I watched them for a minute before curiosity caused me to reach into an inner pocket of my vest, where I’d stored my father’s necklace. Just because I hadn’t decided yet what I wanted to do about it didn’t mean I couldn’t sense its pull. Even before I unfolded it from its leather wrappings, it was like I could feel its power. A steady thrum of energy had been vibrating in my blood all day. Excited and calling, brimming with something I could only describe as a stimulated current that I knew would relent at my touch alone.
All it would take is a touch, and who knows what kind of magic I’d get. Control of an element is what Kingston seemed to believe, but which one? I’d never been particularly fond of any element over another, if that’s even how it worked. Maybe I didn’t get to choose at all. My thumb stroked the soft leather that separated the metal necklace from my hand, tracing around the pendant so dangerously close that I was nearly touching it.
All it would take… But if I couldn’t control it then I could hurt Ava, I could hurt Albus or Brande, and when I returned home I could hurt Mother or Nilson. There was no one to teach me, and I had no idea how difficult it would be to learn. That terrified me. It was the only thing keeping me from actually meeting metal with flesh.
“What will you do?” Ava asked, turning back around so she was laying right ways and slipping under her blanket.
I folded the necklace back up and returned it to my pocket, then got situated within my own furs beside her. “I don’t know,” I answered. I turned on my side to face her, and it was getting dark enough now that I could barely see her. “Think on it more.”
She folded one arm beneath her head, and reached up with her other hand to run her fingers through the fur at the edge of her blanket. “Are you afraid?”
Where I’d previously been so reluctant to let Ava see my fears, now I took comfort in sharing it with her, because I knew she’d do nothing but make it better. I hummed my confirmation. “I don’t know how to make sure I can control it.” I shrugged. “Or if I even have what it takes.”
“There is greatness in you,” she said, “I saw it the very moment I met you.”
And she spoke with such confidence that I knew it to be nothing but what she truly believed. Like I knew she would, she made me feel better, and while I did blush at the compliment, it wasn’t her words that were responsible. It was her faith in me. Effortless and firm although I felt I’d done so little to earn it. I reached over to set my hand on top of hers, and she rotated her own enough that she could run her thumb over the backs of my fingers.
“I think you’re destined for incredible things,” she continued. “If you decided to, I know you could do it.”
It wouldn’t have mattered how hard I was trying to fight how deep my feelings for her were getting, my heart swelled. So much that I pulled her hand across to my furs, just to hold it beneath my chin in both my own. “How is it you believe in me so?”
She was quiet for a minute, thinking to herself as if she truly wanted to give me the most genuine answer. “You’ve such a powerful sense of justice, Kiena,” she said eventually. “You’ve compassion like I’ve never seen, it’s in everything you stand for. Everything you do.” She paused, and her thumb made a mindless stroke against my hand. “You believed in me when you had every reason not to, and you risked everything for me on blind conviction.” Her eyebrows converged with an emotion I could only suggest was overwhelming gratitude. “I owe you the world.”
I dropped my chin to kiss her hand, saying, “You owe me nothing, Little Will-o’.”
It was too dark now to see her at all, but as she squeezed my hand, I could practically feel the smile on her face. Neither of us said anything after that. Soon my eyes began to droop closed, and not long after, I fell asleep. Not once the entire night did Ava take her hand back. I woke up the next morning with it in the same spot beneath my chin, clasped comfortably between my own.
I couldn’t really help myself when I touched my lips to the backs of her fingers, and at the same time I caressed her arm. Her skin had been exposed to the cold air all night, and was icy when I touched it. The only explanation was that she’d braved the cold in order to keep holding my hand, and for that I planted another kiss while I began to rub some heat back into her flesh. I also didn’t miss the fact that her lips curled with a smile at the start of my care, alerting me that she was awake.
“Did you sleep well?” I asked.
She blinked her eyes open, and had just been about to answer when Albus rose to his feet, letting out a deep growl. I turned to look in the same direction that he was, and when I saw what he was growling at, I let go of Ava’s hand and rolled onto my stomach to push myself up. There was a group of horsemen, at least eight by the glimpse I’d caught, and less than a mile away on the other side of the bridge. And though they were wearing plain clothing, they seemed particularly interested in Ava and me.
“Get up,” I said, springing to my feet. “We’ve been spotted.”
Chapter 10
Ava bolted upright, scrambling to her feet as I hurried to gather my sleeping furs. The moment I’d stood, the men across the canyon kicked their horses to a gallop. They were nearly at the bridge, less than another minute and they’d have already reached us.
I was in such a rush that I gave up on trying to roll my furs, and threw them onto Brande’s back in a messy heap as Ava did the same with hers. There was so little time to do anything else. The men were close enough that I could hear them yelling to each other, so I made sure Ava got onto her horse and then I slapped my hand against its flank. It started running, and as I vaulted onto Brande’s back, one of the men shouted at four others to go after Ava. Their accents were Valenian. They had to be Hazlitt’s men.
“Albus!” I hollered, and motioned to Ava as I kicked my heels back. “Eyes!” Albus chased after her, with Brande and me right behind him.
We took off, galloping across the start of the remaining miles of plateau with the men gaining ground behind us, hot on our trail. The four who’d been told to chase after Ava were entirely focused on her, but the other four were beginning to separate. I glanced back just in time to see one of the riders pull back on his bowstring, and steered right on the reins so Brande would cut across just as the man released. The arrow went sailing by me, but it was clear now that they didn’t want me alive. I grabbed my own bow, letting go of the reins to steer with my feet while I twisted in the saddle, firing a blind shot behind me.
Our head start hadn’t been great enough, and the men had to have come from healthy means, because their horses were quicker. Stronger. In a mere minute, four of them flew past me to get at Ava, and I knew they’d reach her in no time.
“Ava!” I shouted at the top of my lungs to warn her. She glanced back to see the four coming to her, and untied Maddox from the saddle so the bird could fly off and avoid injury, and then she urged her horse to push faster.
I’d been paying so much attention to the men going after Ava that I’d stopped watching what the men behind me were doing. The archer had wound up again, and the only reason I knew was because the arrow he released skimmed my shoulder. The tip of it tore through my tunic, ripping my flesh to the bone on its way to the ground ahead of us. I let out a yelp of pain and shock, but I didn’t have time to dwell on the injury.
There was enough strength in my arm to still be able to fire an arrow, so I released another in the direction of my pursuers. But the men ahead of me were catching up to Ava and Albus. I watched one of them ride right up to her side, raising the blunt end up his poleaxe and preparing to strike her in the back. In the brief moments before he did, I worked another arrow into my bowstring, firing it so accurately that the tip pierced straight through the center of his back. As he collapsed off his horse, Albus sprang at the next nearest man. He jumped right in front of the man’s horse, clamping his jaws down tight on the animal’s throat.