Bound (Bound Trilogy) (13 page)

I closed my eyes, focusing inward, and sent my awareness out again, more focused than it had been before, searching for Severn and then for any human presence. There was nothing.

When I opened my eyes Rowan whispered, “What did you just do?”

“I’m keeping us safe.”

“Was that magic?”

“Yes. Does that bother you?”

“No.” She hobbled back toward her horse and allowed me to help her into the saddle, and we moved on.

I waited for more questions, but Rowan seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. The quiet forest reflected a calm I wished I felt. Conflicting plans and desires battled within me, but no obvious course of action revealed itself. My thoughts spoke over each other in an argument with myself that I couldn’t win.
Take her home.

Dump her in the woods.

Help her.

Send her away and board the next ship away from Darmid and Tyrea, alone.

No, free her magic and see how powerful she really is, first—she could be a strong ally.

I’ve done enough. If she wants to go home, let her deal with the consequences.

I rolled my shoulder muscles to ease the tension that weighed them down. I would try to make her understand the danger she was in, offer to help, and let her decide. If she chose to leave, I wouldn’t feel any guilt over her fate. And yet, I wanted her to stay. Perhaps it was some lingering effect of her magic, affecting me again now that she was close by. Nothing to be concerned about. It would fade again.

“Are you going to take me home?” she asked a while later.

“Not yet. Right now we need to focus on getting as far from the ship and Severn as we can. He’ll look for us going that way first.”

“He knows where I live?”

“Yes.”

Her face paled. “But my family—”

“They’ll be fine. He won’t attack unless he’s sure you’re there, and he’ll try to cut us off before then. Let’s find a safe place to spend the night, and I’ll try to explain everything.”

She frowned. “Sure.”

We’d want a fire, but we needed more cover than the trees would provide.

“What’s that? It’s beautiful.” Rowan pointed toward the nearby mountain face. Erosion had exposed diagonal layers of rock, variegated shades of gray with lighter brown streaks.

“Lovely.” Useless, but very nice to look at. I knew people like that.

Or was it useless? I rode closer to an outcropping in the rock and ran my fingers over the brown stone. My fingers came away dusty, but left no mark on the rock. “We might be able to find shelter here and build a fire,” I called, and Rowan came up beside me. “There may be caves.”

I dismounted and led my horse over the rocky ground as Rowan rode along the edge of the forest below, stopping to dismount and look at something in the woods. The first shadow in the rock I explored was only a hollow that wasn’t nearly deep enough to offer protection. A dark space up ahead looked more promising. I left the horse and stepped into a cleft in the rock that continued deeper into the mountain on a shallow upward slope, turning into a tall, narrow cave farther in. I wanted to explore further, but I hesitated as an uneasy feeling crept over me. I sent my awareness out.

Severn
. He wasn’t on top of us yet, but he wasn’t far. My skin prickled with cold fear as I darted back into the sunlight.

Rowan was busy picking up an armload of firewood. “Rowan,” I called, and she looked up. I didn’t want her to panic, but he was getting closer. Too close. “Severn is coming.”

She stumbled forward, clutching the bundle of dry branches to her chest while she held her horse’s reins with the other hand.

The crack in the stone was barely wide enough for the horses to enter, but we had no other options. Mine pulled back and shuffled her feet against the dusty stone floor as the space narrowed and the walls came together overhead, but I urged her on, hoping we wouldn’t become trapped if there was nowhere to turn around.

The passage opened in a wide, enclosed space with an uneven floor and a ceiling that was just tall enough for Rowan to stand comfortably, but the horses and I had to keep our heads down. Rowan’s horse let out a nervous snort. I stepped aside and let Rowan and her horse pass, and handed her the reins for mine. She led them to the rear of the cave and stroked their faces, quieting them.

Severn was still coming closer. I felt his wrath in my bones, and his voice echoed in my mind as he cursed my name. My heartbeat sped up and sweat broke out over my body as I remembered other times when I’d hidden from him, when I was much younger. I’d succeeded a few times, before he forced me to stop. But it had been too long since I’d tried it. I wasn’t prepared.

Severn’s approach slowed. He’d sensed my magic and was trying to locate me. If I didn’t act, we were finished. I closed my eyes.

My thoughts turned away from Severn and back to the cave, making it an impenetrable fortress in my mind. Nothing happened. Then the temperature in the cave plummeted, raising goosebumps on my skin. I backed away from the entrance and hoped the change wouldn’t extend to outside, alerting Severn. A horse squealed, and Rowan began speaking to it softly. In my mind the cave sealed itself, rock closing out the light and any sign of our presence.

Still he came closer, his mind open to me for the first time.
He’s baiting me
. If I took the opportunity to look into his thoughts, he would feel me. I shut him out and quieted my own mind as well as I could.

Minutes passed, and no one entered the cave. I risked reaching out, and found Severn’s presence fading. I stayed where I was, waiting until I lost all sense of him. When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to see that nothing had changed. Sunlight still filtered in from the open entrance. It had all seemed so real in my mind.

When I turned back Rowan was staring with wide eyes, holding both horses’ reins in one hand and pulling her jacket and cloak tight to her body with the other. Her breath came out in smoky white plumes that faded as the cave warmed.

“Is he gone?” she whispered. I nodded, and she relaxed slightly. “What was that? Why did it get so cold?”

“Do you know anything about magic?”

“Um… no. Well, I’ve heard that you—I mean people sell their souls to get it.” She offered a nervous half-smile. “I sort of hoped that wasn’t true, though.”

“No. If I’m damned, it’s not for that.” I meant it as a joke to put her at ease, but she didn’t seem to think it was humorous.

“So what is it? How does it work?”

How to explain magic to someone as ignorant as her? I’d studied it all my life and still didn’t understand it.

“Magic is energy, like sunlight or a thunderstorm or the life in your body. It’s everywhere, or it should be. Some creatures wouldn’t exist without it, like flying horses, gryphons or the Aeyer—”

“Aeyer?”

“Winged people. Mountain folk. Other creatures and people are able to use it to do various things. We don’t all have the same abilities, and it takes a lot of training to learn how to use them properly.”

“For example?”

I wasn’t eager to talk about my natural abilities concerning mind-control. “For example, Severn has natural skill with fire. That talent showed itself long before he learned to control it. What I did a few minutes ago was an attempt to keep him from locating me, creating a magical shield of sorts. It’s not something I’ve practiced, or even planned. It worked, but the process also took a different kind of energy from the air in here, making it cold. We’re lucky that’s all that happened.” People had died attempting less, but that information didn’t seem like it would make her any more comfortable with the concept.

I stepped toward my horse, and she shied away. Rowan took the bags off of both horses as I turned to set up the firewood in a depression in the floor, stripping bark and piling it beneath the branches. Rowan carried the saddles to an out of the way spot in the cave and brought our bags to the fire pit, limping on her injured ankle.

“So does everyone in Tyrea use magic?”

“No. Most can’t at all. Some have very low-level magic, and use it as they can. Their skill sets tend to be very narrow. Sorcerers have more magic in us, and it replenishes faster after we use it. We have a wider range of natural gifts, and if we’re willing to risk those unpredictable outcomes, we can expand beyond that. Like me changing into an eagle. It was a risk the first time I tried it. Very dangerous, even after study. But it worked.” I took a fire striker from my bag and lit the kindling. “Sadly, some skills seem destined to remain forever out of my reach.”

She smiled at that. “Being able to make fires would be convenient.” She sat across from me with her legs stretched out in front, head tilted to one side. “There’s so much I want to ask about magic.”

“But?”

“But I think the more important question is why I’m here. Why did Severn want me? You said I have magic, but I don’t. I’m not like you. I don’t start fires, or make strange things happen.”

“You healed me.”

“I didn’t. I believe that magic healed you. There’s no other explanation. But it wasn’t mine.” She took off her boot and pulled Sara’s ointment from her bag to rub onto her injuries. “Is this magic? Is Sara like you?”

“No, she’s a Potioner. It’s different, and not important right now. She’s not a Sorceress. Not like you.”

Rowan set the jar aside and leaned forward. “Please stop saying that.”

“My body heals far more quickly than the average person’s. Any Sorcerer’s does, but it’s nothing on that scale. And what happened that night goes beyond simple healing. The magic hunters treated their arrows with a substance that kept me from using my magic. You destroyed that poison. Your magic flowed through me, repairing the damage until you fainted, and then it ended.” I couldn’t sit still anymore. I stood and paced the cave, though there was little space. “Do you remember any of it?”

“No. I remember a crazy dream, and darkness. Pain. Everything was so confused. But as far as what actually happened, I remember wanting something to cover Aquila’s—I mean, your wounds, and getting dizzy. So maybe you used unfamiliar magic when you healed yourself, and causing me pain was the unexpected effect?”

I stopped and stood opposite her, with the fire between us. “Why are you fighting this?”

She pulled her boot back on and laced it tight. “I’m not fighting, I’m being rational. I’m not like that.” She said it as though magic were a curse or an illness. But then, according to what she’d grown up hearing, it was.

“There’s powerful magic in you, Rowan.”

“But I-”

“Please, let me explain. You once told me you wanted magic in your life. At least give it a chance.”

She clamped her mouth shut and motioned for me to continue.

“Your magic healed me, but it hurt you. I believe that’s because when you were young, someone found out about your power and decided it needed to be locked away inside of you. It’s a process called binding, and it hasn’t been done for centuries, at least not according to any records I could find.”

She looked like the objections or questions were going to come exploding out of her at any moment, but she held back.

“Go ahead.”

“How? And who would do that? And if I believed you, what would you propose I do about this binding thing?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t know, and I’m thinking about it.” I untied a blanket from my pack, laid it out on the floor, and sat. “I suppose might have some luck finding help or answers in Tyrea, though the libraries in Luid are out of the question now. There might be others who could help.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Forgive me, but going toward your brother doesn’t sound like the best plan to me.”

“When we’re in Tyrea my magic will be stronger than it is here. I can protect us. And magic has to be the answer to this. There must be someone in Tyrea who knows what kind of magic can break a binding, and once we do that, you’ll be able to use your magic to defend yourself.” I heard the excitement in my voice, and took a breath to calm myself. It would take time for her to learn, but I was sure she could do it. “You’ll find protection in Tyrea, especially with other magic-users, if people know what you are. If you go home now and your magic remains hidden, you’ll never be safe from Severn, or your own people if it gets out.”

She glanced at the flames dancing in the fire pit and chewed on her lower lip. “When I woke up on the ship and you said I was in more trouble than I knew, you weren’t just referring to Severn, were you?”

“No. He was and is the most immediate danger, but there’s more. There’s the binding, which I think is only going to cause you more pain as time goes on and your magic grows stronger.” The idea that it might kill her had occurred to me, but the look of horror on her face at the mention of more pain made me keep it to myself. “There’s also the fact that you’re a Sorceress who’s a Darmish citizen and planning to marry a magic hunter.”

She shivered in spite of the heat from the fire. “I have to go.” She used the rough stone wall to pull herself up, then limped toward the cave entrance.

“You can’t just leave.”

She stopped, but didn’t look at me. When she spoke again, her voice was weary. “I just have to pee. I’ll come back. Give me a few minutes alone. Please.”

I allowed some time to get away from the cave, then tethered the horses outside with water and grain rations. I watched from a distance as Rowan returned to the cave, and decided she could use more time alone with her thoughts. Perhaps she’d realize I was right.

We needed to add to our food supplies, anyway. I walked farther into the woods, undressed, and transformed into my eagle’s body.

#

Prey was scarce on the side of the mountain, but I spotted and killed a fat rabbit. I changed back into my own body and returned to the tree where I’d left my clothes and hunting knife, and cleaned the carcass. It wasn’t much, but it would be better than nothing.

I hesitated before I entered the cave. If only I could sense Rowan’s mood and her thoughts. Had she been a normal citizen of her country, I could have forced her to understand. But then, if she’d been normal, she would have been safe from all of this.