The Golden Apple (24 page)

He lifted his head, and held her gaze. “If you’d come with me, the golden apple and the gem would be in Eric’s hands and we would both be under his control.”

She gave a nod. “I don’t dispute it. But we should have discussed it. Made a plan of action. You chose to make the decision on your own.”

“I wanted you safe.” He ran a hand through his hair, and looked across at Ker, hunched miserably over himself a little way away.

“I know. I don’t care.” She looped her arms over her knees and hugged them tight. “If it affects us both, if either one of us could be in danger, we have to talk about it.”

He waited a long time before he answered. She preferred it that way. It meant he’d really thought about it.

“All right. In future, we talk about it.” It was an admission of so much more than how he would treat her from now on. It was an admission of the fact that they were a team.

They were together.

“Good.” She smoothed a hand over his shoulder, her hand trembling at the enormity of the shift in how things were.

He looked at her in the firelight, and opened his mouth to speak just as Huri sat up with a scream.

They both scrambled to their feet, and she saw Ker rising as well, his attention riveted on Huri.

Huri dragged herself to her feet, looking through the trees, towards the field that held Eric’s castle.

“I didn’t think he’d come back so quickly,” Rane said, pulling out his knife. His other hand went up to touch his back, and his face was white and drawn, like it had been during the gindylow attack in the dungeon.

“Perhaps he’s not welcome anywhere else.” Kayla was quite sure he wasn’t.

Then Huri started walking toward the tree line, her face so haunted, so fill of agony, Kayla drew a wild magic sphere to her without even thinking about it.

“Huri, can I try to stop this? Stop the pain?”

Huri tripped on something, a root or a stick, and fell heavily. She lay for a moment, and then started to pull herself along the floor with her elbows. “Stop?”

“I will try. Will you let me?”

She nodded, but kept dragging herself toward Eric.

Kayla lifted her hands and hesitated. She would love to have Ylana here with her, helping her, telling her what to do.

But she didn’t, and every second she wasted, Huri was getting closer to Eric.

She imagined Huri’s back, smooth and unharmed, imagined her without pain.

Purple flared from her hands, but it was met with a flare of blue wherever it touched Huri, a vicious spark that threw her into even more pain. Her cries made Kayla physically sick.

She drew back, and smoke was coming off of Huri, the stench of it like manure burning.

Ker shoved her, clicking and shouting in her face, and she raised her hands.

“There must be a protective spell on top of the other magic.”

She pushed him aside and crouched next to Huri, but she was unconscious now, the cry that had cut Kayla all the way through her heart was the last sound she’d made.

“Take her.” Rane stepped beside Kayla, standing over her with his gaze on Ker. “Take Huri. Put her over your shoulder and run as far from here as you can. I don’t think he can hurt her, or compel her if you’re far enough away.”

Ker looked at them, at the wild magic, and then beyond, through the trees towards where Eric’s castle lay. He bent and Rane helped him lift Huri up, draping her over his shoulder.

“As far as you can go,” Rane told him, and Kayla thought he wanted to do the same.

Ker grunted and then turned, and Kayla waved a hand, so the wild magic parted and moved to form a purple-lit path away from the forest edge.

His first few steps were unsteady, and then he found his rhythm and he was gone, Huri limp as a puppet down his back.

“Do you want me to try on you?” Kayla lifted a hand to her throat, because she didn’t know if she had the stomach to try again. “I watched him mark you, and I don’t think he’d finished before I interrupted. There might not be any protection over his marks on you.”

Rane lifted a hand to his back again. “I saw you pull back when Huri screamed like that. I think that’s when you should have gone harder, punched all the way through. Even if I beg you to stop, that’s what I want you to do to me.”

“What if you pass out, like Huri?” Kayla waited as he looked away.

She didn’t want to do this at all. But she would.

Her hands trembled, but she bunched them into fists.

Rane ran a finger along his back. “I would rather die than let Eric have any power over me.”

She drew in a breath, wanting to tell him she would never let that happen, but after a moment gave a nod. Not in agreement, but in acknowledgment of his wishes.

The wild magic sphere she had called to her to help Huri was still hovering just over her shoulder and she held out her hands and closed her eyes.

She touched him with wild magic, felt the flare as Eric’s spell tried to counter it.

Rane cried out as blue and purple clashed, and with horror, she saw him fall down to his knees.

Chapter Thirty-four

R
ane was free again.

It came at a price. He felt a strange tingle across his shoulders, like the skin was numbed, but whether it was temporary or permanent, he didn’t care.

Eric’s power was gone.

Kayla was kneeling right next to him, cupping his face in his hands, and he drew her to him in the first real embrace he had given her since she’d come to rescue him from the castle.

“You’re all right?”

“I’m all right.” He smiled against her cheek. “It looks like there wasn’t a protective spell.”

She sagged against him, and they stayed that way, in each others’ arms, until at last they grew stiff and uncomfortable.

“Let’s move deeper into the forest,” he said, “I don’t like how close we are to the edge.”

She gave a nod, and he almost laughed at what he’d just said. Getting deeper into the forest had always been the last thing he’d wanted to do. Now he saw it as the safest option.

He kicked sand on the fire, and picked up the saddlebags Kayla and Soren had brought through the wild magic doorway. One looked familiar.

“Where did you get this?”

“The clearing near Jasper’s stronghold. Soren says they belonged to the men out hunting you.” Kayla took up one as well.

“It belonged to an old friend of mine. Someone I trained with as a knight for Jasper. He captured me on my way to Eric. And then he touched the gem.”

She shivered. “Even before I knew you’d been there, and they had been caught in the gem’s magic, I felt a darkness there. What do you think happens to them? Where do you think they go?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it since Soren disappeared. No place good. If anywhere. Maybe they simply die.”

She looked at him a moment, and then turned away, started walking into the forest. She clicked her tongue, and Sooty was suddenly beside her, and he watched them both, elegant, sleek, as they moved in unison.

She wasn’t the same woman who had started this journey with him, and he wasn’t the same either.

He started after them, and from behind him, he thought he heard a scream across the field.

He looked over his shoulder, but there was nothing but the thin treeline and the field beyond.

And enough wild magic to make anything Eric sent after them think twice before setting foot into the forest.

* * *

They lay at last beside the fire, no longer hungry or cold.

Sooty was prowling off somewhere in the trees, and the gentle bob and weave of wild magic lit their camp in a surreal glow.

“I never thought I would relax because I was surrounded by wild magic.” Rane’s voice was bemused. “It was the one thing both Soren and I hated and feared for so long.”

“I don’t know why it lets me command it. It is almost as if it is lonely, or in need of someone to direct it. And I know there is more I could do.”

“Do you have to know everything?” Rane pulled her closer to him, and she heard the steady beat of his heart against her ear.

“If there is a war coming, and I can fight against Eric and his fellow sorcerers, then I want to know everything. I think I’ll have to go back to Ylana. I understand so much more since I enchanted her. I need to release her and beg her to help me.”

Rane tensed beside her, his eyes flashing. “No.”

“This isn’t over, Rane.” Kayla lay back down, watching the purple light play off the muscles of his throat and shoulders. “Jasper has the golden apple, and—”

“What?” He reared up, towered over her.

She forced herself to relax. “Soren was holding it when Nuen hit him with a flash of magic. It saved his life, but he dropped it when he fell.”

“So Nuen is healed, now?” Rane’s eyes glittered in the firelight, and she almost couldn’t meet his gaze.

“Yes. Soren wanted to go back for it, but I wouldn’t let him. I could barely contain Nuen as it was, because I was outside the forest, and only able to get the wild magic in thin ribbons of power. I didn’t have enough strength to take him on if he was fully healed.”

He looked like a man in a struggle, fighting a dozen angry demons. He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. “You could have been killed, Kayla. Nuen could have killed you.”

She held his gaze. “He could have. But the truth is, if I had had more power, I could have killed him, too. I was just as dangerous. More, because he was weak and ill.”

“He isn’t weak and ill any more.” Rane’s tone was tired. Weary.

She drew him down, and he curved his arm around her shoulders. “With the golden apple, we can be sure Nuen is fit again. And Eric is out there, and he hates us more than ever.”

“Hates me.” Rane’s mouth curved into a humorless smile. “Wants you even more.” His grip on her tightened.

“Why, though?” She looked down at her hands. “He wanted me before he knew I could use wild magic. Was it only because he knew I was a witch, or because I was a witch
and
the princess of Gaynor? If we knew that, maybe we could understand what is going on.”

“I don’t think he’s the type to have told anyone his plans.”

“My father knows something. Or that’s the way it seemed to me. Although not everything. There were definitely secrets between him and Eric.” Kayla looked up at him, watched his face turn stubborn. “And Ylana will know.”

He shook his head, but she refused to let it drop.

“If any one does, it’s her.” She touched her wrist again. “She can help us.”

“She won’t.”

“Maybe not. But we have the gem. Perhaps we can return it, gain her forgiveness. Or maybe her hatred for the sorcerers is bigger than her anger at us.”

Rane was shaking his head, but she knew she was right. “When I spoke with her, she sounded tired. Tired of doing everything on her own. If we offer to help—”

“I will not be Ylana’s helper.” Rane’s mouth was a grim line.

“I will.” She spoke quietly, determined. “I’ll risk it.”

He lifted a hand to her shoulder, gripped her. “I don’t want you at risk. I dragged you into this…”

“No.” She pressed a finger to his lips. “Eric would have taken me that day if I hadn’t helped you with the apple. I would be his now. I would have welts on my back.”

She saw him accept what she said. Saw the pain in his eyes lessen.

“I want to hide you away. Out of Eric’s grasp.” He moved over her, supporting his weight with one arm, cupping her cheek with his other hand.

“I can’t hide.” She moved so close to him she could feel his heat, searing her through his shirt and hers. Could smell the salt and wood-smoke on his skin. “I don’t think anyone can. Whatever is coming will affect the whole of Middleland.”

He stroked his thumb over her lip. “Yes.”

“What will you do?” She lifted her hand, slid it behind his neck.

“Protect you.”

She held his gaze. “You can’t do that. I am going to Ylana.”

“Kayla.” He bent his head, rested his forehead on hers. “I won’t let you go to Ylana alone. I’ll come with you.”

“She holds some of the answers. It will be worth it.” She threaded her fingers in the hair at his nape.

“Worth dying for?” He shook his head. Shrugged with resignation. “We can go to Ylana. And if she agrees to help us, then, after…” He drew back, his eyes dark and cold as the dungeon they’d climbed out of to escape Eric’s castle. “I’ll hunt Eric down. And take Jasper down with him.”

She wanted to beg him not to. To beg him to stay as safe as he wanted her, but she said nothing. Out of nowhere, tears welled in her eyes and she blinked them away, biting down on her lip to stop it trembling.

“Shh. What is it?”

For the first time ever, she saw panic on his face.

“I love you.”

He froze. She was so close to him, she saw his pupils retract in shock. Then he relaxed. Traced a tear down her cheek and flicked it away. “I know.”