Lirra walks forward to take the scroll, but I grab it before she can get her little hands on my letter.
“Thank you, Duff. I’ll keep an eye out. Don’t worry about me.” She turns wide eyes on the older man like she’s perfectly innocent.
I huff out a breath and roll open the scroll.
Phelia attacked the king and B. Return.
—Omar
I stare at the words. Read them three more times.
Attacked? How? When? Where?
If there was ever a time I wanted to school Omar on communication, it’s now. The lack of information slams me with anxiety. I reach for my belt, running my hand over the hidden feather.
Phelia’s in Brentyn. She’s hurt Britta.
Dammit.
I punch the tree to release the fury crashing through me. Doesn’t help, but it does crack a couple of knuckles. I’m useless this far from Brentyn.
“Get Finn,” I bark at Lirra, causing her to jump. “We’re leaving now.”
Chapter
15
Britta
TEN DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON THE KING, a missive arrives from the royal steward. I almost don’t open it.
I’ve been hard-pressed to get Aodren’s admission out of my head. I don’t want to be one of the people whom he trusts. I don’t want the responsibility. I don’t want any more connection. It may be selfish, but all I want is peace and quiet in my papa’s cottage, where I have control over my life. Where I’m free to do what I want. Is that a futile desire? Every day since I woke after saving the king over a month ago, it seems I’m further from achieving it.
The edges of the letter are curled as if it were shoved in a tube and sent by homing pigeon. Which would mean it was sent to the castle. Nobody else nearby keeps courier birds.
“It’s not a snake.” Gillian hovers over my shoulder.
I turn, hiding the note from her view. Is this what it’s like to grow up in a house of siblings? People always underfoot. Overhead. Nothing is private or personal. My fingers slip under the seal, cracking the wax.
Dove,
Meet me at the clearing at noon.
—C
My heart turns into a hummingbird trapped in the cage of my ribs.
“Cohen?” Gillian’s eagle eye misses nothing.
Thrilled that he’s hours away, I cannot speak. I move to the wall where my bow and quiver rest because I won’t be able to sit in this cottage and wait. Time is always better spent in the woods.
Boots laced and dagger bedded by my ankle, I stalk to the door.
Fists plop on Gillian’s hips. “What did he write? Where are you going?” She trails me. “Say something, Britta.”
“I’ll be back later. I’m headed to the clearing.”
She growls through pursed lips.
“Was that sound befitting a lady?” I slide my quiver over my shoulder with a smirk.
“Not two weeks ago, the king was attacked. Two men were killed. The woods aren’t safe. Must you go out?”
A hit of guilt gets me between the lungs. I’ve not shared the secret about my mother with anyone other than Aodren. I’ve wanted to talk about Phelia, but shame and residual shock keep me from opening up to Gillian.
“I’ll be fine,” I tell her. Leif and his men have spent the last ten days scouring the Evers for any sign of Phelia and her accomplices. They’ve found nothing. The clearing, on the king’s land, is safer than where the king was attacked. “I’ll bag a goose for supper while I’m gone.”
“We have enough meat for the rest of the week. And that’s not an answer to my questions.”
“Winter’s coming.” I open the door. Echoing one of Papa’s many lessons, I add, “The best defense is being prepared.”
Her hands wrap in her skirts, wrinkling the dusty blue fabric. “Don’t just run out. I—I suppose I could come with you. It’ll be safer if we go together.” It ends on a questioning high note. Her upturned nose and the tight clench her hands have on her dress spell out how much she’d dislike tagging along. Gillian would be content if the world were covered in gravel roads and stone buildings, swept free of all dirt.
“I’ll be well. Promise.” I tap my bow on the ground.
Her look of relief amuses me as she wraps her arms around me in a tight squeeze of a hug. We are so different.
There’s an undercurrent of energy in the Evers. In all life. Enat taught me to recognize it. But something about healing Aodren has awakened my awareness, making it impossible to ignore the forest’s thrum. The tune sticks with me while Snowfire carries me to the base of the narrow canyon that leads to Papa’s old training spot.
Nobody crosses my path as I ride to the clearing that sits on the edge of a frozen lake. Here, the quaky trees are little more than skeletons this time of year, leaves hanging from limbs like tattered rags.
I rub Snowfire’s neck while I wait. The sun moves behind thick, overcast clouds. When the light lowers in the sky, edging further past noon, Cohen still hasn’t come.
Needing a distraction, I slide an arrow out of my quiver. Steadied to the bowstring, I aim at a cluster of dead leaves on a quaky tree and shoot. My arrow snaps a branch that’s no thicker than a raven’s claw. The leaves sail to the frosty ground.
I scan the shadows between pine trunks. With an ear tipped toward the gray sky, I listen for anything beyond the rustle of wind.
Few birds remain in the trees now that winter has settled over the Malam Mountains, and those great black predators who have lingered don’t seem to be on alert against anyone besides me.
I’m alone.
Don’t you want to know all you’re capable of? Phelia’s question taunts me. It’s wound through my thoughts a dozen times since the attack in the woods.
Enat’s lessons on our trip from Shaerdan to Malam taught me the basics. I’m not sure about much else when it comes to Channeler magic. There’s no one in Malam who can teach me because there are no Channelers here, let alone rare Spiriters. Only Phelia.
I shudder, wanting to pry her words out of my head.
No way would I ever go to Phelia to learn. Not ever.
I pick up the broken branch and then walk to find my arrow. The three leaves on the branch look like dead mice curled around the stick. Resting my bow against a boulder, I focus on the gray veins that stretch over the browned velvety leaves, honing in on the branch. A week more and they’d be brittle enough to crumble between my fingers. As they are, I might be able to bring them back. Under the branch’s white skin a hmm hmm hmm registers. Barely there, barely moving, barely enough to recognize as life.
I imagine my energy is a dance of bright blue color zipping through me to the beat of my heart.
What I’m doing is illegal. It likely will always be in Malam. Knowing that should be enough to make me stop.
Like Enat taught me, I push some of that sapphire energy from my elbow, past my hand, and into the branch. It’s much easier this time. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was stronger now. Phelia said something about turning eighteen. Could my birthday have changed the way I sense energy around me?
Tingles spider walk up and down my forearm. My pulse throbs in my hand as I push a little more. A little more. A little more.