There were too many questions, too many unknowns. She would have to find out more, somehow. There had to be a jeweler somewhere in the world, perhaps in Mayville, or the City of Crowns, or any of the dozens of cities that graced the kingdom. A specialist on the matter....
And my mother....Who had she been, to have had such an extraordinary artifact? Was she still alive? And where? How am I going to last long enough to find her?
“Dorian, we’re changing plans,” the assassin said abruptly, startling Sora from her thoughts. Crash walked to the other side of the camp, kneeling next to the fallen Wolfy. He had ripped open Dorian's shirt and deftly cleaned his wounds, using water and a mixture of crushed leaves that Sora didn't recognize.
“Is that so?” the Wolfy replied, wincing, looking down at Crash's handiwork.
“We’re going through the swamp,” the assassin said.
The Wolfy blinked, alarmed. “But...”
“We have a Cat’s Eye now. The spells won’t harm us, and Volcrian won’t be able to follow.”
Sora leaned forward, holding up a hand, also concerned. “Wait a moment. You mean...Fennbog swamp? To the West?”
They ignored her. “We should consult Burn about this,” Dorian said uneasily. “He might not like it. In fact, I know he won't.” He winced as the assassin cleaned out his shallow wound. Despite the blood, it looked like the monster's claws had barely grazed the skin, catching mostly cloth.
“It's our best chance to escape the mage,” the assassin repeated darkly.
“Maybe you're right...but we should wait to consult with Burn.”
They fell silent once more. Sora was completely bewildered. Who's Burn? She hadn't heard his name mentioned before. More people she didn't know about. And were these two really about to drag her through a swamp? Truly? Over my dead body! she thought fiercely. She had to escape! She would have tried to escape right then, but she was so tired after using the necklace, her legs couldn't bear her weight.
Fennbog was the only swamp she knew about. Her father's lands bordered on it, far, far to the West. If her servants were truthful at all, it was a horrid place, full of poisonous plants and mud pits that could swallow a horse. During the rainy season, the waters rose by fifteen feet, and half the landscape was completely submerged. Large patches of marshland would float on the tide, shifting landmarks and creating a terrain that was impossible to navigate.
Besides, Fennbog was rumored to be cursed. If one traveled too deep into it, compasses would fail and the traveler would be lost forever. No one knew for sure how large it was—certainly over a hundred miles. A hundred miles. And, assuming she survived the journey, there would be no road back to her manor.
Dorian sat up, his shirt fully removed, a bandage around his waist. Despite his small, pale frame, his chest was chiseled with hard-packed muscle. He leaned toward the fire. She watched the line of his abdominal muscles stretch and bulge.
Then he removed the meat and sliced it on a flat stone, passing the food around the campfire. Sora received her small share, cushioning the hot meat on her cloak. It was burnt almost completely black, forgotten in the brief skirmish. Honestly, she didn't have much of an appetite anymore. She was too worried to eat. But she knew she needed her strength, so she forced the charred bits into her mouth, chewing on the tough, dry chunks.
She didn't want to travel through Fennbog, and she didn't like this news of a Wolfy mage, of magic that could create monsters, and a necklace that could break her mind. That name, Volcrian. It made her think of vultures and wolves and frozen things.
Maybe she would have been better off in her manor. Maybe she had made a horrible, horrible mistake.
“Must I...must I travel with you?” she asked, her voice small.
“With that necklace? You can count on it,” Dorian replied. He didn't sound happy for her. “So eat and rest. Tomorrow we reach Mayville.”
She opened her mouth, wondering if it was worthwhile to plead, to beg them to let her go. But one glance at the assassin told her otherwise. He was sitting uncomfortably close, only a few feet away, slightly behind her, watching her. She knew he was thinking she would make a run for it.
She went back to eating her meat and tried not to think of the next day, or the past hour, or anything other than the mud on her boots. She could still escape, she told herself, trying to keep hope alive. Before they reached the swamp, somewhere in Mayville, she would slip away and buy a horse and flee. She could still find her mother. It wasn't too late for that.
The only alternative was to become a tool in the assassin's game. No choice, no freedom, just like her manor. Her eyes grew serious, her jaw clamped down on the tough meat. She was done with being a pawn.
She looked to the trees, to the night, to the stars above, distant and glinting. She had made it this far—she would make it out alive somehow.
Chapter 5
Volcrian felt the shock run through him. It almost threw him from his horse.
His steed whinnied and bucked, sensitive to emotions. Volcrian wavered in the saddle, almost toppling backward, his crippled hand snagging in the reins and dragging sideways. He gasped in agony, then righted himself and regained control by pushing his weight down. He disentangled his hand and pulled firmly on the harness. The horse shied for a moment, dancing across the earth, then settled down.
Volcrian sat atop the still horse, breath heaving in his lungs, his crippled hand spasming from pain. No. He hadn’t expected this.
Every blood-mage had a connection to his minions. They shared the same blood, after all. He had felt a shockwave crash over his body: a gust of wind and a firm shove from behind. His creation. His servant. Gone.
After all of the blood he had put into his sorcery, the hours spent catching the fox, a few failed attempts at creating other creatures, monsters that had all decomposed back into dirt—the beast had been destroyed. Obliterated in a matter of seconds.
There were very few explanations for this. His creations were supposed to be immortal, imperishable. It was not possible, unless his prey had stumbled upon very powerful magic. Ancient magic. Rare, indeed. As long as Volcrian had practiced the blood arts, he had never met another sorcerer than Etienne. Not in all the towns and cities they had visited.
Volcrian was not the type to guess in the dark. The fox-corpse should have been powerful enough, with stamina enough, to kill the bastard Dorian and bring Viper to heel. And yet, there had been something slightly different about this energy, this burst of static that had touched his body, reaching straight through the blood of his magic. It had been...green. Lush. He had heard...bells.
Female.
The girl, Volcrian suddenly thought, his eyes narrowing slightly. Could it be...that Lady Fallcrest was alive after all? Ironic, that. It was one explanation, but how could she conquer a Wolfy's spell? She was a pathetic human. I must get to the bottom of this. Now. He couldn't wait too long. He knew Viper well. True to his name, the assassin was as slippery as a snake in the grass.
In one smooth movement, he dismounted. He tied his steed to a nearby thistle bush and walked a brief distance away, glancing around. Eventually he found what he was looking for. A young sapling, just barely sprouted, about knee-high. The spell he would use was brief and simple, very basic.
In order to speak to the dead, one must exchange new life for old. Some would think this meant sacrificing a child or a kitten, but no, a young tree would work as well.
He uprooted the small sapling, its shallow roots pried free easily of the loose, moist dirt. Then Volcrian threw it on the ground, and struck a fire by rubbing flint on rock. In his native tongue, the tongue of his ancestors, he began the long and methodical chant of the dead.
Perhaps twenty minutes passed before a white, filmy shape appeared in the smoke. It was the silhouette of a female, the shade of some unnameable spirit, perhaps a woman who had died in this forest hundreds of years ago. Not all of the races believed the same things about spirits and the afterlife, and not all spir
its could be contacted. Only the ones who were willing.
Some races believed that spirits were just as limited as their living counterparts. They only knew certain information, that which they were privy to in life, or else soon after death. But Wolfy lore believed that all things were connected, that all blood was of the same ocean. Once dead, the veil of the body was lifted, and one had full knowledge of all things.
“I am hunting an assassin,” he said. The spirit wavered quietly. It was an eerie thing to watch, vaporous and misty, faceless but for the shallow indent of a mouth and a thin trail of hair. “He has a new weapon to aid him. What is it?”
The spirit's figure shuddered, flashed. For a moment, the woman's face was vaguely visible, her hands held up to her cheeks, her jaw drawn out in a long, silent howl. Voiceless words. The sudden vision made Volcrian flinch and move back, but then he held his ground, watching the white mist closely. The spirit spun, smeared, wavered....
“A Cat's Eye,” the voice breathed. There was fear in those words.
Volcrian's ears twitched. It was an otherworldly sound, incoherent to any other ear. “Explain,” he murmured.
“I have seen a girl traveling through these woods...a young girl who aids the Dark One. She carries a Cat's-Eye stone.” The spirit swirled, her long, disfigured face spinning round towards him, her hair bleeding into the wind. The soft voice spoke one last time. “A Cat's Eye, rich in souls.”
Then, with a long eerie whine, the Spirit collapsed inward on itself. It was sucked back to the in-between, a dark forest where souls did not rest, but were not damned, simply watched and waited.
The mage took a deep, calming breath, and kept breathing until his mind was cold and clear. A young girl with a Cat's-Eye stone. A Cat's Eye. He had never dealt with such a thing before. In all of his years of practice, he had never come across one. He had heard of Cat's-Eye stones in stories of the races, a few vague mentions in his grandfather's script. Supposedly, the stones had all been destroyed shortly after the decimation of the races, tossed to the depths of the ocean from which they had originated.
Was it possible? How does a child come across such a powerful artifact? And yet...there was no other explanation for the green light, the jolt that had almost thrown him from his horse. He didn't like its ferocity, the way it had drained his blood-magic like so much water. It felt wild, raw. The girl couldn't possibly know how to use it. Not yet. He doubted she had a clue what she was doing.
Yet as an experienced magic user, he knew the danger of an untrained hand. She was vulnerable, susceptible to manipulation. The necklace was a loose cannon. Magic was not something to be used lightly, like a simple toy. It had consequences, side effects, moods and preferences...each and every spell had a price.
Volcrian turned back to his horse, glancing at the starry sky above him, the sliver of moon on the horizon just above the hills, perched like a wicked smile. He might as well make camp. With his blood-minion destroyed, he wouldn't be catching up with the three travelers tomorrow. They would continue on in the morning, and he would be too exhausted to keep up.
He led his horse to a separate clearing and built another small fire—a natural one. He unsaddled the steed and started setting up a small camp, unpacking his provisions, laying out a bedroll. His mind mulled over the new information.
He had to get rid of the necklace before it ruined his plans. Which meant killing the girl as soon as possible. Once the girl was dead, the problem would be solved. He doubted that the assassin or the Wolfies would try to wear the necklace; that would be risky, dangerous, especially for those who already wielded magic.
But killing her wouldn't be easy. His power would be next to useless. He would need to confront her in person, do the deed himself with his bare hands.
The thought was invigorating, making his heart pound; his hands clenched in anticipation as though they were already curling around her weak, skinny neck. The sooner she was out of the picture, the sooner he could achieve his revenge.
Hurrying to set camp, clearing a space between two low-bending birch trees, he removed a spare saddle blanket and stretched it across a branch as a makeshift tent. His thoughts were eagerly planning the next morning. Tomorrow, he would do a simple tracing spell to gauge their general direction. It shouldn't take more than a bird's egg. Then he could devise a shortcut, cut them off further down the road. The girl would slow down the assassin, enough for Volcrian to get ahead. It was always faster traveling alone.
* * *
Sora awoke in the gray dawn. It was slightly warmer than the previous morning, but she was still sore, her rump covered in bruises from the previous day's ride. She sat up with a yawn and stretched out her arms, rolling her shoulders and neck.
The camp appeared to be in order, except for a few scuffs in the dirt where the monster had appeared the night before. Dorian had thrown the corpse to the trees shortly before falling asleep. It had been mutilated almost beyond recognition. He had used a long stick to move the body, reluctant to touch it or get any blood on him. She hadn't asked why.
Her hand traveled to her necklace, touching the small, warm stone. The memories were fresh and vivid, and she shuddered. A Cat's Eye, huh?
It was strange to think that, for the last seven years, she had assumed it was merely a pretty bauble. Now she thought back to the strange stories Lily had told her, stories they had shared late at night, huddled under her bedsheets, the pale light of a candle illuminating their round young faces. “She never wore it, but sometimes she would talk to the stone. I thought it was magic but...that's just silly.” Lily admitted that she was very young, only six or seven, when Sora's mother had lived in the manor, and wildly imaginative. And yet, she was the only witness to the necklace—or the only witness who would fess up.
So her mother had never worn it, although she must have known what it was. But why would she leave it behind, forgotten, in the nursery, with no warning about its powers? Sora was deep in thought. Maybe it hadn't been intentional. Maybe the necklace had simply been misplaced.
Or perhaps her mother had left in a hurry, with no time to cunningly hide a letter. Maybe Sora wasn't supposed to have found the necklace; maybe it wasn't meant for her at all.
She sighed. There were no answers. The only option was to find the woman, if she ever could. And she wasn't about to tell her captors about her true quest. They might watch her more closely if they knew she had other plans—then she would forfeit all chance of escape.
Her eyes wandered around the camp to Dorian’s resting form and the freshly lit fire. Crash must be up, she thought, watching the smoke blend with the fog. She had yet to see him sleep. He was always the first to take watch, the first up in the morning. She thought, briefly, of trying to run away, but she didn't trust the silence of the forest. The surrounding woods were hushed and subdued. She couldn't imagine an eerier place, the fog lingering between the trees, the dim hoot of an owl, the soft crunch of a squirrel in the leaves. The assassin's peculiar absence. She knew he was watching her. He always was.
She stretched one last time, rubbed her arms, then stood up and walked over to the sleeping Wolfy.
She reached out to touch his shoulder.
Immediately Dorian jolted awake. He shot upright and Sora jumped back, a shriek on her lips, but he grabbed her before she could scream and pulled her back down to the ground. Within a minute, she was lying on the dirt by his side, with a rock poking her back and pine needles stuck in her hair.
“Good morning," he said pleasantly.
She tried to contain her response, but a fit of giggles, partly hysterical, burst forth. Goddess, my nerves are ruined! It took her a moment to catch her breath. When he grabbed her, she fully imagined it was the monster from last night, howling out of the darkness, its great claws reaching for her....
Dorian sat up, unaware of her near-panic. Then he winced, putting his hand against his wounded hip. He stretched his right side where the monster had clawed him.
“No shirt?
” Sora said, indicating his smooth, pale chest.
Dorian's ears twitched in response, and a wicked smile curved at his lips. “I didn't bring a spare,” he winked. “Why? Do you like what you see?”
Sora felt her cheeks turn red, but she kept eye contact with him. She shrugged. “I don't court thieves,” she said sharply, raising her head, hoping the barb would hit home.
But Dorian seemed immune to her in every way. He laughed instead, a short bark, just like he always did. “We wouldn't be 'courting,' my dear.”
She glared, receiving the full gist of his words. She would have spat at him, but he spoke instead, catching her off-guard. “How did you sleep last night, by the way?” he asked.
Sora snorted. “Fine.”
“Any nightmares? Monsters in your dreams?”
“No, surprisingly,” she said. It was a lie. She barely slept a wink, flinching and starting at every rustle in the bushes. She muttered, “The only monster around here is Crash.”
Dorian's eyes widened, then he grinned, looking at her strangely, as though uncertain whether to laugh. “Come now...he's not such a bad sort....”
“Bad sort? He's the worst sort! A murderer for hire, and he killed my...my Lord!”
Dorian seemed surprisingly thoughtful about it, though perhaps it was just another game. “We've all done our share of bad things,” he said evenly.
Sora balked. “He is a killer and should be hung!”
“Now that's a strong opinion for a child,” came a soft voice from the trees.
Sora sat up. She turned, her eyes combing the deep shadows between the trunks. Crash stood in the deepest shade, his arms crossed and one boot propped up on a tree root, his black cloak shifting in the wind. Who knew how long he had been standing there? Perhaps since she had awakened. Had he heard their entire conversation? She felt another blush begin under the collar of her shirt and climb up to her forehead—the second blush of the morning.