He didn’t want to take the chance that the shadow threads could hurt her. The way it looked now, he suspected they would. He’d seen things infected by rot that way. The touch of a witch’s hand, poison rain, why not the shadow?
He saw her reach for her knife, and his hands flexed as he dropped the rope. His crossbow. Running to Kenzi, he jerked the weapon from the saddle. There were a half-dozen bolts fitted to a holder on the stock. All of them blessed. If he could hit the familiar, it would do enough damage to buy her more time at least.
The rope fell to the ground. The thing wailed again.
Rowan hitched up her leg so she could sheathe her knife. She was amazing, hanging there, working her way methodically down, not losing her shit like any normal person would do.
He cocked the crossbow and loaded the bolt. Bracing himself, he took aim. It wasn’t an easy shot. It wasn’t the distance. If it had been a horizontal shot, he’d have made it easily. This was nearly vertical, even from the edge of the woods. And he couldn’t miss. The last thing he wanted to do was have the bolt bounce off the rock and land on Rowan. He moved to the right so he was angled away from her, adjusted his stance. Took aim. He wanted to drive it away, not kill it, not risk having it fall over the edge.
Rowan was halfway down when the thing dug its claws into the ledge as if deciding whether to climb down or leap directly at her. He couldn’t allow either. He took his shot.
The bolt hit its shoulder. The familiar jerked back, howled.
Cold moved through him as he heard an echoing cry in the far distance.
Another familiar called to the hunt.
He cocked the crossbow again, reloaded. The familiar had pulled back from the edge. Rowan was almost down. Twenty feet. Ten. She scrambled down the last and jumped.
He kept an eye on the top of the cliff. “Gather the rope and your boots. We need to get out of here.”
She skidded to a stop beside him and looked back up at the cliff. “Did you kill it?”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t want it to fall. I clipped it on the shoulder, and it retreated, but now that it knows we’re here, it will stalk us.”
She stared at him, eyes wide and scared. Her whole body was shaking, and all he wanted to do was gather her in his arms and tell her it was going to be all right. He couldn’t do that. He wanted her on guard. Needed her at least a little scared about what they might face out here. If he took her trembling body into his arms, he’d want to carry her out of the woods, away from the danger. And he couldn’t do that. There was the witch, his men, his duty.
He was an asshole for bringing her out here.
“What the hell was that thing?”
He slung the crossbow over his back and said, “A familiar. They guard the nest and hunt down humans within the territory the witch has claimed.”
It was a fucking enormous familiar, the largest he’d ever seen.
Rowan gathered her courage. He watched it happen. Her back straightened and her chin came up. Her jaw set in a stubborn line as she tamped down her terror after that descent. He’d seen grown men curl into a ball and weep after facing their first familiar. Rowan looked scared, but she wasn’t running.
“How many of them are out there?” she asked. “I heard one call out from the woods. At least, I think it was another one. I don’t know what animal would have made that noise.”
He nodded. “I heard it too. At least two. The witch is strong. Only the strongest can create familiars at all, and even then, they usually only manage one. As a rule, familiars don’t come out during daylight. They like the dark. They stick to shadows and areas where the rot has set in. It should have been safe.” He needed her to know that. “I wouldn’t have sent you up there if I’d thought you might run into a familiar. I’m sorry.”
He expected her to throw his apology back in his face as she usually did. But she only nodded and gathered up her boots. She walked briskly to the horse and didn’t shove her feet into the worn leather until right before she mounted Copper.
He grabbed the fallen rope and wound it as he walked toward Kenzi. Sparing one last glance up at the ridge, he mounted and looked to Rowan for direction.
“Was there any sign of my men?”
She looked away from him, and a stone settled in his gut. The same feeling he’d gotten earlier when she’d insisted they turn east rather than follow the river.
Where was she leading him?
“The trees are bad along the river,” she said. “We need to keep going east.”
He called her bluff. “The ridge isn’t tall enough to see all the way to the river. There’s no way you could know how bad the trees are there. What’s going on? Tell me what you’re thinking. We need to be able to depend on one another.”
Could he depend on her?
He’d shared more with her about his past and his family than he had with anyone else. Who else could he talk to about such things? Not Daris with his perfect family or the priests who thought his mother was so beyond redemption they hadn’tallowed her to be buried on hallowed ground. Not the men who looked up to him. Not anyone from court who would only see it as gossip. He’d trustedher.He trusted her.
