Page 107
‘I have no choice!’
“—by rote and ritual. Until the prize is taken, I am shackled.”
I sweated and grimaced, shaking my head, and pleading with God for mercy. Never again. I’ll never do it again. No matter what it takes.
Keeping my eyes and ears trained, trusting my senses to indicate the direction to Breckon, I sweated and panted, and I ran.
I’d never felt so alone since the day Kham bonded me. Fear twisted my stomach in nauseous waves. But I kept going.
I’d been in the dark for half an hour, had set the trail for Breckon and was returning when the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Someone was out here.
My heartbeat thumped in my ears as I waited for a sign, a sound to lead me—when I heard a sharp gasp—hurriedly stifled. Darting headlong through the forest, convinced my mother had bound and gagged Grace, I sprinted into a small clearing where the moonlight bounced off a fallen tree… and staggered to a halt just feet from Cali.
She stood in the shadows of the trees on the other side of the small clearing, eyes wide, her stance half-crouched, as if she might flee.
I froze.
Cali, out here? Was this a trick? A distraction? Or a trap?
Forcing myself to straighten, I let my body loosen out of the crouched tension of pursuit, and into casual irritation.
“What the fuck are you doing out here?” I hissed.
“Trying to find you!” she whisper-screamed. “He’s cheating, Vane. He’s—”
She staggered toward me and I took a hurried step back, my head spinning. If she was a decoy, a way to distract me, getting tangled in anything she said would only delay me and offer Breckon aid. But if she really had snuck away to help me—something that would have been entirely in her nature in years past—she might be able to help now that I was scrambling.
I frowned and she stopped dead, leaving feet between us. But her expression was pleading and she opened her hands in supplication.
“I’m not trying to hurt you. He’s out there. He had a servant tie a horse somewhere nearby because it would help him move faster. You have to find him, I can show you—”
“How would he know where to find her? Why would a horse help him unless he knew? Our magik is bound. He can’t have a charm on her or…”
Cali went still, staring at me, the wary, cautious stare of an animal that wasn’t sure if it was safe.
“Cali… what do you know?” I muttered. “Tell me.”
Her forehead pinched to lines and she looked north, biting her lip, as if making a decision.
“Cali!”
She startled, but her eyes snapped back to mine and she swallowed hard—swallowed fear. “They’ve hidden her among the Lysanthimum. I don’t know which cluster, except he went north—”
“Shit!”
Lysanthimum was a weed that grew in thick, almost grasslike bushes with small, white flowers which were a favorite of the Cruors for potions and herbal flames, because the pollen, the scent, and the smoke from the burning flower or leaves could cause sleepiness, but always at the cost of rational thought. The effects ranged from simple disorientation to outright hallucination. But the effects from the fresh flowers only worked while they were inhaled. If Grace was in a bush, she’d be overcome. But if she was moved away from the flowers, she’d immediately become clearer headed.
Which meant, she must have been overcome. Either held there until she was overcome by the effects, or tied there to keep her in place long enough to be overwhelmed.
The scent of the blooms would mask the much subtler scent of a person. If Breckon had secreted a scent dog somewhere, he wouldn’t have much luck using it to find her.
But if a man knew she would be hidden near the flowers, which were pungent and bloomed at night, and he knew the landscape, he’d know which areas to search. And the moment he caught a whiff of those blooms…
The horse would just move him between the clusters faster.
Shit. Shit!
