Torn: Bound Trilogy Book Two (30 page)

“Thank you, Dorset. You may release her.” The pressure and pain in my wrist eased, and I felt him move away. He went back to his corner. I stayed on the floor. I wanted to defy them, but there was no point.

I looked up from beneath the veil of my hair, feeling detached from the scene that surrounded me.

The king looked so young. Not much older than Aren, certainly younger than Severn. Haleth had brown hair, and there was nothing striking about his physical appearance except for the jeweled crown on his head and the complex, gaudy clothes he wore. His midnight-blue brocade jacket was held closed with dozens of tiny, gold fasteners that curved from his throat down past where his body disappeared behind his desk.

It must take you an hour to get dressed in the morning
, I thought. I began to picture it, then stopped before it could make me laugh. That wouldn’t help matters any.

He wore heavy jewelry, gold necklaces with multi-colored medallions strung on them. The library was no less ornate, swathed in leather and velvet and complex wood carvings. It nearly brought my headache back just to look at it. I supposed it was opulence, though why anyone would aspire to it was beyond me.

“So, then,” Haleth said. “Rowan Greenwood?”

I didn’t answer until Dorset Langley leaned forward again, and I nodded.

“Formerly of Lowdell, correct? Near the Eastern border.”

I nodded again.

“You left your home and went to Tyrea with one of King Ulric’s sons, did you?”

How to answer that? It was technically correct, but left out everything important. “It’s part of the truth, sire. I don’t imagine you want to hear the rest.”

“The details don’t matter,” he said. He moved to a green, velvet-upholstered armchair, one of a pair that occupied the space in front of me. He didn’t invite me to sit in the other, or to stand.

“Now, while you were there, you...‘discovered’ that you had magical abilities?”

“Yes.”

Dorset Langley stepped toward me again, and I flinched in spite of myself. “Your Highness,” I said, and he stepped back again.

It’s a dance
, I thought.
One step forward, one step back, hurt the girl, swing your partner.

Fear was creeping up on me, confusing my thoughts. I paused to steady my voice before I answered. “I learned that I’ve had magic in me since birth, Your Highness. Someone put a binding on me to hide it, and it almost killed me.”

“Who did this?”

I’d made things bad enough for my family without this added to it. “I don’t know,” I lied. “Aren took me to find help, and in the end the binding broke itself. The magic wasn’t my choice, or anyone else’s. Your magic hunters know that, even if you don’t.”

Haleth sighed and drummed his fingers on a small table. “Well, it’s a pretty story, isn’t it? Convenient for you, who stands accused of witchcraft, of treason and blasphemy, selling your soul to the devil in Tyrea to gain these powers. I’m sure you’d like us all to think that this was something you couldn’t help, but we know better. Dorset here has heard a similar story from many in your position, though I suspect with rather less help from Tyrean royalty. Tell me, did you go to the prince because you wanted magic, or did he talk you into it?”

“I’ve already told you how it happened. He recognized what I was and wanted to help me. Why don’t you believe me?”

There was a long pause, then, “Dorset?”

He stepped forward, and before I could add a “Your Highness,” he delivered a stinging slap, catching the side of my head and my cheek with the flat of his hand, sending me sprawling on the stone floor. My ear rang, and I tasted blood when I licked my lips. It took me back to the night I faced Severn, the pain and the certainty I’d felt that I was going to die, and my body trembled.

I took a few deep breaths and forced my muscles to still, then pushed myself back to my knees. I would not let myself cry.

Haleth sat impassively through all of it, appearing bored. “We’ll take that as your confession, then. You are aware, I’m sure, that the sentence for your crimes is death, to be carried out immediately.” He waited for a response. I didn’t give him one. “Do you have anything to say to that?”

“No, Your Highness.”

He raised his eyebrows and looked to Sir Dorset.

“No one has come forward to speak for her, my lord. None to corroborate her story, none to object to the sentence. These are the gravest of crimes. The punishment is fitting.”

“Not to mention the insults to your own family, Langley?” the king asked, a hint of derision in his voice.

Sir Dorset glowered at me. “As you say, Your Highness. She was to marry my son, and instead ran off with an enemy of our people who threatens your position and your land. Her life is an insult to everything we hold dear.”

Haleth propped his head on one hand. “And yet, the fact that she spent time with the prince could make her useful. If we were to make a bargain, her life in exchange for what could be valuable information...”

Langley’s jaw muscles flexed visibly. “If I may speak plainly, sire, it’s not something I would offer to her. She can’t possibly know anything of Severn’s plans. If she does, she’ll have told the old man. It would be my pleasure to question him again.”

“Thank you, Dorset.” Haleth looked at me. “Still, we could use her to get to him. Surely Aren Tiernal would be worth her life, at least temporarily. He has more to answer for than she has. Her execution could wait.”

I should have stayed silent. “You’ll never find him. He knows better than to come here for me, and I don’t know where he is.”

“Would you tell us if you did?” the king asked. “Would you tell us what else you know of Tyrea, of Severn’s plans? Of Belleisle? I understand you’ve spent time there.”

“I’ll never tell you anything.”

A smile played at the corners of Sir Dorset’s mouth, and his eyes glowed with victory.

I’m going to die
, I thought. My parents weren’t going to come and plead for my life. I would never see my magic grow to its full potential. I’d never see anyone I loved again.

I tried to hold it back, but a tear slipped out of my eye and fell to the floor in front of me. “I would never betray any of them.” My voice was strong and clear in spite of the despair that made the rest of my body feel so weak. “I don’t think you’d let me live even if I did. Your Highness.”

“Do you want to die, Miss Greenwood?”

“No, Your Highness.”

“I thought not.” He motioned for Dorset Langley to come closer, and whispered into his ear.

Langley shook his head. “It’s too great a risk.”

“Still, we haven’t had someone as strong as her to try it with, and she’s behaved herself well enough thus far. She’d be an excellent subject. If you succeed with her, it could theoretically work with anyone.”

Langley turned back to me and folded his arms across his chest again. “I can’t keep you from offering, sire.”

Haleth nodded. “Miss Greenwood, a final offer to spare your life.”

He leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs, looking as though he was having a casual conversation with an old friend instead of an accused enemy. My heart skipped. I knew what he was going to offer.

“You say you were born with this magic in you, that you had no choice in the matter? I believe those were your words.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Then I suppose you’d be eager to take an opportunity to have this birth-curse removed from you. If it’s not something you wanted, and I told you that there was a way to have that blasphemous power burned out of you, that you could be cleansed from it completely and forever, and you could be a normal member of society...That should be quite tempting, I think.”

My mouth went dry. “I think perhaps I haven’t been clear enough on some points, Your Highness,” I said slowly. “You are correct in saying that I didn’t ask for this. It has always been with me, but I didn’t know until this past autumn.”

Is this more important than freedom?
whispered a voice in my mind.
This choice will seal your fate. You could give it up.

But this is who I am. No more hiding
.

“The fact that I didn’t choose it doesn’t mean that it was unwanted,” I continued. “I was terrified when I first learned about my magic, knowing our people’s beliefs about it and the penalty for using it here. But I’ve embraced what I am. What you call a curse, I call a gift. If anyone put this magic in me, it was God himself, and I won’t turn away from it. I would consider that as much a sacrilege as you think the magic itself is. I’m afraid I must refuse your most generous offer.”

“You would die, then, before you would repent?”

I gritted my teeth. “I have nothing to repent of, Your Highness. Not in this, at least. My other sins are my own concern.”

Haleth looked to Dorset Langley, appearing uncertain.

“So be it,” Langley said, his voice almost too low to hear over the ringing that continued in my ear. “It was fairly done, Your Highness. You made a most kind and generous offer, gave her a chance at life that most would not have given. She chooses to die uncleansed and unabsolved. You are blameless in the matter of her death.”

“That didn’t concern me,” Haleth said, and the corners of his mouth turned slightly, though I couldn’t tell whether it was with humor or distaste. “I swore to protect this land and its people from what she is, I bear no guilt for carrying out my oath. Call the guard back.”

Langley walked past me to the door without looking down at me.

“Why don’t you just do it?” I asked. My voice felt small, and yet it filled the room. “If it’s so important that you take my magic, why not—”

A fist connected with the back of my head, and white light exploded in front of my eyes as I fell forward.

I laughed in spite of the pain. “You can’t, can you? You can’t take it unless I let you.”

Langley’s boot caught me in the ribs, and I was unable to say more.

Haleth stepped closer and lifted my face with the toe of his boot.“Langley, will you take care of this now?”

“If it pleases you, sire, I’d like to wait a few days. Much as I’d like to see this prisoner dispatched immediately, it would mean much to my family if my son carried out the order himself. He’s taking care of a few things for me at the moment, but has said he’ll be back in four days.”

“How poetic that he should slay the beast,” the king said. “Very well, Miss Greenwood. You are sentenced to die for your crimes against the Darmish people. When Callum Langley returns to the city, you will be bled until the life is gone from your mortal body.” He nudged my chin with his toe as though flicking dirt from his boot, and his face became an impassive mask. “You may go.”

I tried to stand, and stumbled. My legs tingled as the blood returned to them.

A different guard appeared, a man large enough to half-push, half-carry me back to the blue-walled cell where Ulric waited.

The door slammed closed behind me. Ulric stood still as stone, eyes wide, lips parted.

I don’t know what he saw in my face, but his own softened, and he suddenly looked far older than he had before. I forgot that I was still supposed to hate and mistrust him. I fell into his open arms, sobbing. He held me, awkwardly trying to offer comfort while my sorrow poured out, doing his best to act like the father I no longer had.

Perhaps it was the best thing for both of us.

C
assia pulled
her horse to a stop as we reached the edge of the forest. “I’d hoped we wouldn’t be seeing these mountains again for a while.”

“I know.” Kel stopped beside her. The two had led us through the previous day and this morning, perhaps hoping that Aren and I would make conversation. So far we’d managed cordial silence. I wasn’t sure whether he was ignoring me because he wanted to avoid slipping into my thoughts again, or because he was still angry with me for not wanting to throw our plans off track to rescue his little plaything. Either way, I would take it. I’d accepted that it would take time for us to warm to each other. Maybe it wouldn’t happen at all. In any case, we would work together.

And she might help
, I reminded myself. I came back to that each time I grew irritated with this insane mission.
What have I got to lose?

Florizel snorted and shuffled sideways. “The mountains aren’t so bad. I’m not sure how you’re all going to make it over, though. I’m not familiar with the passes humans use.”

“There aren’t many,” Aren said, frowning at the mountains as though they’d sense his irritation and open up for us. “There’s the main pass that traders take. It’s not far from here, but that’s heavily guarded. The Darmish take care not to let Tyrean magic users in. As far as I know, only Darmish traders get by, and Wanderers from Tyrea if they’re clever enough to talk their way past and catch the guards on a good day. There will be magic hunters there.”

“Can we get around them?” Cassia asked.

Aren took a map from his bag and handed it to her. “Not without abandoning the horses and climbing. The pass is narrow.”

“There may be a way around the north end of the range,” Florizel offered. “But we’d have to go north, then south, and I’m not entirely certain about that, anyway.”

Aren sighed. “We’d waste days finding out.”

“Is that all of our options?” I asked. It sounded hopeless.

“How did you and Rowan get out the first time?” Cassia asked.

Kel had filled me in on what he knew of that story—or as much as he’d thought Aren would want me to know. I’d begun to suspect that this was common among mers, or at least this little family of them. Cassia never gossiped or speculated, either.

“South,” Aren said. “Around the bottom of the mountain range.” He took the map back, opened it further, and pointed. I looked over his shoulder. The land narrowed here, creating an isthmus connecting Tyrea and Darmid, across which spread the mountains. I looked up at them again. These were old mountains, covered with trees up to their rounded tops, with bare patches showing where the rocks had eroded. Not pretty. Not as impressive as the ones in the north. Still a formidable challenge.

“It sounds like that’s the way to go,” I said. “Is it guarded?”

“Not as heavily,” Aren said, and handed me the map. “When we came through, we passed one guard station. I think any traders heading to or from the south shore of Darmid go by ship, not by land, so it’s not as busy.”

“Sounds perfect. We can’t be too far off from there now, can we?” It certainly felt like we’d been travelling long enough.

Aren exchanged a glance with Kel, then cleared his throat. “It’s not that simple. I have obligations that way.”

I sighed. “Please tell me you didn’t leave some poor Darmish girl with a baby and run out on her.”

Kel snorted. “Not that kind of obligation. Aren, you should tell her.”

Aren cleared his throat. “When Rowan and I were trying to get to Tyrea, I made a deal with a dragon. She let us live after we found ourselves in her cave, and in exchange we promised that we would go back and tell her how our—” He at least had the sense to look embarrassed. “How our story turned out.”

“You...” I sputtered, struggling to find words that would at least keep my jaw from hanging open. “I’m not even going to ask how people
find themselves
in a dragon’s cave. Let’s just say that it happened. You don’t make a deal with a dragon. It’s foolish. Dangerous. Stupid!”

“And I suspect more so to break a promise to one,” Aren said quietly.

Kel winced at the sound of my teeth gritting together. I dismounted so I could walk while I thought, making a tight circle around the group. “You southerners really don’t know anything, do you? You can’t do something like that. She has to be an old dragon to have conversed with you at all. Even older to have let you go. There’s always a trick. Tell me, did you negotiate how you’d get out after you delivered on your end of the bargain?”

“Not that I recall.”

Cassia’s skin turned ashen. “Even I know that’s bad.”

“So she’s got you under her claw if you step one foot in her territory again. But it’s that, or facing magic hunters.” I rubbed my forehead, where tight pain throbbed. “The only thing worse would be if she had young. They get moodier then. Even less predictable.”

Aren grimaced. “About that…”

“No. No, no, no.”

“We’ll take your advice on this, Nox,” Aren said. “You grew up in Cressia. You know far more about dragons than any of us. I’ve read about them, been on a few hunts. You lived with them, or close enough to it. What do you suggest?”

I stopped and turned slowly toward my brother. No sarcasm in his voice this time. No challenge. I smiled slightly in spite of my irritation. “Are you suggesting, Sorcerer Prince of Tyrea, that a lowly Potioner from the provinces might be able to give you advice? That I might know better than you?”

He shrugged, but his hint of a smile reflected my own. “Seems like a reasonable suggestion.”

“He’s right,” Kel said. “Cass and I know sea serpents, water dragons, deep-sea monsters, and a little bit about what we’ve met on land, but you’re the closest thing we have to an expert right now.”

I don’t care what Aren thinks about me
, I reminded myself, but satisfaction swelled in my chest. True, he still wasn’t giving my potions-related skills the respect they deserved, but acknowledging my expertise in this was certainly something.

“You know, it’s about time you figured that out,” I told Aren. My smile disappeared. “What were the terms if you didn’t return?”

“Death. Though we didn’t say when we’d return. If we avoid her lands, she never has to know we were here.”

I’d never been one to back away from a challenge, but this one would be more difficult than most. I was a healer, not a defender, and certainly not against dragons. I could put something together to keep them away from a farm temporarily, but I couldn’t fight one off. Aren couldn’t, either. Not with magic, and not alone.

“We should try the main road,” I said. “In case there’s a way we can get the horses through. It will slow us down too much if we abandon them, but it still might be a better plan than visiting a dragon.”

Florizel lowered her head. “I suppose flying each of you over’s a bad idea then, as well.”

“We’ll keep it in mind,” I said. “We should keep the horses if we can. I’ll try to think of something to help with the dragon in case that doesn’t work.”

Aren nodded. “If you think it’s best. If we continue on this way, we’ll reach the road within the hour.”

Cassia rode next to me as we followed Aren through thin tree cover at the edge of the forest, heading south, parallel to the mountains to our west. “We could scout,” she said.

“We? As in you and me?” I asked, and she nodded.

“If anyone sees us, they won’t detect magic in you, correct? Not like they would in Aren. We can’t send Florizel around those people.”

“What about Kel? You two seem to work well together.”

“We do. He’s been distracted lately, though, and he’s not the most graceful creature on his feet. You and I would get closer without notice. We’ll just see how things look, whether there’s a way we could make it through.”

“Sounds like a good plan.” I didn’t point out that Cassia was heavier on her feet than most women of her size and build. It seemed so obvious now that I knew what she and Kel were, but I’d written it off as clumsiness before.

Aren and Kel reluctantly agreed when we shared the plan with them. “You’ll be careful?” Kel asked.

“Of course,” Cassia answered, though he’d been looking at me when he spoke. My face flushed.

We left the horses and made our way toward the pass, a deep V in the otherwise solid wall of the mountain. A river coursed through it, flowing beside the road into Tyrea. Cassia looked longingly at the water, but we didn’t stop. Instead we stuck to the low parts of the uneven ground and tried to make ourselves invisible among the sparse tree cover. The road was empty, and all seemed quiet.

“Maybe it’s not as bad as Aren thought,” I said softly.

Cassia looked back over her shoulder and stumbled over a hummock of grass. “That seems like an imprudent thing to say.”

“My words won’t change what’s ahead.”

She shrugged, and carried on. I grabbed handfuls of plant matter as we passed. Firegrass, simpkin’s bow, the buds of the nightflare flower. All familiar. All worth keeping handy. If what I’d heard about Darmid was true, the magic in the plants over there would be less than what I was accustomed to working with in Tyrea.

We stayed away from the road and headed toward the face of the mountain and the forests there. The slope at the bottom was shallow enough, but I lost my breath before we’d climbed far.

“What now?” I whispered.

“Stick together. Get closer. See what we see.” She tripped again, and I caught her by the arm before she fell.

“Thanks.” She grimaced. “What was that I was saying about Kel?”

We continued upward and south until we reached the pass and looked down on the river, the road, and the mass of people swarming around a small collection of wooden buildings. Cassia crouched behind a log, and I joined her.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Is this better than the dragon?”

I watched the people, and my stomach sank. Some of them appeared to be merchants waiting to get into Darmid, and most of them had set up camp near the river. It didn’t look like anyone was getting through. There was no way we’d get in that way. Men in blue uniforms in varying shades roamed among the people, picking through carts of cargo, searching tents, each man paired with another wearing charcoal gray.

“Are those magic hunters?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Cassia’s brow creased. “Kel and I were fortunate enough not to meet any when we were in Darmid before. I’d like to keep it that way, if possible. They might be a little quicker than you were at catching on to what we are.” She said it kindly enough, and I smiled.

“Yes, I should have figured it out the first time you tripped over your own feet. Must be hard when you’re not used to them.” I clucked my tongue softly. “Poor, helpless creatures.”

She flashed a quick grin at me and went back to watching the people below us.

This is how friends speak to each other
, I realized. Little barbs, but no sting to them, and meant kindly. The thought warmed me. I’d never had that sort of easy, playful conversation with anyone who I wasn’t flirting with.

I turned my attention to the pass itself. The sheer sides wouldn’t allow us to trek around the encampment, and the mountains were too steep to avoid the pass completely.

Cassia grabbed my arm and pulled me lower behind the log. Below us, one of the blue-clad men was pointing in our direction, speaking to another.

“Did he see us?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. He’s not raising an alarm. He might have seen something, though.”

The fellow and his companion started toward the side of the pass, walking slowly, but with purpose.

“Time to go.” Cassia held onto my arm as we moved away from them and back down the mountain, and we sprinted when we reached the foothills. She didn’t trip this time.

I looked back several times, but saw no sign of anyone pursuing us. We stopped to catch our breath when we got back to the horses.

“So,” I panted. “We need to figure out what to do about that dragon.” I stood up straighter, then mounted my horse. The others did the same. “You said she has young?”

“Three,” Aren said. “Tiny, though. In a pool of water.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Back in the autumn.”

“They may have grown. Give me some time to think.”

They obeyed. No one said a word to me as we crossed a wide road and followed the foothills south. Aren spoke quietly to Florizel, and she flew away, presumably taking a route over the mountains where there were less likely to be humans watching.

Later, we rode uphill into the trees, finding and quickly leaving a road that was far narrower and more poorly kept than the other one had been. Ahead, the end of the mountain range sloped into forested land, presumably toward the ocean. We dismounted and led our horses through the trees, then rode across uneven, rocky ground. Smoke rose from the other side of a small hill, near where the road would have taken us. In the distance, someone whistled a cheery tune, and someone else hollered for him to shut up.

Aren looked toward the noise. “That’s the guard station. I think it’s the only one on this road.”

“Is that it, then?” I asked when we were well away from it. “Are we in Darmid?”

Cassia shivered. “I don’t like it here.”

I didn’t, either. There was something wrong with the air, something that had been creeping up on us since before we crossed the border. No, not the air. “It’s true about the magic here, isn’t it?”

Aren turned back to me. “You can feel it, too?”

“I can, thank you. Just because I can’t channel magic like you can doesn’t mean I’m not as accustomed to its presence as you are.” I paused and corrected my tone. I had to stop taking everything he said as an insult. “So they do kill off the magic here?”

He nodded and turned forward again. I rode beside him as we made our way through the shadows of low mountains that forced us to continue south and into a forest.

I tried to remember anything useful that I’d learned about dragons and their young, and asked Aren more questions as they came to mind. Dragons had never been a particular interest of mine, but Aren was right. Where I came from, knowing about them and their habits was the difference between living or becoming someone’s meal.