Unwilling (Book One of the Compelled Trilogy 1) (23 page)

Jace stood in the room, staring at the door for a good while before cursing himself and flinging it open. He ran after Rowan, desperate to catch her. He stumbled down the stairs, taking those two, three, at a time. He nearly ran into a maid as he vaulted out the door, the cool night air prickling his eyes.

The sound of horse hooves beat in the distance and no matter how fast Jace ran he knew he could not catch her. He flung himself back in the inn, anxiety clawing in his chest like an angry animal. “Inn keep,” Jace called desperately, “I need another horse.” He pleaded, his voice catching on the last word.

“Nah, sir. I shan’t let my other horse be out, sorry.” She did look sorry and he turned away from her, rejecting her pity. He couldn’t say why he needed to stop Rowan so badly, only felt the fear in him, stirring around his chest, gripping his heart, squeezing his heart, stopping his heart until he couldn’t breath, couldn’t think, couldn’t live with this crushing anxiety drowning him in waves so forceful it was a wonder he managed to stay on his feet. As the hoof beats disappeared, he felt a terrible sadness, a devastating grief, as though Rowan was now lost to him forever.

Jace ran to Pickard’s room, not even bothering to knock on the solid wood door before bursting into it. The door flung open, crashing into the wall behind it and causing the room to shudder angrily.

“Pickard!” Jace shouted, scanning the room for the man. Jace found him face down on the other side of the bed from him, lodged between the wall and the small bed. Jace pushed the bed away from Pickard, the legs squeaking in protest as it slid across the floor. “Pickard!” Jace yelled, trying to wake the man.

Pickard lay unmoving on the floor, his chest rising and falling evenly. He pants were bunched around his knees as if he had tried to take them off but had given up halfway through. One shoe was on but the other was missing, his one visible sock was nearly black on the bottom and emitting a foul smell.

“Pickard, wake up, you must tell me where Rowan has gone!” Jace said hefting Pickard onto his side. Drool slipped from Pickard’s mouth, running down his cheek and pooling under him. “Pickard!” Jace shouted, shaking Pickard’s shoulder violently. “PICKARD!”

Pickard snorted, but didn’t wake. Jace grunted angrily, leaving Pickard’s room and stomping back outside the inn.

“Where did you go Rowan? Where are you?” Jace asked the silent night desperately frantically anxiously, rubbing his palms together to stave off the chill that had sprung up. “I’ll find you, even if it takes me all night.” Jace vowed and began walking, his thoughts tumultuous.

SEVENTEEN

Rowan was tense as she creeped her way through the night. Each hoof beat bringing her closer to her reunion with her brother. She had gotten simple directions from Pickard as to the house her brother was staying in and she eyed the houses on either side of her now, looking for the one he had specified.

Rowan was looking for a large house at the end of Clementine road due north east of the inn, with thick dark bushes on either side of an expansive porch. A large tree would be growing on the side. Those were her only directions.

Rowan squinted, trying to differentiate between the houses, the moonlight doing little to help her in her search. “Elias?” She called, with very little hope that he would answer.

Rowan heard footsteps behind her but when she turned in her saddle, she found no one there.  She chastised herself for acting like a frightened child in the night. She straightened her back, holding her head high despite wanting to shrink in on herself, turn her horse around, and go cowardly back to the warmth of the inn.

Rowan spied a large tree just ahead of her, perching beside the shadow of a massive house. Three stories tall, it dominated the other houses on the quite street. Rowan knew, without any doubt, that this was where her brother was. A single light shone through a window on the second floor. Rowan spurred her horse faster, eager to be rid of the darkness surrounding her.

Rowan felt uneasy as the horse trotted up to the walkway.
After all the stories I have heard about Elias I expected an army of guards to be posted outside the house. Or at least the dead bodies of the previous owners.
But she found neither of those, the front of the house standing silent and abandoned before her. Rowan swung her leg over the horse, dropping to the ground with a soft thump.

I wish I’d never come at all,
Rowan found herself thinking, then felt guilty for thinking it, Elias was her brother after all.

Rowan heard shuffling behind her and she whipped around, peering into the still night. She thought she saw a shadow move, that one right by the tree, but the longer she stared the longer it only seemed like the branches of the tree. Sweat began beading on her forehead, her brow furrowed and she took a deep breath to steady herself. She walked up the three steps to the porch, and knocked on the door.

Nothing happened.

She knocked again and an owl hooted in the distance in reply. Rowan breathed deeply and considered turning around.
Surely, Elias will still be here in the morning
, but a second later she scolded herself for being a coward. She took another deep breath and tried the knob, it squeaked with rust and disuse as she turned the handle. Rowan pushed the door open and a black darker than the night spread out from the home, like sticky fingers trying to draw her in. “Elias?” She called again, hesitant to enter the abyss. Rowan breathed deeply, standing on the threshold. She took a step in, then another.

Rowan stood in the entry way, though she couldn’t see it. She knew the light she had seen that had led her to the house was to her right. Rowan stuck her hands out, fumbling for a wall in her blindness. She moved slowly and it seemed to her that she did not move at all, but in no time her hand brushed coarse wood and she pressed her palm to it, breathing out air she had not realized she was holding.

She felt along the wall until her hand touched air and she assumed this was an opening into another room. She stepped through the open space, her heart hammering as though there might not be floor beneath her where she would place her foot and she would stumble down into the earth, falling forever, searching for her brother until the ends of time, her existence stretching out before her as a black void, a never ending nothing, falling endlessly, limitlessly, infinitely.

“Elias?” Rowan called out again, her voice echoing back at her. She sounded frightened and the further she trudged into the house, the more she knew that he was not there at all, but she refused to turn back until she had searched every room of the house.  

Rowan whirled around, flattening herself against a wall as the front door slammed shut somewhere behind her in the house. Her breath came out in sharp puffs as she tried to silence it. Her eyes zipped around the darkness, trying, and failing, to make out a shape. She heard footsteps but could not say where they came from, to her right maybe, or right in front of her perhaps.

Rowan wished Jace were with her. He would make a joke and she would laugh, someone would light a lantern and it would only be Pickard playing a mean prank. But Jace wasn’t here and she knew Pickard had drank heavily at the inn and was likely passed out drunk by now. “Elias?” Rowan whispered, already knowing Elias had likely never stepped foot in this house. Besides, he was never one for teasing, or scaring her, saying they were mean, childish things.

Rowan took a step forward.
If I could only make it back to the door, I could ride away and never have to look at this house again.
She heard a scraping noise and crushed herself back to the wall, willing herself to be smaller. She crouched, her eyes frantic as they searched the black around her.

She listened to the sound of her pounding heart and squeezed her eyes shut, counting backwards from 100 as Elias had told her to do when she was younger, when she was truly frightened. He would tell her to focus on the numbers and by the time she got to zero, everything would be ok.

99,
Rowan thought,
98… 97… 96
… She heard the scraping sound again and she knew it was closer, circling around her. Searching
. 95… 94… 93
… There was a footstep, just to her left. Rowan grew panicked, dragging air in and out of her lungs, demanding her heart to slow down
. 92… 91… 90… 89
… She could feel a presence around her, a deeper blackness than just normal shadows. She couldn’t say where it was exactly, only knew that it had found her, the footsteps growing sure, confident. She was trapped
.
She was petrified
. 88… 87… 86…

Rowan bolted to her feet, trying to run as fast as she could back in the general direction she had come. She got three steps before a hand clamped around her wrist. It was strong and she cried out in pain, trying to tug her hand free. She slipped, falling to the floor on her side, dragging her attacker with her.

She kicked hard in the direction she thought they might be, satisfaction flickering in her as they ‘humphed’ in pain, releasing her wrist just slightly enough for her to pull it free, and she was running again. She stumbled into several walls before feeling the rough wood of the door. She threw it open, the moon illuminating her terrified, wild eyes. Rowan hurried onto the porch, looking frantically for her horse, but it was nowhere to be seen.

Rowan dashed down the steps, only to be hurled backwards by her attacker, his arm wrapping around her waist and flinging her backwards. She struck the hard wood porch on her back, sending splinters of pain shooting up her spine. She tried scrambling to her feet, but a heavy shoed foot came crashing into her side, sending her sprawling on her stomach. Rowan wheezed and tried rolling over, only to fall again as the agony from her side shot up into her chest.

The boot came down again catching her side in the same spot, Rowan cried out as she unsuccessfully tried to roll away from it. The large hand that had grabbed her earlier hauled her up by her hair, sending a fist smashing into the side of her jaw. She could see the silhouette of his hand withdraw and tried pushing away from him, her feet barley touching the ground as he held her up, but she could do nothing to deflect the next blow.

He hit her nose and she immediately felt warm blood stream down her lips, red droplets of blood falling silently onto the porch. Her eyes watered and black spots popped in her vision as he dropped her to the floor. Rowan grabbed at air, trying to pull herself away, only to have a traumatizing kick land on the side of her face. She was thrown sideways into the side of the house and she curled in on herself as another kick landed on her stomach, and then another, on her head.

“Stop.” Rowan choked out, gagging on the blood that flowed into her mouth. She tried spitting out the metallic tasting liquid only to choke again as her attacker bent down and punched her once more in the side of her head, causing her ears to ring loudly. After that, she was only aware of the fact that he picked her up and flung her over one of his large shoulders, before finally allowing the darkness to overcome her.

EIGHTTEEN

Jace wandered the streets all night, his feet aching and his calves burning at the relentless hours of searching for Rowan. Just as the sun rose, he hauled himself back to the inn, groggy and angry. He made his way to the dining area to find Pickard and question him. Or hopefully find Rowan, returned and unhurt. Jace spotted Pickard and Jonquil sitting morosely at a table, their plates of food untouched. Jace didn’t even need to ask to know that Rowan had not returned.

He sat with them, not talking for some time, thinking horrible things.
Rowan has been bucked from her horse and I will find her with her neck broken and blue, twisted at an impossible angle. Or when I arrive at the house, I will find her strung up from the rafters, her lifeless body limp and swaying, Elias laughing at my grievous expression.
Jace’s face twisted in anguish. He shook his head, trying to shake the horrific images from his thoughts.

When Chev finally joined them, an hour later, and Mills, an hour after that, Jace felt utterly miserable, right down to his core
. We have five men, to Elias’s rumored army,
Jace thought as he looked dismally at the sad excuse for Rowan’s rescue party. If Elias would not release Rowan to them willingly, they would all be slaughtered.

No one talked as they picked their way through the town, which seemed oddly deserted. Birds called to each other overhead and clouds covered the sun, making the day gloomy and dark. As they walked, Jace looked around for signs of Rowan, and finding none, namely the lack of her broken body lying in the street, he sighed with relief.

A while later Pickard pointed to a house at the end of a street and Jace thought it looked exactly like the kind of house Elias would takeover. It was grand, towering over all the other houses. Its top windows looked like eyes, looking down and mocking anything below it, which was everything. 

Jace knew something was wrong. He could feel it in the air, it was stale and carried the stench of things amiss. He was the first to the porch, his heart seizing as sorrow poured into it, upon seeing dried blood, splattered all over the old wood. The door was open and Jace pushed his way into the house, desperately hoping Rowan would be inside.

“Rowan?” Jace yelled panicked, running through the house, his heart breaking with each empty room. No sign of her was present in the house. In all the scenarios that had ran through his head, never had it occurred to him that she wouldn’t be there at all. “Rowan?” Jace screamed again, hoping she would just pop out from behind a wall. He would hug her and tell her to never play such tricks on him again. But as he concluded his search and made his way back to the porch, he was dismayed to find that not a hint of Rowan, save for the unnerving blood on the porch, was anywhere to be found.

The men looked at Jace expectantly but he only shook his head, not meeting their eyes, trying to hold himself together in front of them though he felt himself shattering apart. He felt like an egg with a crack, trying to contain its yolk but it was slipping out slowly, so slowly and eventually it would splinter, and there would be nothing left inside.

Jace eyed the blood. It stained the porch and he followed the trail it made down the steps, until he lost it among the grass surrounding the house. Chev was already standing at the edge of the forest that bordered the back of the house, eyeing the ground with a hard look in his eyes.

The group made their way gloomily back to the inn.

The whole way Pickard mumbled to himself, “it was just a little boy, he said Elias wanted to see her, just to talk. Just Elias…” The guilt was obvious in his voice, dripping thickly with blame at himself.

Jace’s thoughts raced, planning
. I’ll strike out by myself, I’ll move faster that way. As soon as I have gathered food and bargained for a horse.
It would take him a couple hours at least to scrounge everything he would need. Jace observed the cloudy sky and knew that if it rained, which it looked like it would, he would be slowed down, but knew that it would also slow down Rowan and whoever had taken her.

Jace detached himself from the other men, leaving them behind to their whispers and headed to his and Rowans room. He looked at the bed, thinking of those brief passionate moments with her as he gathered his meager belongings; rolling them up in his blankets to make a pack, taking a last sad look around the scanty space before slamming the door to the room shut behind him.

Jace made promises to the inn keep to return and pay her if she would only let him have some dried foods, or cured meats. They argued for close to an hour, Jace growing more and more impatient by the second.

“Well how do I know you’ll come back? I’m already out a horse, thanks to your lady friend.” Bertha the inn keep said for the hundredth time. Jace sighed heavily.

“It was not her fault,” he persisted, “she was taken and I’m going after her, please, I promise to return. I will pay you for the food, but I MUST go!” He practically yelled, his panic slithering out in his voice. The inn keep eyed him, her eyes slitted. Her gray hair swung into her eyes as she turned, leaving Jace to stand wide eyed at her as she left the room, disappearing behind a door he hadn’t noticed till now.

“Here, I’m trusting you now sir and I don’t take kindly to people betraying that trust. One way or the other, you will pay me.” She threatened, coming back into view and handing him a large parcel, rolled tightly in some cloth and held together with some twine.

“Thank you.” Jace said nodding, “Thank you.” He repeated, before dashing off, mounting the horse he had bargained for earlier from a young family just two houses down. He spurred the horse on, guiding her back to the scene of Rowans abduction. He was halfway there when he heard hoof beats behind him, pounding on the dirt road as their rider’s attempted to catch up to him.

Jace pulled on the reins, drawing the horse up short and she snorted in displeasure but did not move.

“JACE!” Pickard bellowed behind him, followed by Mills and Chev.

“You can’t stop me, don’t even try.” Jace told them, his voice hard as they drew their horses to a stop beside him.

“Were not here to stop you, you fool.” Pickard said crossly, giving Jace a contemptuous look.

“Where’s Jonquil?” Jace questioned the missing man’s absence.

“He ran, looking mighty afraid of something.” Mills told him, shaking his head with a disgusted look.

Jace eyed them a minute, debating if arguing against them coming was worth it, but he had already lost enough time fighting with the inn keep. “Just try and keep up.” He said finally and turned his horse around again, urging her forward. Jace just hoped he had not lost too much time.

                                          ҉              ҉              ҉

“We can keep going!” Jace shouted to Chev, his back twinging in objection at the thought of continuing, he brushed it off, determined to keep following Rowan. “No.” Chev said simply, not even bothering to turn and look at Jace.

“But-“

“No.” Chev repeated, his voice firm. Jace debated arguing with him but knew it would get him nowhere. One did not argue with Chev twice in one night.

Jace slid from the back of his horse, slumping to the forest floor. His thighs were chapped and he had shooting pain in his back from riding for hours in the saddle. Pickard and Mills made similar sounds of soreness as they dismounted, but Chev swung gracefully from his mount as though he had been born to ride a horse and had done so all his life.

Jace rubbed his lower back as he stood, grabbing bundles from the back of his beautiful mare. Her coat was all black, with a small white spot on her nose. Jace tied her reins to a low hanging branch with a soft pat on the side of her face.

He pet her smooth coat, then bent and retrieved a carrot from one of his bags. He stroked her mane as she nibbled the carrot from his hand.
Rowan would have loved her,
Jace thought and felt a pang of pain in his chest that came from thinking about Rowan. The family Jace had gotten the horse from said her name was Kariya. Kariya pushed her wet nose into his palm when she had finished her carrot and snorted, sending snot into his hand. “Gah!” Jace huffed, stepping back and wiping the snot off with a leaf.

He wrinkled his nose at Kariya as he walked away. Someone had already gotten a fire started and he lowered himself to the ground, his back muscles screaming in protest as he did so. A heavy black kettle sat over the embers, an ominous liquid swirling around inside it. Jace felt numb as he looked at the fire, the heat from it doing little to warm his chilled bones.

They had been traveling for hours, pushing hard until the sun had disappeared in a haze of red and orange, leaving only the light of the pale moon, which was barely enough to see by. Jace had had an intense argument with Chev to keep going, to push further after Rowan. Chev thought that it would be foolish, that Jace would likely get himself, and the rest of them, killed; thrown from the back of their horses on the uneven ground that made up the forest floor, but Jace had insisted and Chev had relented.

They had continued for another couple of hours, but in the complete darkness, the terrain was getting rough and hard to navigate. Even in broad daylight, it was difficult to maneuver the horses around the trees and various shrubs that sprouted up. Everything grew thickly together and at times they would have to file into a line, like ants, twisting their horses every which way to avoid walking into a tree, or being snagged in a bush.

Jace had followed the blood trail from the house into the trees, but it didn’t take long for him to stop seeing it. He was horrible at tracking and he was thankful that Chev had come with, for he was an excellent tracker. Chev would point at a broken twig, or notice a slight indent in the dirt. “They have gone this way,” he would say and maneuver his horse down a path only he could see.

Jace was skeptical, it could be any number of things that had made those indents, or broken that twig and when he told Chev so, he only got a glowering look that made Jace want to shrivel in on himself. Jace did not bring it up again and allowed Chev to take the lead.

Jace rested his elbows on his knees, rubbing his eyes with the tips of his fingers until small red spots danced in his vision. He listened to the sounds of the forest animals coming out for the night; an owl hooted, squirrels chirped to each other as they scampered up and down trees. The sounds seemed distant to Jace, as if he was drowning underwater and the rest of the world, the world Rowan was in, was far away and out of reach.

He lay on his back, wishing he could see the sky but the canopy of branches and leaves high above him was too thick. Even the roof of the forest was hard to see with only the firelight to see by.

When the meager stew was served, Jace only looked at it, steam rising from his bowl into his eyes. He couldn’t say what was in the soup, but the thought of eating anything while Rowan was out there in the night, alone and probably afraid, made his stomach roil with sickness.

“You must eat,” Chev instructed as he came to sit beside Jace. “One kin not go rescuing one’s lady if they are too weak from hunger.”

Jace wanted to argue but he knew that Chev was right. He took a sip of the broth, the warm liquid sliding down his throat tasteless. “Where are you from, Chev?” Jace asked, shocking himself that he had asked the question aloud.

“Far from here.” Chev said in his strange accent and he sounded, to Jace, sad. Jace wondered if Chev missed his home and wondered if he had ever had a family, but he immediately dismissed the idea. He couldn’t picture Chev with a wife, or a child, it seemed wrong to him, somehow, when he tried to imagine it in his head. Chev was a warrior, strong and defiant, he didn’t answer to anyone.

“Do you ever want to go back?” Jace asked after a moment. “Back to wherever it is that you’re from?”

“No.” Chev said tightly and Jace knew that the conversation was over. They ate their stew in silence, listening to Pickard as he bragged to Mills, who looked thoroughly uninterested, about the time he had caught a thief trying to steal from him.

“I ran for miles nonstop and finally tackled the thief to the ground. I received lots of applause from onlookers, and the patrolling Kings Guard said that I showed more gusto then any man he had ever trained.” Pickard said proudly. Beside him, Chev rolled his eyes.

As Pickard rambled into another tale, Jace excused himself, walking off into the trees, careful to stay within eyesight of the fire. He breathed deeply, the scent of trees and pinecones instantly drawing up a picture of Rowan. How she would smile at him, her eyes lighting up when she saw him, how their hands would brush, ever so slightly, when they walked together…

Jace closed his eyes wishing, with painful desperation, that Rowan were with him now. His heart squeezed agonizingly and he blinked, trying to clear the suffocating pain that was overcoming him.

He liked the smell of the forest (
and of Rowan
, Jace thought). In villages and towns, the air felt heavy, harder to breath but amongst the trees, the air was fresh and made his lungs prick slightly with the perfume of pine needles and animals.