Arthur continues, voice lowering even more, and his next words are no ritual at all. Just a plea: “Please, Vara, tell me I’m doing the right thing.”
The sun sets, and Vara doesn’t answer.
Arthur sleeps alone that night. He has a tent to himself, and he can’t get warm. His hands itch to touch soft skin, caress bony arms and a narrow waist. His chest feels too light without Shae’s head pillowed on it.
Dreams toss him back and forth in snatches of restless slumber until morning. He thinks it’s another dream at first when someone taps the front of his tent, calling his name. Blearily, he gets up and unfastens the flap.
Freya’s standing outside, her shirt untucked and excitement dancing in her eyes. “Get up, Arthur, no time to waste.”
The sky is still the translucent gray before dawn. Behind Freya, sleep-deprived squires are saddling horses, including Duchess.
“What is it?” Arthur asks, immediately alert.
She grins. “We caught him.”
Arthur’s breath hitches. He doesn’t have to ask who she’s talking about.
?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Shae
Dawn barely breaks over the eastern mountains as Shae and the Riverswords cross into Lyrisenia. There’s no great change at the border. The heavy wooden city gate is already open, and the guards barely talk to Georgia before waving them through. Shae feels only the slightest tingle from the Northern Barrier.
A shiver still passes through Shae’s bones at the crossing. He hasn’t been this far north, this close to home, in nearly ten years. Not since he sold himself to Izen. Not since he said goodbye, again, to his parents.
Georgia rides at the front of the group on her flashy white horse, followed by Shae and six of her Riverswords. Her second in command, Reed, stayed behind in Lanwatch, and Shae’s already forgotten the names of those accompanying them into Lyrisenia. He’s too caught up in his own distractions. His whole body still aches from his fall the day before, and his thighs and back are sore from far more riding than he’s used to. He hurts, and he’s cold.
Even though it won’t do anything, he tugs his coat closer around himself as he rides. He’s not freezing. The Riverswords ride near enough that Shae can breathe in their living auras. But they’re not close enough, their auras not bright enough, to keep him truly warm.
He used to be accustomed to this constant, low-level chill. But after a taste of true warmth, it’s hard to go back to the cold.
Georgia brings the party to a halt a few miles out of Lanwatch. The road breaks off into four narrower paths, the forest encroaching on each of them. Evergreen trees pierce the sky, casting deep shadows. “Necromancer, now’s a good time to pull out one of your parlor tricks. Find us the nearest nest of vaidkos”
Shae nudges Sparrow up next to Georgia’s horse and loops the reins over the pommel. The gelding drops his head to pick at the weeds sprouting up in the middle of the road, disinclined to move if he doesn’t have to.
“There’s nothing within a mile of us, but I can amplify the spell.” He takes the silver band from his right forefinger and holds it in his left first, then unsheathes his knife. “Give me a moment. And keep an eye on the horses, they don’t always like this sort of magic.”
“You heard him, sweethearts,” Georgia tells her people.
Shae shoves his sleeve up his arm. His breath catches when he sees the most recently healed cuts. The ones Arthur bandaged. Georgia eyes his movements with great interest, but no concern. That’s good. Arthur’s bleeding heart was patronizing. Annoying. Shae tells himself he doesn’t miss the paladin’s constant worry.
The blade kisses his skin in a thin line of blood. Shae resheathes the knife and presses his fingers to the cut, wetting them in blood so warm it tingles against his cold fingertips, and smears it on the ring. Blood still slides down his arm, ticklish and hot, as he murmurs in Lyrisenian, “Life’s blood, lead me to darkness.”
The ring vibrates in his palm, and he tightens his grip. It flashes painfully cold against his bare fingers, and it moves against him, pushing in a specific direction.
“There are vaidkos northeast of here,” he says. “I’ll let you know when we’re a mile from them.”
Georgia nods, and calls out, “This way, my dears.” She trots forward, and the Riverswords fall into place around her.
Shae carefully works the ring back onto his finger, even as it keeps tugging northeast, then gathers his reins and kicks Sparrow to catch up. He doesn’t stop to bandage his arm. The cut is shallow. It’ll heal soon, and he can wash his shirt later. But a disproportionate amount of pain radiates from the injury, and he can’t stop thinking about how tender Arthur’s hands felt as he patched him up. The sense-memory of sweetness hurts more than the cut itself.
They break from the road as the forest thins around them, giving way to a broad crater of a valley. Shae knows the area as well as he knows any place in Lyrisenia. The Lyralan Crater is dotted with the remnants of a sprawling city and its castle, reduced to broken walls and exposed foundations by whatever disaster caused the crater long ago. The old cathedral, where Izen waits in the array, is north of it. The home Shae grew up in, where his parents rest, is to the east.
Every once in a while, Georgia asks him to confirm their direction. Shae’s ring continues leading them through the rocky wasteland, unwavering in its direction. It leads them towards a jagged ruin silhouetted against the clear blue sky, until they don’t need the ring anymore.
The screams ahead are plenty, and the flashes of black and red fire.
