The Golden Apple (15 page)

Because she was his now. When they started the journey, no matter his legal rights, she had not been.

Last night they had given themselves to each other and he was as much hers as she was his.

His breathing settled into a steady rhythm as he ran. He twisted and leapt over the obstacles in his way, his arms scratched and bleeding as he threw branches aside to keep up his pace.

He was going so fast, he smelled the smoke too late. He broke into the clearing, into their midst, before he could stop, surprising them as much as himself.

One of the men gave a shout, and they jumped to their feet.

Rane had jerked back, but he threw himself forward as soon as he realized who they were, leaping their camp-fire and heading straight for the path on the other side of the clearing.

Someone leapt at him from the right and he put on a spurt of speed. Arms locked around his legs and he hit the ground, kicking out.

“No, you don’t.”

Someone sat on his back, and hands dealt roughly with his legs, tying them with rope. His arms were yanked back as well, and when they were tied too, he was flipped over.

“De’Villier.” It was Travis, his old companion from his time in Jasper’s service, and Rane nodded to him, his expression blank.

“Jasper is looking for you.”

Rane nodded again. “I know.”

“Why haven’t you brought him what he wants, or do you not care if your brother dies?” Travis sat down on a log pulled up for a seat next to the fire, and Rane saw there were four other men. He did not know them. They watched him attentively.

A search party sent out to find him.

“I care. Eric had an enchantment on that apple. I have to do something for him first, only then will the apple be mine to give to Jasper.”

Travis looked at him, his eyebrows raised. “Eric is making you do something for him first?”

Rane grimaced. Even this small delay pressed the heel of the enchantment harder against his throat. When he spoke, it was through clenched teeth. “The contest was a trap. A way to find someone with the ability to get the apple. When I touched it, it enchanted me.”

“Well, Eric will have to wait. I’m to bring you to Jasper.” Travis stood and Rane’s heart jumped in panic.

He took a deep breath. “Let me go, Travis.”

Travis shrugged, the movement one of genuine regret. “Sorry. Jasper said to find you and bring you to him.”

“It will be worse for Jasper if you take me to him. I swear it.”

Travis moved from his log, crouched beside him. “I cannot let you go.”

Rane felt another wave of panic. Just hearing the words seem to trigger the enchantment into a flurry of punishments. Heart beating harder, breathing kicking up.

“I’m sorry.” Travis’ hand reached for Rane’s belt, undid his pouch. Tipped it out. Rane turned his head, looked at the small pile of coins, his black firestick and the moonstone lying in an unassuming heap. Travis grunted, frowning, and scooped them back into the leather purse. His eyes went to Rane’s knife sheath. He unbuckled it, pulled out the knife.

As usual, it looked blunt. Useless.

It was the reason Rane had not sold it when he’d found it, right at the beginning, when he’d still thought the best things were the most beautiful, the shiniest. He knew better now.

As it was he’d only discovered its unusual properties by mistake. And he had never considered selling it after that.

“Huh.” Travis slammed it back into its sheath and threw it down next to the pouch. He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t have the golden apple?”

Rane shook his head. He thought of the gem, tightly wrapped in a soft cloth, strapped around his waist under his clothes, and hoped Travis would not physically search him.

“How is Soren?” He spoke quietly, but Travis reacted as if he’d shouted in his ear, flinching away from him.

“He’s alive.”

The way he said it gave Rane no comfort.

He was shivering, he realized. His muscles pulsing against the ropes, sending pain shooting through his arms and legs.

“What is happening to him?” One of the men moved, stood beside Travis.

“Enchantment.” Rane got the words out through chattering teeth, although he was not cold. It was as if his body was trying to shake its way along the path.

“Do you know what became of Djan?” One of the others asked, kneeling beside Travis.

Rane tried to keep his body still. “Wild magic got him, and his companion.”

“Got him?”

Rane didn’t answer. They should know what happened in the forest, and if they didn’t, they would soon learn.

He wondered what they would have done if Kayla had been with him. Studying the harsh features and scars of the motley group, he was glad he had left her behind.

“Let’s go.” Travis gave a flick of his hand, and each of the four men took a shoulder or a leg, lifted Rane up high, face down.

He saw Travis’s feet start ahead, stop and turn back to the camp. Heard the chink of coins in his pouch as they were lifted.

Travis passed them again, and Rane twisted his neck to see if his knife was with the pouch. It was. Clutched loosely in Travis’ hand.

“Travis. Let me go. Before it’s too late.”

“I said, let’s go,” Travis called from up ahead.

The men began to move, and with every step, took Rane closer to madness.

Chapter Twenty-one

I
t hardly took them any time to reach the village. Kayla thought the forest seemed lighter today—the paths wider, the sun shining through the trees and reaching all the way to the forest floor.

She was sure the way had been longer and harder yesterday.

As she and Sooty stepped out onto the green, the cows began lowing, the pathetic, desperate sounds of creatures in terror, and Kayla saw Sooty crouch down, her front paws massaging the ground, her back legs quivering.

“Sooty.”

The cat froze in surprise at the sharpness of her tone, turned its head to her.

“No chasing cows. Come here.”

The cat blinked. Her tail flicked in anger.

She was a cat, not a dog, Kayla remembered. Not prone to obedience. And Sooty had been wild for more than a few weeks.

She could try magic, but she was reluctant to command the cat that way. It would be better to be obeyed without it. She stared the cat down.

“Come here.” Her voice was gentle this time, coaxing.

Sooty rose from her crouch, sat, and looked the other way. Her tail flicked again.

Kayla grinned.

“Let’s go.” She took a few steps across the green, turned and waited for the cat, and eventually, with great disdain, Sooty joined her, moving to her side and then rubbing her cheek against Kayla’s thigh, marking her.

“You can’t bring that cat here.” It was Gert, calling from the bottom step of his house.

“She will stay with me.” Kayla shielded her eyes against the sun, just behind his roof.

“She’s a cat. She goes where she likes. Frightens the cows.”

“We are taking the path to Therston, we will be gone in a moment.” Kayla kept her eyes on Gert, but she continued on across the field, her hand sinking into Sooty’s fur.

“Where is the troll-killer?” Gert stepped out from the shade of his house, and Kayla saw he had his axe in hand.

“We had to go our separate ways for a time.” They had reached the path, and Kayla relaxed a little. Sooty had stayed with her, for once unconcerned with peripheral movement.

“Why does that cat mind you?” Gert took another step towards them, and Kayla could hear the tight suspicion in his voice.

“She is a creature of wild magic. And wild magic is…sympathetic to me.”

“Sooty!” A tiny figure darted from Gert’s door, brown hair flying back, little knees lifting. A small girl with hair in braids leapt from the porch to the ground, red dress streaming out behind her. “Sooty!”

“Marie, no.” Gert’s cry was strangled, and he lunged at the child, missing her and stumbling forward.

Sooty turned at the sound, and Kayla could feel her vibrate with excitement.

“Sooty.” It was a warning, but it wasn’t enough. Sooty bounded towards the child.

“She’s not your kitten any more.” Gert righted himself and ran forward, hand outstretched to grab his daughter.

Sooty dodged right, then left, in a wild kitten game, her paw out to bat at her tiny former owner in a playful swat.

“Stop.” Kayla threw her hands forward. She did not wait to see if wild magic had gathered at her fingers, she trusted it would be there. She needed it to be there.

And it was.

Sooty froze, mid-leap. Her back paws on the ground, her front paws above the little girl’s head. The sparkle of wild magic glinted off her fur.

Gert snatched his daughter up and put her behind him, raised his axe.

“No!” Kayla’s hands flashed again, and Gert stood as still as the cat he was about to kill.

Marie stood, opened-mouthed, and a woman Kayla had not noticed came behind the child and lifted her into her arms. Turned her face away from the scene and pressed it into the curve of her neck.

“I know Sooty has caused you trouble, but she didn’t mean harm. This is her home and she hasn’t realized that she is too big. She doesn’t understand.” Kayla reached the two statues. “I will take her with me, and give her a home. Your husband has no need to kill her.”

The woman nodded, her eyes steady, even though Kayla could see her hands trembled where they stroked her daughter’s back. “You’ll release him?”

Kayla looked at the way the cat and the man were set in place. If she released Gert, he could still kill Sooty as he came free. She turned and saw where the path disappeared into the forest towards Therston, and lifted her hands. Sooty was suddenly there, still frozen, waiting for Kayla to join her.

Kayla began walking backward, and when she was out of Gert’s range, her hands flashed, and the woodsman fell forward, axe spinning through the air to land on the green.

“What are you?” He bent, hands on knees, panting.

Kayla looked down at her hands. They were still tingling. “It seems I am a wild magic witch.”

* * *

Rane had lost all sense of time and place.

His agitation had given way to gibbering and then to silent shivering.

Sometimes he would moan, hearing himself as if he were apart, locked in a cold, lonely chamber, while the enchantment held the rest of the castle. Of him.

He hung between the men, dizzy, desperate. Helpless.

He didn’t know for how long.

And then slowly, like the first taste of sweet water after a hike through the desert, the enchantment eased a little. It lifted off him, inch by inch.

He was aware of a change in the light, of the movement of air around him, and forced his eyes open. They had reached the edge of the forest. Rane sensed a lift in the men’s spirits.

He could only think they had, by chance, swung in the direction of Eric’s castle, had eased his burden, however minutely.

He needed to escape. A sense of urgency pounded at him, intensifying as he came back to his senses.

They had stopped walking, and Rane saw they’d entered a clearing. It held the rough remains of an old camp, an abandoned horse-cart to one side.

He jerked against his captors.

“Watch it.” The man at his left shoulder smacked his head, and he thrashed, throwing his body from side to side, twisting against the hold they had on him.

“That’s enough.” Travis’s tone was hard. Harder than Rane had ever heard it.

“Can’t help it,” he muttered. “Enchantment.” He twisted again.

Travis hit him. A swift, clipped blow to the forehead, and the world spun for a moment.

No! If he went under now, they could take him to Jasper and he might never wake. Or if he did, he would be insane.

“Please.” He lifted a hand.

Travis hit him again.

He could not let it end here.

He fought, flailing and bucking, catching the men by surprise. He was free for a moment, his heart leaping as he fell, and then he hit the ground, losing the air in his lungs, rolling until he stopped suddenly against a fallen log.

He groaned, curling inward.

“He’s got something under his shirt.” One of the men crouched beside him, yanked the shirt higher. Exposed the strip of cloth around his waist, and the small lump where he’d strapped the gem to the small of his back.

“Don’t touch…” His teeth were chattering, and he clamped them together, spoke through a clenched jaw. “Don’t touch it.”

Travis ignored him, taking the small wrapped bundle and crouching down. His men joined him in a loose circle, and Travis flicked the cloth open.

He was going to touch it. Of course he was.

Grunting with effort, Rane lifted up, leant on the log, flipped himself over it to the other side. It was not a lot of cover, but it was better than nothing.