Arissa's Fate (Redemption Trilogy) (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Arissa
gasped sharply from the blinding pain and felt her knees buckling, waves of sickness washing over her. The screams of the panicked crowds around her grew more and more distant in her ears, and she was barely aware of the other shrieking noise that she hadn’t been expecting.

A horse’s wild and deep whinny split the air from nearby. Arissa was slumped to her knees, trying to turn her head in the direction she had heard it
, but it was too painful. She must already be delirious, because there was no way that she was seeing Raze charging across the open streets behind the livid crowd. People dove out of the way in every direction to avoid the charging horse.

Meanwhile, one of the soldiers behind her leapt forward and grasped her wrists, pulling out a knife and began sawing on the ropes that bound her. Arissa was occupied trying to
keep breathing in time to her ragged gasps, but when she whipped her head back to see the soldier who was helping her, he leaning close enough to speak to her.

“Arissa, you’ll be okay. We’re getting you out of here right now. Cayl’s already safe. Just breathe.”

Arissa’s vision was tilting and swirling before her. Suddenly her hands were freed, and the soldier was helping her to her feet.

It felt like she was t
rying to focus her attention on six different things at once, all while trying not to hyperventilate. Blood had completely soaked the front of her shirt and her cloak, and she felt even more woozy as she attempted to stand.

So many questions plagued her. Who had shot her? Why was this soldier helping her when he should have been trying to arrest her again? Where
was the General? Where was Cayl? Why was Raze suddenly charging up the ramp of the wooden platform she was on?

The soldier helped her onto her horse, giving her brief instructions to ride north until she found a group of people hidden in the forest, waiting to help her. She didn’t have time to ask or say anything else before Raze shot off into a blurred streak, quickly leaving behind the crowd of enraged Daer settlers.

Arissa melded close to Raze’s withers, just trying to remain conscious, but the pain was growing so intense that she found it harder to open her eyes each time. She was cold. The wind bit her cheeks as it tore through her cloak, causing it to snap furiously in the wind behind them.

It seemed like an eternity of enduring the painful jostle of each stride
that Raze took, but eventually she felt him slowing, and even though she could no longer keep her eyes open, she heard voices. It wasn’t the intense screams of the revolted crowds, but the softer, calmer voices of only a few people. The next thing she felt was her entire body going slack as she fell completely under the dark spell of pain, but she never felt the impact of the fall.

*   *   *

Nearly a week later, Arissa still felt like she could go back to her bed and sleep for another twelve solid hours. The throbbing pain in her shoulder was still present, but dulled considerably thanks to one of Yasmine’s brewed teas. The steady rhythm of her rocking chair was soothing and so relaxing that her eyes threatened to close again, but she wouldn’t allow it. She had waited too long for this moment.

While she was waiting for Cayl to return, Arissa thought back to what had happened the day of her planned execution. After falling unconscious from Raze, she had awoken in the camp that she had been directed to. It was made up of nearly fifty people, at least seventy percent of which w
ere militia soldiers. At first she had felt herself beginning to panic, until Cayl had appeared at her side, gripping her weak hand and calming her. He explained to her that they were in a secret camp that had been made by a group of military soldiers who were tired of seeing the General get away with what he had. They had decided to turn their attention to finding a way to overthrow him, but they needed more people on their side first. It was why they had built this temporary camp, until they could gather a group large enough.

The camp was made up of quickly, but sturdily buil
t shacks that were better put together than most of the houses in the cities. They had been constructed out of vertical logs, with a layer of greenery wrapped around the outer edge to camouflage the buildings into the forest. They were fairly good size, perhaps enough room for three or four people to live in and there must have been at least twenty five of them.

Even Arissa had never travelle
d to this part of the territory because it was in a valley. It was such a treacherous place to get to that nobody had any reason to trek there. The only visitors they were likely to get were the wild animals that occasionally passed through.

Arissa had only seen the outside of the camp once, when she and Cayl had left, escorted back to their home outside of Daer. It was nearly an hour ride from the camp.

Even though the details were fuzzy from her drug-induced rest at the camp, Arissa recalled how Cayl and another soldier she had gotten to know, Trax, had explained to her several of the missing puzzle pieces she had not been able to find.

Ever
since news first broke about the Governor’s murder, this clandestine group had taken immediate action to protect Arissa. They had known, that given her past and her history with the General, she would be the key to getting to him and unlocking his power and leadership. Several things began to make more sense to Arissa as they continued telling her about what had taken place.

The sniper who had shot Karson in the Vailwood reformatory had been an undercover soldier and Karson had been a part of it. The General had a ploy set in Vailwood and in a successful attempt to mislead her from there, Karson had volunteered to act as decoy in order for her to escape. It made Arissa feel guilty at the thought of not knowing that someone she had once been friends with had put himself in danger like that.

The dead body that she had found in the woods had been a spy from the General’s army who had been tracking Arissa. However, they had first captured him and forced him to mislead another group of real soldiers who had been in the area. They had killed him, thinking he was Cayl because of the similar jacket that he had been seen with on several sightings. It had been the shot she had heard and Trax confessed to being the one to kill the Captain.

“Because who wouldn’t enjoy putting a bullet in that
thief, am I right?” he had added on, proudly.

When Arissa had finally confronted Cayl about how he had gotten injured, he told her how he had been shot during an attack on the
Varkland mountains. Apparently the attack from the highwaymen that she had been present for had not been the first.

This was all too much fo
r Arissa to process, but slowly the information began to sink in after she repeated it in her mind several times. When she asked about the General, everyone either scowled in anger or offered a string of inappropriate terms to describe him with.

Cayl explained how the General
had vanished during the confusion at the execution, his voice regretful.

Arissa felt her heart sinking. After hearing all of this, she had hoped that at least she would hear that he had been captured or, even better, killed while she had been fighting for her life. They hadn’t changed a thing.

When she voiced her thoughts, Cayl corrected her quickly, reminding her that everything had changed. They were back together and both alive, there was finally a dedicated group of people who could overthrow the General and because of what had happened in the city square, it was obvious that Arissa had not been a part of any murder plot against the Governor. They didn’t need to hide and run away anymore. They could finally go home.

The only thing left for Arissa to question was her own shooting. “I don’t understand. If it was you guys who had shot Karson and the Captain
and
the man I saw in mountains...then who shot me?”

It took a moment for either Trax or Cayl to answer, as they seemed to be the most talkative of the group of ten people around her duri
ng the conversation. Eventually Trax spoke up, “We don’t know who shot you, Arissa. It threw us all off. We had a completely different plan for saving you and capturing the General at the same time, but after that...it was just sort of a rush to get you out of there. We wouldn’t have been so lucky if that stallion of yours hadn’t showed up.”

Arissa didn’t say anything to them, but she knew who had shot her. The same man who had wanted to kill her at the Governor’s mansion. Everything after that had happened so fast, she hadn’t even told anyone about it yet.

Ever since being reunited with her horse, Arissa had felt a lift in her spirits as well. Now she simply sat in her chair back in her house that she had missed so much. She could hear Cayl’s footsteps echoing down the hall.

When he entered the pale room, his face was lit up into a wide smile and bright eyes. Arissa returned the expression, feeling her excitement rising quickly.

“Are you ready?” he asked her, taking a seat beside her rocking chair, reaching out to grip her hand tightly.

“I’ve bee
n waiting for months, of course I’m ready!” Arissa attempted to sit up farther in her chair, but pain shot through her shoulder, forcing her to sit back down.

A young woman who worked
occasionally for them as a maid entered the room and at the sight of the soft bundle of blanket in her arms Arissa’s heart shot up in her chest, pounding deeply in her throat.

When the maid reached Arissa, she couldn’t wait any longer to see what she had been looking forward to seeing again for months. She gingerly took the bundle in her arms and heard Cayl thank the woman as she left the room.

Arissa gently pulled back the folds of the blanket she held and suddenly felt tears falling freely from her happy eyes. Her shoulder flashed with hot pain under the white bandage when she moved her arm, but she was too elated to heed to it.

The last time Arissa had seen her newborn daughter had been on that dreadful night that seemed so long ago now.
She had been singing the baby to sleep when the window had been shattered and Cayl had been kidnapped the first time. Before flying off to the Governor’s, she had quickly stashed her baby with Cayl’s sister who lived with her husband outside of Daer. The couple lived very far off the radar, having no association with anything political or notorious at all. In fact, most people didn’t even know they were associated with Arissa and Cayl, which was exactly why she had chosen them to take care of her daughter while she had been on the run.

She had only been a few weeks old then and had grown considerably since.
Her pale skin was flawless, as were her eyes that were already a glistening green, just like her father’s. However, she had her mother’s hair, the silky strands of black hair matching Arissa’s exactly. Everything about her was beautiful and perfect.

Arissa and Cayl took turns holding her and talking to her, both of their faces lighting up when she smiled and laughed at the sound of their voices. Arissa even saw tears streaming from Cayl’s eyes as he held his daughter close.

It was hours later when Cayl had left the room to get Arissa another dose of Yasmine’s medicinal tea. Her child lay in her arms, asleep, as she gently rocked, thinking about the last time she had been able to hold her. It had killed her to leave her behind, but obviously there had been no choice.

Arissa couldn’t help but stare at her daughter as she slept. She spoke softly to her.

“You were the only thing keeping me going while I was out there, babe. As hard as it was, I thought about you every single day. The thought of your sweet face reminded me of everything that I needed to fight for. And from now on, I promise that everything I do is going to be to protect you. I want you growing up in a world where you don’t have to worry about obeying people. You deserve so much better because you are good. You are perfect, and I am going to see to it that you are treated that way. The bad people will be gone and you won’t have to know about any of it.”

Silent tears still staining her cheeks, Arissa pressed her lips to her sleeping daughter’s forehead. “I promise, Janelle. You’re always going to be safe as long as I’m here.”

Janelle answered by heaving a tiny sigh as she turned slightly in her sleep.

Cayl appeared beside
them, setting the cup of tea on the nightstand table. He gently held Arissa, without disturbing their baby, capturing her lips in the subtle darkness of the lantern light for a fleeting kiss.

His green eyes were alight with passion as he
held her gaze. “What you said is true. We will be so much stronger now because we know what we’re fighting for. This war isn’t over and it will never be over until we have won.”

Arissa nodded in total agreement. “We
will win back our freedom together.”