Breath of Angel (24 page)

Shameful, she thought, and heard the trees echo,
shhhame
, as if to confirm it. She hadn’t meant to speak to Livia and Pym so harshly. She knew she wasn’t being reasonable, and she hated herself for it, but she didn’t know where her heart lay anymore.

“I do
not
care for Trevin.” She picked up a rock and squeezed it in her fist. “I do
not
have to join the Angelaeon. If they admire Trevin so much, they can let
him
find the harps and restore the Tree.” But she knew that was stupid and made no sense.

Stupid senssse
, shuddered the trees.

Melaia hurled the rock down the road, hitting a tree trunk. A small drak fluttered up from the branches and slowly circled.

“Confound you!” she muttered, ducking into the shade. Instinctively, she looked for a second drak, for she had always seen them in pairs, but there seemed to be just the one, and it flapped away south. She wondered if Zastra was trying to find her.

Then Bram bounded up.

“Go home,” Melaia ordered. The dog ran a few paces away, then frolicked
back with that silly grin on his face. She pointed north and yelled, “Go home! Now!”

Bram again ran a few paces away, then pranced straight back.

Melaia sighed and walked on. Angels didn’t interfere with human will, so she wouldn’t interfere with dog will.

“Please yourself,” she told Bram. “But it’s not my fault if you get lost.” It occurred to her that Jarrod might have thought the same when she bucked him and went to Redcliff against his counsel.

A drover of donkeys passed, heading south toward Stillwater. A peddler in a cart entered the road from a side path and disappeared over a rise. And Melaia walked on.

At midday she came to a fork in the road. The right branch headed through fields. The left curved at a grove.

“It doesn’t matter which,” she mumbled. Her anger was spent. She wanted only to sit and rest and think. Then she would go back to Gil’s stead like a dog with its tail between its legs. She hadn’t much choice. She had left her pack behind, and her cloak, although the book was still snug beneath the band around her middle.

She hiked to the grove and discovered wild blackberry vines twining around the thicket. But while there were plenty of thorns, there were few berries. She picked what she could find and munched the tart fruit. The thorny thicket was like her heart, she decided. Plenty of prickly dilemmas but few answers. As with the berries, though, she’d take what she could find. The one obvious need was to get Hanni and the girls away from the hawkman.

Melaia popped the last berry into her mouth, cleaned her stained fingers on the grass, then rose to head back to Gil’s stead.

Bram waited at the edge of the road, wagging his tail.

“All right,” said Melaia. “Time to go back. Lead the way.”

Instead of turning and trotting up the road, Bram growled and stood his ground.

Melaia put her hands on her hips. “I thought you wanted to go back.”

Bram bared his teeth and snarled.

Everything went black.

Melaia woke with her head throbbing. She lay on her side in the darkness of the woods, her hands bound behind her, her feet tethered to the trunk of a sapling.

A stone’s throw away, three hulking men with broad mouths and small eyes squatted around a fire, talking in low, garbled voices. Dregmoorians, no doubt. Stringy dark hair trailed down their backs. By their smooth, dun-colored skin, Melaia could tell they were gash drinkers, but they were not yet as far gone as the man at Drover’s Well. She wondered if they were raiders.

Each of Melaia’s heartbeats rattled her stiff body and pounded at the pain in the back of her head. She was afraid to move. Afraid to breathe. She wondered how long she had been there. She couldn’t see Bram anywhere, and she was cold.

Lossssst
, the trees whispered.
Lossssst
.

Panic snaked through her. The book! She concentrated on the sash around her middle. It went tight, then slack as she breathed in and out. She could still feel the book.

Her relief was short-lived. One of the raiders rose and headed toward her. She quickly shut her eyes and tried to still her spirit.

Heavy footfalls crunched on dry leaves and stopped nearby. The man nudged her side with his toe. She dared not move. He muttered something that sounded like a curse. Another raider laughed.

As the footsteps plodded away, Melaia barely opened her eyes. The raider made his way to a companion with shorter hair and cuffed him on the side of the head. The man with short hair shot up with a gruff yell and pushed the other man back. The third, the stoutest of the three, pointed at them and barked an order. They backed away from each other, grumbling, then lay down on opposite sides of the fire.

Now that the raiders had fallen silent, Melaia was sure any movement, any sound she made would draw their attention. But the more she thought about not moving, the more she felt she had to move, to scream, to fight. Her wrists ached from her bonds.

Then she heard a whisper: “Melaia.”

She held her breath and eyed the trees. They had never called her name before. The stout raider took a swig from a flask, then leaned against a tree trunk. His eyes blinked heavily. He seemed to have heard nothing.

“I’m behind you.”

She startled as a firm hand clasped her arm, a hand missing a finger.

“Don’t move until I tell you to.”

“Trevin?” she whispered.

“Shhh.” He sawed at the cords that bound her hands.

As the cords fell away, Melaia wiggled her fingers and stretched her arms as much as she dared. The ropes around her ankles moved slightly. She squeezed her eyes closed. What was taking so long? She could have sung three slow ballads by now.

Beyond the campfire, tree branches swayed. A rustling sound echoed through the woods. The guard went to take a look.

“Roll back slowly.”

As Melaia eased herself onto her back, Trevin slipped over her, their bodies brushing past each other, his breath skimming her ear. Then Trevin melted into the place where she had lain, his feet next to the tree trunk, his hands behind his back.

The next moment Livia was at Melaia’s side, drawing her away through the grove. Melaia stumbled, her feet still regaining feeling, her head aching. Livia picked her up and carried her, weaving in and out among the trees. At last they came to a road where Jarrod waited in a horse cart. He hauled Melaia into the back, then took the driver’s seat. As soon as Livia had climbed in, Jarrod snapped the reins, and they sped away as fast as the horse could gallop over the moonlit road.

Livia drew Melaia into her arms but said nothing.

“Livia,” Melaia asked, “what will happen to Trevin?”

Livia smoothed Melaia’s hair but remained silent. The rumble of the wheels was so loud that Melaia thought Livia hadn’t heard her. “Livia? What—”

“Why do you care what happens to Trevin?”

Melaia shifted uneasily.
Why indeed?
“How did you find me?”

“We saw Bram follow you, so we let you go. We didn’t expect you to walk farther than the edge of the stead. When you and Bram were not back by midday, we grew anxious and began searching for you.”

“Then Bram led you to me.”

“Trevin led us to you.”

“Trevin?” Melaia rubbed her tingling wrists.

“For some odd reason, while Jarrod and I can’t sense your presence, Trevin can.”

Melaia grew dizzy trying to comprehend it. She remembered the first time she saw him at the overlord’s villa in Navia, the way his eyes had seemed to read her soul. Had he sensed her even then? “Does that mean he’s Angelaeon?”

“We can’t sense him, so no. But somehow his gifts seem greater than most Nephili.”

“Even mine.”

“That remains to be seen.”

Melaia leaned her head on Livia’s shoulder. “Where are Gil and Pym?”

“They went to rouse Stillwater. If all goes as planned, by the time Trevin is discovered, the raiders will be surrounded by townsfolk, who will dispose of them as they please.”

“And if all does not go as planned?”

“Then, most likely, you’ll have your wish. You’ll not see Trevin again.”

Melaia covered her mouth. The thought curdled her stomach.

Bram pranced around the rig when it rattled into Gil’s yard. Gerda scurried out of the house, dusting her hands on her apron. “You found her!” she cried. Then she frowned. “Where is my Gil? And Pym?”

“Chasing raiders.” Jarrod helped Melaia out of the cart.

Melaia pressed a hand to the back of her head where a dull pain lingered. “They must have hit me with a rock.” She swayed and reached for Livia.

Gerda shook her head. “You’ve led us all into a patch of trouble, young lady.”

Jarrod scooped up Melaia, carried her into the house, and laid her on a low bed in a side room. “You’re just like Dreia,” he muttered. “Impatient. Defiant.”

Melaia raised her head to protest, but her skull throbbed. She dropped back onto the pillow.

“It’s one thing to be determined and steadfast. It’s another to be bullheaded and willful. That’s what got Dreia killed.” Jarrod brushed back long strands of hair that had escaped the thong at the back of his neck. His robe was dusty, his face weary and stern. “Have you ever worked with ramble roses?” he asked.

She wanted to tell Jarrod that she was picking a blossom from the ramble rose on the temple wall when Livia’s son, Sergai, arrived and the hawk attacked. But her head pounded, so she simply said, “In Navia.”

“Then you know that the ramble-rose vine overruns all other plants and chokes them out if it’s not trained to a wall or trellis,” said Jarrod. “Your destiny is beginning to bloom, Melaia, but you’ve got to train your will. If you let it go wild, it will overrun you and everyone around you.”

“I’ll never be free of Dreia’s task, will I?”

“Free of your destiny?” Jarrod shook his head as if she were crazed. “Why would you want to be free of your destiny? Nothing else will satisfy. As for freedom, that’s a matter of the heart. Pursue your destiny, and you’ll find your freedom along the way.”

Melaia thought Jarrod sounded a lot like the proverbs in Dreia’s bewildering book. But it occurred to her that, like Livia, she could hear truth in his
voice. It was Jarrod’s voice, to be sure, but it gave her hope that she would someday be able to discern truth in Trevin’s voice as well.

She wanted to assure Jarrod that she had heard him, but her head hurt so much, all she did was groan.

Jarrod trudged out, rubbing his forehead, and Gerda bustled in. Melaia winced as Gerda gently lifted her head and pressed a warm spice-scented poultice in place.

“Where’s Livia?” Melaia whispered.

“Resting.” Gerda drew a blanket over her, then tiptoed out of the room.

Melaia’s wound pulsed painfully with the pressure of the poultice. She thought about her destiny as Dreia’s daughter. Restore the Tree. Simple enough to remember, but how would it be accomplished? And who would be part of that destiny?

A tingling sensation spread through Melaia’s scalp, and the pain began to ease. She blinked sleepily at a beam that crossed the ceiling. A painted spring green vine curled along it. Here and there it blossomed with red ramble roses.