King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three (24 page)

Her eyes flicked open for a moment as if she fought sleep with every ounce of her being. He cradled her tighter, her smooth skin chill under his palms. Her chest heaved as she sucked down air like a drowning person, and her arms came up to claw at him. He grasped one strong wrist and then the other to keep her from harming either himself or her.

And then her eyes flew open and stayed that way, pupils distended, the whites of her eyes showing as well, like a frightened animal.

Suddenly she screamed, “Assassin!”

L
ARA BOLTED UPRIGHT INTO HIS ARMS, shuddering, taking another breath to cry aloud again, and he put his palm over her mouth. “You’re all right,” he whispered in her ear as he pulled her close. “Calm. Quiet. Center yourself. No one is here but us.”

After long moments, her trembling quieted and her breathing returned to normal, so he took his palm from her lips. She did not move away from his comforting embrace immediately. When she did, she put her chin up and the woman he knew as Lara became the Warrior Queen.

“Treachery,” she said.

“So I gathered. I found you tied here. Unharmed yet beset.”

She pushed her hair from her face, tossing it back as she stood. She took a step. Tottered as she did so. Bistane moved close again, lending his support, half-walking and half-carrying her to her writing desk in the main rooms.

She sat down and watched as he lit two lamps. “Get Farlen. And Sevryn.”

“I will, but . . .” he paused. “I was told Sevryn was here with you, consulting.”

“He was.” She frowned. “Just find him for me.”

The seneschal he found easily, sleeping in his rooms a floor below. Of Sevryn Dardanon there was no sign, nor of Rivergrace either. Bistane returned uneasily to Lara. If Sevryn were the assassin of which she spoke, nothing could have stopped him from his goal. Yet she lived still. Unless Lara was not his target.

Dawn was threatening at her windows as he entered her rooms. She stood up at his news, straightening herself as if putting on yet another layer of armor. “Mount a guard. I will find them.” Her hand clenched and unclenched. “He is in my service and she may think she follows in the steps of a River Goddess, but this is my kingdom, and
I will find them!
”

Sevryn raced the horses as far as they could at night. At dawn, they paused to rest the horses and take a bit of food. Sevryn climbed a tree to be certain of his scouting and came down with nothing to report but a troubled look on his face.

Grace put her hand over his. “Yet you saw nothing.”

“No and that worries me more than seeing horsemen on our trail. Because she will come after us, I am certain.”

“What did you do? Or is it me? Have I done something?”

He bent and brushed his lips over her hand covering his. “Never you, though I don’t doubt she bristles a bit at your lack of experience with Vaelinar scheming.”

“Bristle? It’s more than that. Ever since I found Fire, she’s feared me.”

“Fire is a power that isn’t easily controlled, even within the bricks of a hearth. She may be wary of you, but Lara’s not the kind of person who will kill someone who makes her uneasy.” He shifted his weight and shook his head. “No, it’s me and what I’ve done is not what I’ve done yet. It’s what she may fear that I will do.”

“Must you speak in riddles?”

The corner of his mouth quirked. “It seems I must. I gave her an oath, Grace, and beyond that, there are things you’re better off not knowing, if we can’t win free of Larandaril. Just know that she thinks I may try to kill her.”

She tilted her head. “Will you?”

“No. Not unless she threatens you and there’s no other recourse.”

“But she trails us now.”

He put his finger on her chin. “Because she thinks she has reason to.”

“How could she think such a thing?”

“That, you’re better off not knowing and I gave my word. And she is wrong. Very wrong.” He turned his face away.

“We can’t waste time here if she means to take us prisoner.”

“No, but I can’t spend the horses too dearly yet either. We’ll go again in a few moments. Glow and Pavan need to crop a bit. If she means to imprison us, we’re not likely to find replacement mounts or other aid easily.”

“We’ll be on the run.”

“Probably.”

“Where are we headed?”

“Ild Fallyn Stronghold.”

“What?” Her face paled.

“It’s not what you think.” He captured her hand, as she jerked away from him. “Never that. I’ll never join them not even if Lara and all the lords were on our heels.”

“Then why?”

“If Lara believes, as I think she might, that I’ve turned against her, then she stands alone except for Bistane and Tranta. I won’t leave her vulnerable.” His lips thinned. “I intend to take a bit of diplomacy into my own hands.”

She gripped his hand tightly then. “Sevryn.”

“Don’t judge me.”

“I’m not, how can I? Yet you speak of murder.”

“Not exactly. Alton will get a challenge. He’ll take it. That should cripple Tressandre long enough for Lariel to get her support consolidated. That’s all she will need.”

“How can you even think of that?”

Sevryn studied her. She wore her distress openly, as she did most of her emotions and feelings in her expression, not masked as the high elven practiced. Not deceitful. “The question should be: how can you not? If ever a bug deserved to be squashed, it’s Alton.” He touched her chin. “It’s a blessing that you don’t, but you have to understand, the ild Fallyns have had Lara’s death planned for centuries. Now that I’m no longer under Lara’s constraints, I can work to ensure their plans will never succeed. She won’t appreciate it, but I can’t walk away free until I’ve done this.”

“And then?”

“And then, you and I will discover the Eastern lands, beyond the wastes of the Mageborn, and far away to the Eastern sea.”

Darkness clouded her eyes. “Nutmeg . . .”

“We could stop and take her with us. And Lily and Tolby and all your brothers.” Sevryn grinned at her then. “I wouldn’t mind uprooting the Farbranch family.”

“That might take a bit of digging.”

“I’d make time for it.”

“All the while ducking Lariel?”

“Anything to make you happy.”

She laughed then, thin and light, but still a laugh. He turned her about and brought her into his embrace, and they were both quiet for long moments, watching the horses graze, as the dawn came up bright and proper.

Pavan threw his head up, a gleam in his eye. He arched his neck as if to whicker, but Sevryn got to the horse first, hand on his nose, bringing it to his chest to muffle him. The horse stomped a hoof. Around them, the clearing became startlingly, suddenly, quiet. Birds that had woken before dawn broke stopped their singing and noise-making. Rodents schussing through the grasses to find shoots and seeds to nibble lay low, inaudible, as though a massive predator now stalked the area. One must. The only sound that had not changed except perhaps that it had grown louder was the flow of the River Andredia. Its waters could be heard even more clearly moving over the sand and stone of its bed, swiftly but not flooding. Sweetwater, undeniable in the way it washed through her senses. Yet, the clarity and purity of the river did not wash away her apprehension that something close by was terribly wrong. Rivergrace looked to Sevryn, and as she did, she drew her short sword.

Unlike him, she dropped to her knees and began a slow, inexorable crawl to the river. Behind her came a long pause and then she heard Sevryn follow her. He reached out and gripped her boot. “Grace. There is no way to make the horses crawl.”

She curled up to look back at him and then realized what he meant. Her face warmed. “Then we might as well run for it.”

“Done!” He handed her to her feet and literally tossed her aboard Glow, throwing the reins into her hands before turning and doing a running mount onto his horse.

As they kicked their horses into a run, birds burst out of cover to take wing behind them, adding to the sudden change from tension to fear. Grace leaned low over the neck of her mare, urging her faster. A whoop sounded behind them, leaving no doubt they had been seen.

But they had plenty of horse under them, crediting Sevryn’s caution, while the pursuers had to be riding mounts nearly played out, having ridden at top speed to catch up with them. Glow put her ears back at Grace’s words, and stretched out her nimble legs to eat the ground beneath them even faster, dodging the shrubs and low brush, her hooves cutting the distance away. The River Andredia ribboned before them, dark blue and white, frothing on the rocky coves as it made its way out of the valley Larandaril. What she thought she could accomplish there, she was not certain, but she knew it was their only chance.

Pavan drew even with Glow, their heads bobbing together, as they raced across the field toward the Andredia. His nostrils flared wide and he snorted, stretching his body out, his hot-blooded nature bringing out the desire to race and win, his senses driving him to run flat out. Clods of spring-tender grass clumps flew through the air. Glow answered his challenge by putting her ears down even further and angling away from him to give herself racing room.

Grace wrapped her hand about the right rein and began to tug on it, slowly, steadily, turning her mare in her path else they would not stop at the river but ford it at speed, and she didn’t want that. They had to be in the water. She did not breathe until Glow plunged into it, plowing a spray of ice-cold water about all of them, tossing her head and snorting as she beat Pavan by a mere step. Sevryn twisted in the saddle. He said nothing, but his brow went up in question. She put her hand up for silence. His mouth twitched. She looked to him, and her own brow quirked. He lifted a shoulder in a shrug and looked down at his hands, each filled with a throwing dagger.

Rivergrace lifted her own hands. The waters of the Andredia reached up in misty waves to fill her fingers before running through them. Glow tossed her head uneasily as water sprayed about her. The same unease filled her rider. Grace felt the Andredia sink through her skin, into her veins, into her very soul . . . cold and icy, fresh melted from the mountains, carried out of the font hidden within them, and down the hillsides throughout the valley. She could feel more than that in it, however. There was rainwater, fallen from the skies and drifting from far, far away, distilled from the air and seas themselves. They had no calling for the Andredia, but they had an answering for her. The Andredia did not want to give in to her will, would not let her braid it as she wished, did not want to bend to her asking, but she persisted. She was more than the heir to the Silverwing waters, more than the heir to its mad Goddess. She felt the ire of the Andredia’s soul and reminded it that she had helped to cleanse it, not that long ago. It owed her, though water seldom felt that it owed any living thing on the face of the earth. It simply
was
.

“What are you doing?”

Rivergrace did not glance up, merely letting a “Shush” go, her face bent to the river around them. Glow danced in the flow, splashing it vigorously, her chestnut dappled hide shivering. It was chilling her. It had already seeped icy fingers into Grace.

“Surrender now, and there will be no arms pulled against you.”

Her attention snapped up, as did Sevryn’s. Lariel sat her golden and silver-white steed, her shoulders thrown back, her mail gleaming in the early morning sun, and her eyes bruised with fatigue or perhaps it was sorrow.

“We deserve our freedom.”

“You gave an oath to me, Sevryn Dardanon.”

“I have given you more than one oath, my Warrior Queen, and upheld every one of them.”

Rivergrace’s fingers moved on their own volition, weaving, braiding, bending the recalcitrant river to her will. If not for the rainwater in it, it would not have listened to her at all, not with the queen of Larandaril so close. It finally conceded to carry one away, but only one. Rivergrace stayed cold. She told the river what she wished and it agreed to follow her desire.

She dropped her hands to her reins, fingers bone chilled, numbed with her effort, trembling in her saddle. Glow took a side step toward the river’s bank.

“How can I know that?” Lara asked sadly.

“At least one of those oaths will not be entirely fulfilled until one or the other of us is dead, for it is the vow of a lifetime, and cannot be upheld until our lives run out.”

Her gaze locked on Sevryn. “Do you tempt me?”

“No. I remind you that I have given you my word, and I see no evidence that anything I have done is treasonous.” Sevryn kept his daggers in his hands, but they rested easy on his thighs, and he made no move although Pavan, like his stable mate, danced a little nervously in the rushing tide of the Andredia.