“I swear I’ve seen you before,” Exeres said. “I’m sure I have. But I can’t remember it. I’ve seen you. It was…it was in a dream long ago.” He turned and looked at Allavin with alarm. “Where’s Ticastasy?”
Thealos felt a prickle of wariness. How did this man know his friends? And dreams? He had seen him in dreams?
“She’s fine. She’s with the knights of Owen Draw.” Allavin nodded for them to start walking again.
“We left her with Flent and Justin,” Thealos said. “Flent won’t let anything happen to her.”
Exeres lunged at him, and Thealos held up his hands in a defensive posture, ready to throw the priest on his face.
“She’s with Flent? The Drugaen? Sweet Achrolese, no!”
He’s mad, this one. Cock-raving mad.
“Flent is her best friend. He would guard her with his life. Trust me, he’d kill the man who tried to hurt her.”
Exeres buried his face in his hands. “But he is with someone else? Another Shae?”
The wariness mushroomed inside Thealos and turned into biting ants. He felt sick to his stomach. “How would you know that?”
“The other Shae! The other one! A sickly fellow…silver hair like mine! She sent him. The…Sorian! She sent him to take her away! By the Druids, don’t you understand?”
“Calm now, lad,” Allavin said, but Exeres whirled away in a frenzy. “You’re talking in circles. What happened?”
“Ticastasy, ban it! Miestri wants to kill her!”
Chapter XXII
Black thoughts swirled inside Thealos’ mind, sending swarms of hornets into his stomach. How could he have been so foolish—so blind! He ran with all his strength, hurtling over lowlying scrub and dodging around the army cookfires in the camp of Owen Draw. None of the knights were sleeping. All had donned armor and scabbard and watched the group of madmen running through their camp with murmurs and shaking heads. Dire news to give the Knight General, no doubt. Dire news indeed, Thealos thought with despair. And what would Shearmur care?
Allavin reached the remains of their camp first. The fire still snapped and burned, untended. Thealos’ travel sack lay where he had left it, along with a rumpled blanket with stalks of dead grass. Thealos knelt by it, clutching the fabric and squeezing it so hard his hand hurt. Ban it! Ban it!
Exeres and the boy joined them, panting and disheveled.
Too late. Too banned late to save her. Thealos closed his eyes and bit his lip, bleeding inside. He should have looked after her better. It was his fault for trusting Justin. It was all his fault. How clear it was now—like dawn in the highlands without the traces of fog. Justin’s memory had been razed. Thealos had assumed that his long sleep in the warding was culpable for it. But on closer scrutiny, it made more sense that a Sorian was behind it. A Sorian had disturbed the warding. Justin had not been strong enough to defeat her. How could he have been? Like the Druid priest, he had fallen under her thrall, losing his ability to think for himself. Allavin had first thought that a Sleepwalker had murdered the group of Shae scouts he was with when he first saw the Everoot. No…it was probably Justin. Why else would he call himself a Kilshae now? Murdering a Shae was enough to warrant such an ill distinction, even if he’d done it unwittingly.
“They went this way,” Allavin said, studying the grass and circling the fire. He paused to touch his fingers to the prints. “All three of them.”
“Follow them,” Thealos said, his voice sounding hoarse in his own ears.
Exeres gripped the boy’s shoulders. “Rest here. Watch the fire. We’ll be back when we can.”
The boy looked frightened and nodded. Thealos gave him a smile and scooped up his travel pack. He had stored enough provisions in Sol to last for several days. He’d follow them down to the walls of Landmoor if necessary. He’d take off Justin’s head if she’d managed to bruise even her knees.
“This way,” Allavin said again, picking up his pace. “The tracks are fresh.”
Thealos looked at Exeres. “You can stay…”
“I’m with you,” the Druid priest said. He mopped his face and took a deep breath. The man looked like he had carried a sack of stones without resting for six days. Gray smudged his eye and his patch twitched a little askew as he scratched his scalp.
“Come on, then,” Thealos said. He swore silently again. They could not be that far ahead, could they? An hour or two?
But it wouldn’t take long to murder a girl. Not for a Warder. Thealos had seen him kill Kiran Thall and Krag Drugaen with Earth magic, summoning its power into a flash of blue light that struck from his hands like fire. Just thinking about it made his stomach lurch. Not Ticastasy. Not after all she had done for him.