Chapter 18

For the second time, Remis sucked in a terrible aching breath that rattled deep down into his lungs and spit out a mouthful of water. His face was pressed down into the mud, the scent of his own putrid vomit wafting up toward his nose.

A hand rose to touch his throat. The flesh there was cold and covered in goosebumps but entirely intact. He looked down at his fingertips, bare of any blood. Still, he could feel the terrible stinging pain of her blade cutting across his neck and the scrape of her nail as it drew a line down the side of his face. Her touch had sent an unexpected thrill through him. He’d been scared, yes, but he’d also felt the brush of her skin on his all the way to down into the marrow of his bones.

His lungs burned with every breath he took. His vision cleared with each blink but he stared at the spot where she’d stood. There were no footprints, though he could clearly see the shape of his own body where he’d lay. Squinting, he looked up toward the sky. The day was halfway through. How long had he been out? Hours? A day?

He thought of that terrible plunging feeling he’d gotten as he and his friends toppled over the edge of the waterfall. From wherever he’d landed, he couldn’t hear the sound of its cascades any longer. The river must have taken him farther before he somehow washed up on the edge. The fact that he’d survived the fall and still hadn’t somehow drowned in the current was in itself a miracle. He only hoped the miracle included his friends.

Forcing himself to his feet, he grunted at the strain of his sore muscles but found he was otherwise fine. No broken bones and he still had his cloak though everything he wore was still sodden.

“Merritt? Percy?” His voice carried but no one said anything in return. Remis took two cautious steps toward the riverbank, casting a glance one way and then the next hoping for some clue as to where his friends might be. Had they been carried as far as he had? Farther? Or were their bodies somewhere near the waterfall he couldn’t even see any longer?

Desperation flooded him, stinging his eyes. He blinked back the tears that wanted to come, feeling the shame of crying as heavily upon him as though his father was here screaming at him to be a man. He was lost, somewhere between home and Croughton. His friends were quite possibly dead. And all of that went without mentioning that the witch was nearing him every damn hour.

Run, my little rabbit, run.

Her voice was sinfully sensuous and the sound of her threat repeated in his head. No matter how hard he’d tried, he hadn’t caught a glimpse of her under that hood. Nothing more than the occasional light over her mouth.

He wanted to run. Every instinct he had was screaming for him to get as far away from this place as possible. The witch had been looking around with an intensity that could only suggest she’d been looking for something. How did this damn curse work? Did she somehow know exactly where he was? Or had she recognized this place where he’d washed up?

Too many questions. Not enough answers.

So with nothing left to do, Remis began walking along the river’s edge toward the waterfall, hoping to find his friends, and praying to the universe that they survived. His boots were waterlogged and heavy with each step, his blisters tender all over again, and even after stopping to try and shake the water out of them they still made his movements sluggish.

Occasionally, he called out into the woods, shouting for his friends. No answer came. The longer he went on the more his shoulders hunched forward, the more he shivered and hugged himself to try and stay warm. The sun was making its way across the sky as if it was chasing the end of the day, and Remis felt like he’d hardly traveled any distance at all. If he couldn’t find his friends soon, he’d have to stop and make a fire, get himself out of these clothes.

“Merritt? Percy?” His voice was raw from screaming and swallowing what felt like gallons of river water. “Merritt! Percy!”

A shout echoed through the trees. For a moment, he thought it was only the echo of his own shout but it continued. Not his own voice. He tensed for a moment expecting to see the witch hurtling through the brush with her sword aimed for his throat.

The sound became clearer. It was closer this time.

“Remis?”

Merritt.

Thank fuck.

The soreness that plagued him was easily ignored as a fresh wave of hope came over him. Then he was running, pushing past low branches, and pulling himself through thorn bushes that grabbed at his pants.

“Merritt! Percy!” He raced toward the sound of his friend who echoed his call with one of his own. There was a flash of white that cut through the woods before there was a heavy body crashing into his own.

Merritt”s arms wrapped around Remis’ body, holding him tightly as they toppled together into the thick trunk of a tree. The air was knocked from his lungs but he held tightly to his friend.

He pulled away to hold Merritt at arm”s length. His clothes were dry, several of the buttons torn from the shirt leaving bits of his chest and stomach exposed in the resulting gaps of fabric. A dark bruise covered half of his face and his lip was crusted over with blood but he didn’t appear to have any other obvious injuries.

“I was worried you didn’t make it.” Remis exhaled slowly, a smile finally breaking over his face. “Percy?”

“Broken leg. I’ve got him fixed up as best I can but it will be hard to move him. Are you okay?” Merritt stepped back, his attention sweeping over Remis in the same quick way he’d just done.

“I’m certain I drank about half the river so my chest hurts like hell but other than that and a headache, I’ve never been better.” The words sat sour on his tongue, but he refused to let his smile fall.

“Come, Percy will be relieved to see you. Though I should warn you, he’s in a mood.” Merritt grimaced as he high-stepped around the foliage.

Remis tried not to think too hard about the fact that his friend”s injury was another failure that could be added to the list of things that were inevitably his fault. Guilt made his cramping stomach tighten even more. “I wouldn’t be happy if I broke my leg either.”

“Not the leg,” Merritt warned. “His book.”

A surprised laugh bubbled up and out of his throat. This was not the time or place to laugh, but Percy had been safeguarding his book since they’d left home. He had to have known that there was no way it would have survived this journey but he’d still brought it along.

“He lost the book?” he asked.

Merritt held a thin branch out of his way, then let Remis walk by before he let it go. “No, he still has the book. That’s how he broke his leg. He refused to catch himself and chose to hold the damn thing instead.”

“And our salves from the physician?”

“Gone.” Merritt held his hand up, the skin pale but cracking and soon to be scarred. Whatever was in the physician’s salves, whatever magic she might have used, it had done wonders in speeding along both of their recoveries.

They walked in quiet contemplation the rest of the way. Seeing Merritt and knowing Percy was well enough made walking along in his freezing clothes much more manageable. Even the blisters on his feet that were rubbed with every shift of the boots could be easily ignored in favor of savoring this small delight.

They carried on for several long minutes before Percy’s form came into view. He was much farther from the river bank, but even at this distance, if Remis paid attention he could still pick up the sound of the running water, though he had no interest in getting anywhere near it again.

There was a small fire going and Percy was propped up against a nearby tree. He didn”t smile in relief like Remis did when they made eye contact. Percy frowned, his brows pulled dramatically low.

“You owe me a new damn book,” Percy growled.

“I’ll buy you a whole library if we make it out of these damn woods alive,” Remis answered, holding a hand over his heart as though he was taking an oath. That was enough to appease his friend and Percy nodded and crossed his arms over his chest but said nothing further. Two sticks broken to the length of Percy’s leg were tied tightly on either side of his broken bone. Nausea swelled as Remis caught sight of the swollen, jagged part of Percy’s leg. He knew without having seen it that if the ties and sticks weren’t there the lower half of his leg would be sitting at an exaggerated angle.

Merritt stopped several feet away, planting his hands on his hips. “Strip out of those clothes and let them dry. I think I might be able to catch a rabbit with this trap. Percy taught me how to make it, and then maybe we can have a meal before nightfall. We’ve been here for several hours and I’ve wandered farther and farther trying to find you. Now that you’re here we’ve got to figure a way out of this mess.”

“If you wanted to see me naked, Merritt, all you had to do was ask.” Remis winked, though the playfulness was like a mask he’d easily slid into.

“If you don’t get dry you’ll get sick,” Percy quipped.

“I know.” Remis nodded, undoing the thick buttons of the waistcoat and laying the material out next to the fire. He also knew that if they didn’t get Percy to a physician soon to properly set his leg the likelihood of him being able to walk ever again would rapidly decrease every hour. He’d forever be in the debt of his friends. There was nothing he could do that would ever be as great as their loyalty to him, but he would damn sure try.

Though the winter wind was stirring and the clouds that gathered above them could potentially mean snowfall, Remis was considerably warmer when he’d shucked out of the last of his wet clothes, save for his undergarment, and stood next to the fire. He held his hands out letting the heat lick against his palms.

Percy watched Remis over the flames. When his attention slid to Remis’ hand and the mark upon his flesh Remis closed his fingers into a fist. Remis was almost certain at this point that the mark itself could see. He worried if he looked down upon it that it would blink up at him and feel that much more real. Though he couldn’t deny it any longer, the witch had appeared to him in his unconscious state. She’d been able to peer into his surroundings and see exactly where he was located.

“What’s it like?” Percy finally asked.

Turning to give his friend his back, Remis made a show of needing to warm his backside. In reality, he found himself shying away from speaking about the curse that plagued him. He looked down at his palm, letting himself trace the raised edges before he spoke.

“Terrifying.” He swallowed. Exciting. New. Deadly.

“Does it hurt?”

“The mark itself? No. It feels like an old scar.” Though when she’d been in his mind, when she’d cut his throat, he’d felt that. So there was something to this connection, something greater than just marred skin. “She came to me, you know?”

Remis swore he heard the rustle of leaves as if Percy was shifting in his seat. But to turn around and face his friend? That might make him lose the confidence to confess what he’d seen, what had happened, when all he wanted to do was bury it deep deep down and pretend it was never real. As if he’d ever be able to get the image of her standing over him out of his head.

“Like when we were in Olden? How we had to flee the warlord”s home?” Percy’s tone was gentle and curious but not prying. He wasn’t trying to solve all my problems like Merritt might but was merely searching for knowledge to understand. It was enough to help Remis speak the rest.

“No. When I was still unconscious, I think. It was like…like some sort of vision.” He chewed his lip, forcing himself to think about how it had happened. “It was like I was waking up and there she was standing at the side of the river watching me. She spoke to me.”

“What did she say?”

He dropped his hands to his sides. The fire was hot against his back, the sensation telling him it was time to turn back around again. Yet he couldn’t. So he stood, letting the flames wash him in their blistering heat.

“She asked if I was hurt.” And for that small second, he’d thought her only a kind stranger who’d found him and was there to offer help. Until he saw the matching mark on her hand. “Then she told me that this wasn’t a game to her, though she didn’t admit to the reason she’s hunting me. Then she told me…she told me to run.” A shiver ran down his spine as he recounted it.

He tried to let go of the memory, not to let himself dwell on the feeling of her sword and the fear of dying that had been so damn overwhelming. Instead, he looked over the forest, a mixture of bare trees and the occasional evergreen. He listened for the heartbeat of nature, the thrum of life that came with the pitter-patter of small animals and their wild calls. The sound of the river rushing would have once felt calming but now it only felt like falling.

“Do you think since she has this connection to you that you could use it the same way she does? That you could appear to her and talk to her?” Percy asked.

What if he could see her surroundings and figure out where she was? That could give him warning as to how near she might be. Then she might be easier to avoid. What magic connected them couldn’t be a one-way bridge, right?

Furthermore, what if he could see her? Truly see her and the face she was so carefully hiding. It was a chance to be more familiar with the woman seeking him out and an opportunity to be closer to her. Goosebumps rose over his flesh at the mere idea of it. What if he could touch her like she could touch him?

His fear was dampened by the sudden spike of anticipation. Perhaps then he could find answers or quell the rising need in him to know her. Maybe her face would jog his memory and he’d know why she wanted him dead.

Though he wasn’t particularly skilled in his abilities he was certainly more advanced than the average person. Somehow, he doubted she knew that. It would give him the element of surprise if he could somehow summon enough magic to get across the bridge and into her mind.

Turning around, he grinned at his friend. “It’s worth a shot.”

The crunch of leaves underfoot signaled Merritt’s return. It was accompanied by a cheery whistle as he weaved through the last of the trees and held up a rabbit whose neck was cocked at an odd angle. It wasn’t the most appetizing of meals, but Remis’ stomach growled nonetheless.

Percy recounted their discussion as the rabbit was skinned and the meat prepared to the best of their knowledge. Mostly, it was Percy inserting instructions between bits and pieces of the story when Merritt looked up a little lost. By the end of it, there was a nice little puddle of blood that they’d drained and Merritt’s clothing was splattered with bits of red. What felt like hours later, they finally had the meat roasting above the fire.

The clouds overhead were getting darker with the promise of snow. Remis’ clothes had dried though, and he was able to bundle himself back up. All three of them inched toward the flames, their mouths watering with the promise of something to eat.

It was later when the sky was spitting snow and they’d torn every bit of meat from the bones that they’d all grown quiet. Remis sunk his hands into the dirt around him, calling to the earth in the same way he’d reached out to the water. He felt the pull of magic that held everything together, that breathed life into the trees, and created caverns for animals and insects alike to live through the winter.

“I want to try and reach her mind. I want to talk to her again,” Remis announced, his quickening pulse giving away his excitement.

“Are we sure that is such a good thing?” Merritt picked at his teeth with a slender twig.

Remis dusted his hands off before pushing his fingers through his hair to slick the strands out of his sight. “It’s worth a try.”

“Then by all means.” Merritt waved a hand. “Continue.”