Bound (Bound Trilogy) (3 page)

My stomach clenched. I’d been trying to avoid thinking about those good things that I was supposed to be so excited about. Sympathy for magic held no place in my future. “Understood. You want to come in for lunch?”

“Nah, I’ve got work to do. You need anything else?”

“I think I can handle it. Thanks.”

Ashe waved and jogged back toward town.

I stood for a few more minutes looking at the mountains and another shudder ran up my spine.
Magic,
I thought. I knew Ashe was right, but still.
What if?
I’d once spent my days acting out fairy tales in the woods. More recently, on days when the town and its rules frustrated me, I’d thought about taking our old horse and following the shore past the mountains, just to see what was really there before I had to settle down for good.

Dreams are for children,
I reminded myself,
and you’re not a child anymore. Good things are coming, remember?

I sighed and rubbed my temples, where tendrils of pain once again crept forward. It was going to be one of those days when it came and went like the tide. The headaches were only becoming more frequent and severe as the years passed, but even town doctors were at a loss as to how to stop them.

At least there was one treatment that helped.

I opened the gate and followed the path through the yellowing grasses to my family’s home. Out of habit, I paused to rub my fingers over the rowanwood wreath beside the door. Nearly every home in town had one, thanks to an old superstition that said it would protect the people within from the dangers of magic. A tiny branch cracked off under my fingers, and I stuffed it back into the circle as another beat of pain thudded at my skull. No time to worry about a silly decoration. I had more pressing concerns to think about.

Chapter Three

Rowan

A
note waited for me on the little table inside the front door. I unfolded it and read as I followed the long hallway to the kitchen.

Rowan,

I’ll be at the workshop this afternoon. Please don’t go out tonight. We need to talk.

-Mum

“Where would I go?” I muttered, fighting the urge to crumple the note into a ball and toss it on the floor. Whatever she wanted to talk about, it wasn’t going to be pleasant for me. I left the paper on the kitchen table while I set the kettle to boil on Mother’s new wood stove, then searched the cupboards for heartleaf bark.

The purple glass jar where I kept it was empty, though I was certain I’d just bought some. The emergency supply I’d tucked away under the sink was stale, but better than nothing. I poured a thin stream of boiling water over the strings of bark and let it steep for as long as I could, then gulped the hot, bitter tea down. A burned throat was a small price to pay for relief.

I carried a second cup of tea with me to my room and cleared a space for it on the little bedside table, sending several charcoal pencils clinking to the floor. I laid my bag on the bed and took out the book of fairy tales. The leather cover was cracked, and the gold leaf that had once highlighted the title worn. My Uncle Ches took far better care of his personal collection. Still, the book was over two hundred years old and still in one piece. I wasn’t going to complain.

I turned to set the book down next to my tea. Something didn’t look right. The book I kept drawings in sat on the far side of the table, under the oil lamp. Not where I’d left it. The papers that had been underneath it were stacked in a neat pile, not the disorganized mess I had left them in.

I grabbed the sheaf of papers and rifled through, but the letter was gone.

“No,” I groaned. A black and white cat hiding in the pile of clothes at the end of my bed woke and yawned.

The letter had arrived a week before, and I’d panicked when I saw the return address and the neat handwriting on the envelope. I’d been expecting a proposal from Callum Langley, and should have been excited about it. After all, he was everything a Darmish girl could wish for—strong, handsome, son of one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Ardare, and following in his father’s footsteps as a magic hunter.

We’d met at a party the year before, when I visited Ardare with my parents. I was trying to avoid another man who spouted poetry and insisted on comparing my eyes to storm clouds, dripping wine on my shoes all the while.

The hostess had been forcing her cousin on Callum. The woman was a simpering idiot who batted her eyelashes and laughed at inappropriate times when he was talking. He and I had started talking in order to avoid our pursuers and found that we got along very well. We always did, when he found time to visit. Still, I’d balked when he started talking about marriage. It felt wrong, too fast. And now, a letter. I’d meant to show it to my parents, but had hoped to work out my response first.

I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes to push back the pain so I could think. My mother would never understand why I’d hidden the letter. At nearly twenty years old, I was practically a spinster by Darmish standards, and was well aware of how embarrassing it was for my parents. I should have been married and trying to have children by age seventeen. Darmish women had difficulty conceiving, and the magic that lingered in our land killed many babies when they were still too weak to fight it off. Some families never had a child survive its first year, and a family like mine with four grown to adulthood inspired both gratitude and envy in the community. Darmish girls grew up knowing that it was our duty to maintain the population.

I just couldn’t help wishing it wasn’t my personal duty. I liked children, but felt exhausted at the very thought of living like my older sisters, who spent their days chasing snot-nosed toddlers around.

If only I could be more like my beautiful, bubbly cousin Felicia, who was constantly surrounded by suitors in the capital city and loved every minute of it. She was a few years younger than me and would be settling down soon, too. She’d find a perfect husband, have perfect children, and be happy making a perfect home.

I set the papers back on the table and wished I had someone to talk it over with. I couldn’t tell my mother about my misgivings, but Felicia might at least try to understand. If only she lived closer. I had no friends in town I could talk to, and if my sisters ever found time to listen, they’d just call me a silly fool and tell me to grow up.

That didn’t mean I had to sit around and listen to my mother’s predictable rant and watch the accompanying hand-wringing, though. It suddenly seemed like an excellent time to visit the family I’d grown up with. I’d been meaning to go anyway, to help get my aunt and uncle’s big, old house ready for winter. Going now would allow me a brief escape, and no one was likely to go that far to drag me home and face my mother. I’d think about sending Callum my acceptance when I returned. Refusing his proposal was out of the question, but…

“It just seems so final,” I whispered. The cat ignored me.

The headache was fading, if only slightly. I took off my skirt and slipped into pants that would be more practical for travel, then tossed clothing into my old canvas bag, along with the book of fairy tales and the knife Ashe gave me as a sixteenth birthday present. There was no harm in reading the book, no matter what Ashe and the authorities might think. The old stories comforted me with their familiar adventures, the romance, and even the magic, and they took my mind off of my real-world problems in a way that nothing else could.

In just a few minutes I was finished packing, and I hurried to shove the rest of the bedroom’s mess under the bed. “I’ll miss you, Puzzle,” I told the cat.

He twitched an ear and went back to sleep.
If only everyone else was so content to let me be,
I thought, and kissed his head.

My parents’ house wasn’t especially large compared to many in Lowdell, but Mother kept it meticulously clean and tastefully decorated. Today most of the windows were open, and the cream-colored, lace curtains lifted and swayed in the gentle breeze. I moved as quietly as I could through the kitchen, taking only a slice of buttered bread for my lunch and eating it as I piled meat and greens into a sandwich for the road. One of the beautiful glass flasks my mother made in her shop held enough water for the trip, and I threw in an apple for the horse. The back side of my mother’s note was still blank, and I used it to scratch out the details of where I’d gone. At least she’d be pleased that I hadn’t wasted paper.

The front door creaked open, and I froze.

“Rowan?” My mother’s voice carried clearly down the hallway. “Are you home?”

Damn.
She was early. I hesitated for a moment, then slipped out the back door. There was no point discussing the letter with her. It would just turn into a fight with her insisting that I accept the proposal before Callum gave up on me, and me pushing back, not knowing why I thought I needed to fight so hard. I understood that marrying Callum would be the best thing for me. I would say yes, and make my parents proud. I would live the life I was meant to have, and I’d learn to be happy with it.

Everything would be just perfect.

The old wooden cart waited in our little stable, and I pulled a few things from the storage closet to take with me to Stone Ridge—a crate of preserves, sugar, sweets left over from the previous month’s festival. It wasn’t much, but taking supplies was a good excuse to make the journey.

I wondered what excuse I’d use to get away once I’d married and moved to Ardare. I’d have to find a way. They and their servants were more family to me than my mother, father, and siblings. But once children came along…

I gripped hard onto the side of the cart and took deep breaths to calm my aching stomach.

Jigger, our old chestnut gelding, watched from his stall. I slipped in beside him to crouch in the clean hay that covered the floor, and buried my face in my hands.

“It’s going to be perfect,” I told myself. “I’m going to have everything a girl should want.”

I tried to imagine a big, beautiful wedding. Callum would look so handsome, and I would stand there in front of God and everyone and declare that I would love him forever.

My heart fluttered in my chest, like a bird frantic to escape a cage that was growing smaller every day. I took deep breaths and squeezed back the tears that stung my eyes.

“What is wrong with me?” I whispered.

Chapter Four

Rowan

T
he afternoon air was crisp, colder than it should have been before harvest’s end, but the sun shone bright and the leaves on the trees were halfway to what would soon be a riot of colors. Jigger’s hoofs crunched over those that had already fallen as we reached the shelter of the forest road. It was a perfect day for travel, and the weather did wonders for my mood. Soon I was able to leave my anxiety behind and let my thoughts drift to more pleasant things.

The sun had dropped behind the trees before we reached the rock formation that Stone Ridge was named for. The narrow granite and quartz ridge ran along the north side of the road, rising to twice my height in the middle and tapering toward both ends of its considerable length. It sat on the border of the property, and had marked the edge of my world when I was a young girl.

Back then I had pretended it was the back of a huge dragon sleeping in the earth, waiting to wake and snatch unwary travelers. It was a good game, but even then I’d known it couldn’t have been true. My people drove the dragons out of Darmid long before I was born. Sometimes I still wished I could see one, just once. It was so easy to imagine a sleek, green form slithering between the trees in that forest, especially on foggy days.

You should ask Callum if he’ll take you to Tyrea to see a dragon
, I thought, and smiled. That might have been enough to get rid of him forever, if I’d wanted to. A respectable person would never be interested in such things.

I was lost in those thoughts when a crashing noise in the trees above us made me jump in my seat and let out a small scream. Jigger froze, ears forward and muscles quivering visibly under his shaggy coat. I understood perfectly how he felt—my own heart pounded, and I felt like I might throw up the sandwich I’d stopped to eat earlier. I scanned the trees overhead, and noticed a small patch of damaged branches over the long rock.

Maybe you called a dragon to yourself
. The hairs on the backs of my arms prickled. I dug my knife out of my bag, then slipped down from the cart. It occurred to me that it would probably a better idea to just leave, as Jigger seemed eager to do. But these were my woods, and I’d always been insatiably curious about the things that lived in them. I didn’t think I’d forgive myself if I didn’t at least look.

It was probably nothing, anyway.

My knife looked laughably small, but it made me feel braver than I would have without it. I crept toward the ridge, and winced as the dry leaves crunched under my weight, the small sound amplified in the eerily silent forest. A moment later there came a shuffling noise from the other side of the ridge. It stopped, but something was waiting there, perhaps something more frightened than I was—or perhaps just waiting to attack. I leaned my chest against the cold, moss-spotted rock, breathed deeply, and peered over to the other side.

“SKREEEE!”

A high-pitched shriek pierced my brain in the spot beside my left eye that still ached. I glimpsed a large brown bird tucked beneath a fallen pine before I ducked back behind my own side of the ridge.

Not a dragon, then
. I almost laughed at my wild imagination. Just an eagle, though not quite like the white-headed ones we usually saw near the water. I sheathed and pocketed my knife.

When I looked again, the eagle was waiting for me. It had backed as far as it could under the dead tree, but hanging branches blocked most of the space and prevented retreat. One wing lay outstretched at an awkward angle over the leaf-littered ground, displaying slick, wet feathers.