Daybreak (31 page)

His words trailed away when she turned to the stars, and he saw the deep, jagged wound that scraped across her face. It carved through her skin and marred her features. Had it not been for the blaze in her one un-swollen eye, he didn’t think he would’ve recognized her.

“Come here.”

She stood surprisingly still while he healed her. The black dragon’s claws had carved gouges into her flesh. He had to seal her skin from its root. Inside the deepest cut, he healed a crack that scraped across her cheekbone. But though her wounds were horrible, she’d still been lucky.

“If he’d gotten you across the throat, you’d be dead. You
do
realize that, don’t you?”

She said nothing. Her eyes stayed locked upon his, their fires unnaturally calm.

Kael’s hands fell to his sides. He held her gaze, hoping she might be able to see everything he felt — all of the fear, all of the worry … all of the things he couldn’t quite put into words.

He hoped she understood why he couldn’t free the black dragon. He hoped she could see that he would do anything to protect her.

“I couldn’t risk it. It wasn’t worth —”

Her lips pressed against his, silencing them. She clutched the back of his neck and brought him in closer; she wrapped her other arm about his waist.

Through the heat that flooded beneath his skin, Kael thought to be surprised. He was certain she’d be furious with him for trying to kill the black dragon, or angry about being captured — or already planning some daring escape. There was no anger or worry in her touch, but there was … something. 

He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, trying to figure out what it was that had her pressed against him — that made her touch so firm and desperate. Her hand slipped down his neck and across his chest. A calmness washed over him, spurred on by her touch. It doused his fear and snuffed his worries out. Soon there was nothing left but warmth and silence.

When she pulled away, there was something strange in her look — something out of place. But before he could figure out what it was, she spoke:

“I know things seem a bit grim right now, but we’ll sort it out. Trust me.”

Kael felt his head bob up and down. He
did
trust her — he trusted her completely. He hardly noticed the fall of her smile as she slid back into his arms.

Things suddenly didn’t seem so grim.

The night passed quickly, nothing more than black slivers between the patchwork of her dreams. There were a few restless minutes when Elena feared that Aerilyn might get them lost. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that she might wake to find herself several miles from where they meant to go. But the mindrot left her with little choice.

A pale dawn gave way to early morning. The exhaustion drained from Elena’s limbs, replaced by the cold nothingness she’d come so accustomed to over the past several weeks. She remembered how the cold had wrapped around her in the second the arrow flew, how it made everything else seem small. In that moment, she’d felt as if she had nowhere else to go.

She’d felt as if the world was at an end — and she’d seen no reason to move.

Now, she was beginning to regret it.

Despite Aerilyn’s attempts to bind it, the wound beneath her shoulder had swollen considerably. Elena swore she could feel it growing by the minute, festering against the little pieces of grit and splinters the arrow had left behind. Soon she could feel her heartbeats radiating from its middle: their tremors shook her stomach, her ribs. They climbed up her throat to pound inside her head.

The world shook so fiercely after a while that Elena had no choice but to close her eyes. She leaned heavily against the back of Aerilyn’s shoulder as Braver plodded on, clinging to the faint sounds of the woods.

Finally, she woke to a gasp.

“What …?” Elena couldn’t finish the question. She breathed in a lungful of thick, blackened air and wound up choking on her words.

Aerilyn’s hand was clamped tightly around her wrist. She kicked Braver into a trot and Elena tried to stay conscious as the world bounced past her. Tall, spiny trees stood over their heads. The ground beneath them was littered in stone. Clouds of smoke hung so thickly between the trees that it turned the land beyond to haze.

It wasn’t until Aerilyn led them to the crest of a hill that Elena realized where they were.

She saw the mouth of a large, glittering lake stretched out before them. And her heart froze inside her chest. “What are you doing? Get back — they’ll see us!”

She lunged for the reins and nearly toppled when the movement swirled her vision. Aerilyn’s grip tightened around her arm. “We aren’t in any danger. I don’t think there’s anyone left to see us.”

Her voice was oddly quiet. Elena blinked against the pain and followed her gaze across the lake, where she found the source of the smoke.

A black cloud thickened the air above the village. The gates were smashed; the walls still glowed with embers. Charred skeletons were all that remained of the shops and homes. A pile of corpses lay at the water’s edge. Their gold-tinged armor glinted weakly through the haze as it caught the morning light.

“Midlan,” Aerilyn breathed. “The King must’ve attacked Lakeshore … but why? What could he possibly have to gain by killing D’Mere?”

Elena wasn’t sure. After all the plotting she’d done, the Countess more than deserved to be sacked. But she doubted if the King had ever found about her plan: all of the evidence of her betrayal now lay frozen at the mountains’ top — where Crevan would never find it.

Though Elena tried to concentrate, her pain was too great. Her vision blurred with every throb of her wound. The castle sat below them — empty, with charred rings around the sockets of its windows. More gold-tinged bodies lay scattered before its gates.
 

Something had burst through the doors and snapped the monstrous beam at its middle. Smoke wept from the collapsed portions of the roof. D’Mere’s guards lay dead throughout the courtyard … but there weren’t as many bodies as she thought there would be. In fact, only a handful seemed to have come out to face Midlan at all.

It was … strange …

“You need a healer.”

Aerilyn’s voice cut sharply across her ears. Elena blinked through the darkness and struggled to fix her eyes upon the shore. “No, I’m fine. We ought to get as far away from here … there could be others …”

“I’m taking you to Pinewatch.”

“No … please …”

“We’re going to get you a healer, and that’s final,” she said as she turned Braver from the hill. “It’ll do you absolutely no good to argue.”

Elena’s eyes swam with the motion of the turn. Braver passed a gap in the trees and for one brief moment, she caught a glimpse of the castle’s shores.

They were littered with bodies, dozens upon dozens of them — each swollen taut against the sun. Village men and castle guards lay beside others: men from the desert and the seas. But one corpse among them made Elena’s blood run cold.

It washed up against some wooded debris and rocked with the slap of the waves. Though its face was pressed into the sand, she knew from its size and its crop of stark white hair that it had to be a giant. She was
certain
of it.

Pain closed her eyes and dulled the edges of her mind. Still, the giant’s body hung before her as the darkness rushed in, rocking back and forth against the shores of her memory … haunting her with its warning.

*******

By the time Elena woke, it was nearly evening. Her eyes opened to the noise of another gasp, and she found herself on the outskirts of Pinewatch.

She’d traveled this road so often that she would’ve known it by its bumps and dips — which turned out to be a very good thing, because the village itself was unrecognizable.
 

Pinewatch had grown since the last she’d seen it. They were a mile from where the heart of the village stood and Braver was already picking his way through people. Most lived in tents, but several had half-built homes on the land beside them. The noise of hammers filled the air. The smells of cook fires and resin hung thickly in the pockets between houses. 

Aerilyn’s pace slowed as she gazed around the tented village. “There are so many of them. What are they all doing here?” 

She nudged Braver towards the sound of haggling. Elena slid forward and held on tightly to the saddle when Aerilyn jumped down. She dragged the reins to the edge of the village, where several merchants had set up camps.

Aerilyn cut a straight line to one man in particular: a merchant Elena recognized immediately as a fletcher from the southern forest. She kept her head down as Aerilyn dragged Braver over to him.

“What are you doing in my village, Foster?”

“Bleeding coin,” he snapped as he tied a package for one of his customers. No sooner had he bound one set of goods than a woman stepped up with another.

Aerilyn pursed her lips as her eyes cut down the line of people waiting for his help. “Really? It looks as if you’re doing rather well.”

“Things are selling, if that’s what you mean. But the price to set up a trade in Pinewatch is thrice what it used to be. I can barely keep my tunic at the rate that blasted cook is charging,” Foster moaned, and his eyes slid over to the coin the woman had set on the counter.

At his look, she begrudgingly set a few more.

“Thank you, madam! You’ve helped a poor old shopkeeper stay open a few days more,” Foster called after her. Then he slipped Aerilyn a wink.

She didn’t look at all amused. “Horatio’s charging threefold for caravans to set up shop? And you’re paying it?” she said incredulously when Foster nodded. “Why?”

“Witchcraft, mostly.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Have you been drinking again?”

“I haven’t had a drop in almost twenty years, not since I saw that ghost,” he swore, eyes flicking about him — as if he expected some wraith to coming crawling out of the woods at any moment. But he recovered quickly. “Rumor has it that you’ve been off adventuring in the seas, Miss Aerilyn. I just spoke to a man who said he saw you in the high chancellor’s court. Been making some friends, have you? And here I thought you’d given up on trade.”

“Never mind what I’ve been doing,” Aerilyn said coolly. “What’s this I hear about witchcraft?”

Foster leaned back, frowning. “That blasted cook has come up with something — some sauce he puts on everything down at his tavern. The mercenaries can’t seem to get enough of it. If they happen to come through here on a job, then they come back once they’re finished. Most have set up shop.”

“Why should that make any difference? It’s not as if you’re being forced to follow them.”

“Well in a way, I am.” Foster traced a swollen finger across the counter between them. His voice dropped low. “Midlan’s been awful busy this spring. Forest folk have started to disappear. The Countess hasn’t been seen in ages — word is that she’s under siege. Surely you’ve heard the rumors by now.”

“I’ve heard some things, yes,” Aerilyn said, her jaw tight.

“Then you’ll understand that people have started to worry. They’re looking for protection now more than ever. The common man can’t afford to hire a blade, but he knows that a mercenary will defend his own home. So the blades have settled here for the food, the people have all followed the blades, and now we poor merchants have no choice but to follow the people.”

Aerilyn narrowed her eyes at Foster before she led Braver away. Her shoulders bent forward and her eyes stayed fixed up the hill. As they reached the heart of Pinewatch, she smiled at the villagers’ greetings. They were just as busy, working just as hard as always, but they swarmed Aerilyn she moment they spotted her.

Elena tried not to breathe as the villagers crowded in around them. They didn’t stop Aerilyn but walked with her up the hill. Several of them embraced her. She bent to hug the children who tugged on her sleeves. She called each of them by name. 

The two boys who always seemed to be hovering around Garron’s home shoved through to greet her — shouting at the tops of their lungs:

“Oi, Aerilyn! You’ve come back!” the youngest boy called. He flung an elbow at his brother. “See? I told you she’d come back to us.”

“I never said she wasn’t coming back!” the elder boy insisted.

They spoke at a level that made the blacksmith’s dog howl at the end of its chain, but Aerilyn swooped both brothers under her arms. “Have you been taking bets against me, Chaney?”

The elder boy shook his head vigorously and jabbed an accusing finger at his brother. “Claude’s just telling tales.”

“I am not! You said —”

“Enough, boys. I’ve got plenty of kisses for both of you.”

Claude squealed and tried to run, but not before Aerilyn managed to plant her lips on the top of his head. Chaney didn’t put up near as much of a fight — and his skin burned where she’d kissed him.

As they neared the house at the top of the hill, the villagers’ words turned solemn. Tears flooded Aerilyn’s eyes. One of the men took the reins from her hands so that the women could comfort her. Several of them cried as they spoke about Garron. They assured her all was well, and that the village was healing. 

Elena thought she would’ve been less frightened if the villagers had charged them with their swords. She would’ve preferred anything to this cloud of tears and smiles, and somber words — even the bite of another arrow.

“Be careful with my friend,” Aerilyn called when they reached the stables. “She’s wounded.”

“I’ll get the healer!” the Claude declared.

Chaney sprinted ahead of him. “Not if I get there first!”

Dust tore up from their heels as the brothers galloped away, but Elena didn’t get a chance to watch them. One of the men pulled her from the saddle and directly into his arms.

“I’m fine. I can walk,” Elena insisted.

The man shook his head. “Miss Aerilyn says you’re wounded. It’d be best for you to just lie still.”

She felt foolish lying like an infant in his arms. But it was better than having to march along in the crowd. 

They were a stone’s throw from Garron’s simple house when the front door burst open. “Aerilyn!”