“I’d like us to go farther north. And west. Put some distance between us and the portals we’ve used. Just in case someone is looking for us. Then we’ll find another portal.”
Ah. Yes. He’d used blood to trigger the portals. A strong battle mage with a tracking talent could follow that trail. So his plan made sense. She nodded again. “Let’s get started.”
Cam pushed as hard as he dared with the horses and Lady Sophia herself. She hadn’t been lying when she had said she could ride astride. She sat on the little dun very well, but she wasn’t used to riding at a traveling pace for hours at a time over roads and countryside. He wanted her in one piece, not falling off her horse from exhaustion or too stiff to walk.
They stopped to eat in the middle of the day, finding a small stream with a shrine as they rode through a scrubby wood following a half-overgrown track.
“Do you think anyone’s keeping up the blessing?” Sophia asked as they stared down at the water.
Cam looked at the small pile of stones and the graceful curving lines carved on them. “No moss, so maybe. Not much we can do about it if they’re not.” Running water was supposed to be safe even without a blessing. He shook his head. It was nonsense anyway. The blessings were to protect the water from being used to summon a demon. And no one in Anglion practiced water magic. Even if the attack in Kingswell had been set in motion by Illvya, it wasn’t like there was an Illvyan wizard lurking behind the next tree, disturbed midsummoning. It was a stream in the middle of the damned country. But he didn’t know how superstitious—or observant—Lady Sophia was, so he pricked his thumb, let the drop of blood fall into the water, and muttered, “Salt to bind, blood to save, goddess bless this place.” It was the shortest, most perfunctory of blessings. With his level of magic and without enough blood to truly add enough salt to the water to make it poison to a demon, it wouldn’t have done anything to interfere with an Illvyan summoning anyway, but hopefully it would make her feel more comfortable.
She hadn’t asked about the stream the previous day. Too panicked and confused. If her question now meant that she was adjusting to her situation, then it was worth a drop of blood. He sucked his thumb to stop the bleeding. The nicks he’d made yesterday to power the portals were all healing, but the friction of the reins and his sweat had turned each one into a stinging annoyance. They had to keep moving, and he’d never had any skill for healing magic or herbcraft, so he couldn’t heal the cuts. He ignored the small pains, scooped water to rinse his hands off, and then drank before topping up the water bags.
Sophia bent to drink, too, splashing the water over her face. She’d pulled her hair back into a simple braid and, in the breeches and the too-large dark blue jacket and shirt he’d found for her, she looked very young.
She was a pretty thing, her eyes the clear brown of strong tea and her hair several shades darker. Her face was made up of angles. Eyes that tilted in the southern way, sharp cheekbones, and a face more pointed than the rounder-faced looks that most southerners had. All in all a face that suggested she might just have a stronger will than one would expect from a court lady. Some northerner blood somewhere in the family tree to give her those bones. Or Illvyan. The hair would change, of course, if her power manifested. She’d wind up with rich red hair, as all earth witches did. He tried to picture it for a moment and failed.
Then he pulled his mind back to the job at hand. Getting her to safety and keeping her there to ensure that she would live to get that red hair. They had a few more hours to get to the portal he was aiming for. Then they could make the final leg of the journey once he had found somewhere to sell or leave the horses. Theoretically, you could take an animal the size of a horse through a portal but only a very, very strong one. It would be a horrendous waste of power and, if the blessings weren’t strong enough, the portal could fail altogether. No one knew what happened to those caught in a failed portal. None of them had ever been seen again to explain what happened.
“We should keep moving, milady.”
Sophia nodded and took one final handful of water from the stream before heading back over to the little dun. She hadn’t complained about the journey so far, but she moved a little stiffly. Even though it was plain she knew how to ride astride, he doubted she’d ever had to do so for hours on end for a long time. She looked at the horse and made a face before feeding it the core of one of the apples they’d had for lunch.
Cameron hooked the water bag back onto his saddle and made sure the other saddlebags were closed before moving to check Sophia’s as well. She stood stroking the dun’s ears.
“I’ll give you a hand to mount,” he said, and came around to her side of the horse.
“I can do it,” she protested.
“I’m sure you can. But you’re not used to riding all day, so conserving energy is only sensible.” He regarded her for a moment. She was shorter and slighter than Eloisa, her figure sleek rather than extravagant. He could probably just pick her up and put her in the saddle, but that might be skirting the bounds of what was respectable. Particularly with her in breeches, with no layers of skirts and petticoats to shield her body from his hands. There were fairly strict rules around touching unmarried women of the court other than for socially accepted reasons such as dancing or offering an arm or a hand up into a carriage. The rules only got stricter when it came to unmarried potential royal witches. Of course, out here there was no one to see if he touched her—but there was no point shocking her virgin sensibilities if he didn’t have to.
He crouched and cupped his hands instead so she could use them as a substitute for a mounting block. She did so and gained the saddle with no difficulty, gathering the reins with a determined expression and no hint of discomfort.
Small but tough, he decided, and went over to mount his own horse.