“Can you—oof!”A rock as big as Cillian’s head crashed through the roof, tearing a hole through the metal, leaving ragged shards hanging down, then plummeting through the floor, hitting the road and jouncing up again, nearly high-centering them.
Alise poured power into the air elemental, wincing at the torn-metal screech of the struggling carriage, and inaudible howls of the earth elementals.As the carriage burst free, she ruthlessly squashed the attacking earth elementals.She didn’t like to do it, even though they had no intelligence or self-awareness.Still, they were innocent tools of the wizards wielding them.Severing their bonds to their masters required a precision and deftness she couldn’t muster at the moment.So she snuffed out their small, simple lives, feeling every bit the monster her father had relentlessly trained her to be.
The barrage of rocks stopped immediately, but killing off the attacking elementals did nothing about the rocks already littering the narrow road.She had to slow the carriage to a crawl, picking their way around the biggest ones when possible, easing the wobbling conveyance over them when it wasn’t.
“We could walk faster,” she muttered.
“We might have to.”Balancing against the bouncing, Cillian began packing up his books.
Alise took one mental eye off the road ahead to gaze at her darling boyfriend in sheer disbelief.“You can’t carry the books.”
He blinked at her through his glasses, glancing down at the books stacked in his arms.“They’re not mine.They belong to House Harahel.I can’t simply abandon them.”
“If we live through this, I’ll buy you new copies.”Although, it occurred to her that escaping her father meant disinheritance, so how she’d get the coin to do that was another question.
“Several of these are very old, possibly one of a kind,” he argued.“You might not be able to—”
“Cillian,” she interrupted.“Youare one of a kind and impossible to replace.We’re not risking our lives to save your books.”
“You say that like it’s unreasonable,” he retorted, but with a half smile.
“I adore you.”She really did, her heart softening with the sweetness of feeling for him, even under the circumstances.But she still said that instead of telling him she loved him.“We’re not walking yet.It’s still possible that…” Something new impinged on her awareness.“Shit.”
Cillian shoved the books aside and leaned out the window, looking and also listening with his wizard senses.“That stench… I recognize it from—”
“Hunters,” she confirmed with bitter anger.They’d battled the foul creatures at House Phel, relieving the siege set by rival houses.She shouldn’t be at all surprised her father had sent hunters to fetch her back—after all, it had been clear for a while that Lord Elal employed the revolting things, and had possibly had a role in creating them—but somehow she hadn’t expected this move.Hunters went most effectively after familiars, those who could generate magic and not wield it.She and Cillian were both wizards.And, though Cillian claimed no ability with defensive or offensive magics, he should be able to easily fend off a hunter.But her father had sent them anyway, which meant this wouldn’t be easy.
This development worried her greatly.The stench Cillian referred to, a magical aura like rancid oil, an almost tangible odor, thickened palpably.Forcing herself to say calm, Alise continued to guide the carriage out of the rock field.The earth elementals had done their job, fatally slowing the carriage just enough for their pursuers to catch up.The howling of the hunters audible now in the near distance, rapidly grew louder.
And just shy of the border, too, she noted with despair, catching the glimmer of it against the sky just a few vertical lengths up the switchbacking road.Now would be a really nice time to shapeshift into flying creatures and take a shortcut out of Elal.Too bad neither of them had that ability.“Can you use your freezing spell on them?”
“Too far away,” he answered.“And you know I need a bit of calm and preparation to cast it.”Cillian had discovered the spell in one of his books and used it at the siege of House Phel to good effect—when he had a circle of peace to chant the complicated verses.
Not ideal.Worse, she perceived the hunters weren’t alone.Not a surprise, but grimly terrifying.
“I make a least two-dozen mounted soldiers,” Cillian informed her.“Can’t get an accurate count, but no less than that.Assuming the unarmed ones are wizards, there’s another five to seven of those.”
“Seven,” she replied, well able to discern the looming presence of her father’s wizard minions.None of them could take her on individually, but she very likely would be overwhelmed by seven.Especially as she’d be hampered by protecting Cillian from them.Really, all any of them had to do was incapacitate and restrain Cillian and she’d surrender.
“You should run,” Cillian said, reading her thoughts clearly.
“What?No.”
“They won’t hurt me.They’ll hold onto me, hoping to use me against you.House Harahel will ransom me.But you need to get across the border and you’ll be faster without me holding you back.”
“And if my father kills you just to hurt me?”She asked in a level tone that shocked herself.She might have exceeded her ability to cope with any of this and would soon shatter.
For a second time, Cillian blinked at her.“That would be unwise of him.The consequences—”
“Would take a while to catch up to him,” she bit out, then launched herself across the narrow aisle between them, aided by the lurching of the carriage over a particularly big rock, and threw herself into kissing him fiercely.“No more being separated,” she told him, holding his face in her hands.“Promise me that you won’t leave me alone.I fall apart without you.I lose my center.I need you to survive, Cillian.”
“I promise I won’t leave you alone,” he whispered, smoothing a hand over her short hair.“Never again.”
“That’s right.Never again.”
They held each other’s gazes, staring into each other’s eyes as if they could find a solution or salvation there.Or both.The carriage jounced to the side, shuddered, and flung them apart.For a moment, Alise feared the worst, but then found that, in a rare and welcome stroke of luck, they had emerged from the rock field.Alise poured on the speed.
They might just make it.
