and over again till there was nothing left but a bloody stump. They were screaming and screaming and yer brother was just watching, his eyes big as the moon as if it was the most fascinating thing he has ever seen in his life. I thought that would be the end, but he didn’t stop there, he made them take a noose and hang themselves, right there in Market.” Agatha’s voice cracked, tears falling down her cheeks, “They started turning purple their eyes bulging out of their heads. One made these awful gasping noises, I think I still hear them sometimes…. He died not to long after. Yer brother just stood there, barely blinking, saw the whole thing myself I did. That man’s sent from hell he is.” Agatha spat, looking at them with the horror of that day clearly written on her face. Then she blinked, and her face was blank, she blinked again. “Oh dear, might I help you youngins with something?” She asked them, grinning toothlessly at them from across the table. She fidgeted again with her hair, still smiling.

“Uhm...” Rowan responded, shooting Jace another glance.

“I think I should go lie down now, I’m awful tired.” She said with a nod. She stood from the table and hobbled off without another word.

Rowan and Jace sat there, to stunned to speak. After a while, they let themselves out of the house, Buster watching them with droopy eyes as they shut the door. They walked past the Market, which seemed eerie and haunted to Rowan, who was used to Market’s being the life force of a town, and Rowan spied something she had not seen when they were here earlier.

Rowan rushed to the red painting, its familiar image calling out to her, she reached out to it, but let her hand stall mid-air, hanging in the space between her and the painting. She let it fall back to her side Jace stepped from behind her, wielding the little dagger he always carried with him. Jace began hacking at the eye until it was all but desecrated, wood chips falling onto the ground in a pile. When he was finished, they left silently, several pairs of eyes following their backs, untrusting.

  They didn’t recall the story to the group when they returned. Jonquil, who had come into town with them stating he needed to pick up a few things, was not back at the camp by the time Jace and Rowan returned and had not returned for several hours after they had. The group packed up and left as soon as Jonquil came waltzing back into camp, whistling a tune. Not a single person noticed that he didn’t have any parcels with him, as eager as they were to leave the area.