Chapter 23

23

Do not claw a wound in your side to scratch at a flea.

~ Elder Taybarri Ravarn

The city gates weren’t closed and locked, but more guards than usual manned them. Fortunately, they only questioned people coming into Port Jirador, not those riding out. Kaylina and Levitke passed through without having to explain themselves. A relief, but the taybarri glanced back a few times as they rode onto the highway, and that made Kaylina uneasy.

“Are you expecting rangers to chase you down and drag you back?” She rested her hand on the taybarri’s furry shoulder, willing her power to let her understand.

No, Levitke spoke into her mind. Men follow.

“Rangers?”

No . Levitke picked up speed.

When Kaylina glanced back, she spotted two cloaked riders on horses. Despite a warm bright sun, they had their hoods pulled up, gripping them to keep their faces hidden when a breeze rustled through. The riders headed east on the highway—the same direction as Kaylina.

That wouldn’t have been that unusual, but Levitke’s warning that they were following Kaylina made her uneasy. Maybe they had been since she’d left Stillguard Castle. Followers would have been less noticeable in the busy city.

“Are they after you or me?”

Taybarri not special.

“You’re very special.”

Not to most men.

“Well, I’m not special to most men either.”

Levitke’s glance back conveyed skepticism.

Since everyone from the Virts to Spymaster Sabor to the rangers had wanted Kaylina since she’d arrived in the north, she supposed she couldn’t support her statement.

“I didn’t used to be special,” she corrected.

Levitke gave the same glance backward, then picked up the pace even more. The horses following them had also increased their speed.

“You’re faster than they are, right?” Kaylina couldn’t guess why anyone would be chasing her—were these more kidnappers sent to use her as bait to lure Vlerion into a trap?—but she didn’t want to be caught. She couldn’t miss this meeting with her father.

Levitke roared and flashed, the world blurring briefly.

The taybarri magic only carried them twenty yards farther up the highway, but Levitke kept running, powerful muscles stretching her gait longer. Her tail streamed out behind her instead of swishing side to side as it did at slower paces.

Gradually, the riders fell behind but not far behind. The openness of the cleared farm and rangelands to either side of the highway, and the wide Stillguard River flowing toward the city and harbor, made it easy to see for miles. Levitke and Kaylina weren’t out of sight when the taybarri carried her off the highway and onto a trail into the preserve, and Kaylina worried the men would follow. If they were trackers, they might not have any trouble pursuing them through the forested land.

Doubt rode with her as they passed trees, ferns, and bushes, and she wondered if she should have stopped, turned, and confronted the two riders.

But she didn’t hear horses crashing through the foliage behind them, even when the trail narrowed, and Levitke stopped glancing back. Instead, the taybarri gazed left and right along the route ahead, a wariness to her head movements and nostril twitches.

It grew darker as they rode farther into the preserve, the dense canopy overhead creating deep shadows. Clouds must have gone over the sun as well. They still had a couple of hours until nightfall—until the meeting time—but it felt like twilight.

Levitke issued an uneasy whuff. Kaylina, now more practiced at sensing magical plants, noticed more than she ever had before. Maybe that was what made the taybarri uneasy. Kaylina assumed the altered vegetation had always been there, but maybe it had come out of dormancy. In the past, she’d witnessed the plants in the druid ruins shifting from a somnolent to an alert state. Could the call she’d sent out have caused this?

Or maybe her father was nearby, with his pure magical druid blood, and the plants were responding to him?

Since the undergrowth covered trails quickly in the preserve, and few visited the forest to keep it cut back, Levitke had to push through a lot of vegetation. She hopped over rotten logs and stumps and mossy boulders to keep the river to their right. Even so, they lost sight of it numerous times. Levitke did manage to keep the sound of flowing water within earshot.

The screech of a raptor came from the branches, startling Kaylina. Insects hummed, and a smaller bird sprang from a nearby bush, rattling foliage as it flapped its wings to fly away.

Men still follow , Levitke said.

“Maybe I should have rented a boat instead.”

Kaylina recalled the strong current that had carried her and Frayvar downstream for miles before they’d been able to get out. She decided an attempt to row up the Stillguard would have ended with her carried in the opposite direction, floating out to the harbor.

Levitke leaped over a toadstool-dotted stump wider than a house, and a log came into view, stretching across the river.

“That’s the spot where Frayvar and I went in. We’re close.”

A furry animal darted across the log, shadows making it hard to identify. It came to their side of the river and disappeared into the undergrowth. To the left, a vine dangling from a branch twitched.

Kaylina reminded herself that the plants and animals ought to like her for her blood, or at least leave her be, but the preserve felt ominous this afternoon. She couldn’t help but wonder if something had changed.

“Maybe it’s irked that we’re being followed,” she murmured.

As far as she knew, Daygarii magic didn’t attack normal people who entered the preserve, not unless they hunted. Only rangers, men following the same career as those who’d poached here centuries before, were attacked whether they did anything or not. She doubted the people following her were rangers.

“You don’t know who they are, do you?” Kaylina wondered if the taybarri might have caught their scent.

Enemies .

“I figured they weren’t zealous fans after me for my mead recipes.”

Levitke took them under the moss-blanketed branches of an ancient oak, where more vines dangled, the tips twitching. A snake curled up on a boulder hissed at them.

“I’m not looking for gold,” she told it, thinking of Zhani’s Sandsteader quotes.

The snake gazed at her and then back the way they’d come. Kaylina hoped it was irritated with their followers and not her.

“Levitke, that little clearing there. I think that’s the spot.”

The taybarri padded into an area that emanated magic, the source a ring of blue-capped mushrooms in the center. Kaylina didn’t recognize the species or know if they were poisonous, but something about them kept other vegetation from growing within several yards of them. Even the branches were thinner overhead, and she glimpsed patches of the cloudy sky.

After Kaylina slid to the ground, careful not to land on any mushrooms, Levitke faced the way they’d come.

“Our pursuers aren’t far behind, huh?” Kaylina spread her arms, willing her power to let her know if anyone with magical blood was nearby. Since she’d sensed the mountain men who’d come to the ruins, she figured a full-blooded druid would be even more noticeable, but the mushrooms were the only prominent things she noticed. To a lesser extent, she detected some of the vines and altered plants growing here and there. “Do we need to set a trap?”

Levitke crouched, her tail rigid, as she prepared to spring at enemies. Maybe she was the trap.

There was a chapter in the ranger handbook about using rope to make snares to catch enemies, but Kaylina hadn’t practiced the various knots described for the purpose. Vlerion and Targon would probably consider that a failing.

Thinking of Vlerion made her hope she hadn’t made a mistake in coming here instead of riding up into the mountains to look for that tower. But she didn’t trust her visions enough to be certain they showed the future. The sentinel’s instructions that she should meet her father here had seemed more concrete.

After she met with him, Kaylina would find Vlerion.

“I’ll hide and be ready with my sling,” she whispered, creeping past the mushrooms to stand behind a stout tree. A few vines dangled near her shoulder, and she tried to convey to them that she might need their help.

From the direction she’d come, a branch snapped, audible over the rushing river. Kaylina loaded a lead round into her sling.

Silence fell, save for the flow of water. The animals and insects she’d heard earlier had stopped making noise.

Something lofted out of the gloom—a dark ball-shaped item that she wouldn’t have spotted if it hadn’t struck branches on the way.

“Look out,” she whispered to Levitke, afraid it was an explosive.

The object landed, bouncing twice before rolling to a stop against a tall mushroom. It hissed, a vapor rushing out, misting the meadow.

“Get out of there, Levitke,” Kaylina whispered, backing up as tainted air reached her nose.

A poison? Or a sedative? She didn’t know but held her breath and willed Levitke to leave the clearing without inhaling.

As Kaylina backed farther away, trying to hurry without tripping over roots and logs, Levitke charged in the direction of whoever had thrown it. Kaylina would have cursed if she hadn’t been holding her breath. The air stung her eyes, whatever that stuff was spreading as it continued to spew out.

She turned and pushed into brush to the side of the meadow, angling away from the vapor while hoping to circle toward the men who’d thrown the device. In the dense foliage, she’d lost sight of Levitke. Already, her lungs demanded she breathe, but her eyes burned, promising the stuff was inimical.

She crept farther, trying not to make noise that would announce her location. Let her attackers believe she was writhing on the ground in the mushroom ring.

Ahead, branches snapped, leaves rustled violently. Levitke roared.

In fury? Pain? A battle cry?

Kaylina couldn’t tell. Sweat dampened her palm around her sling as she tried to reach the skirmish with the element of surprise.

A blunderbuss boomed, close enough that it battered her eardrums. Fear for Levitke made her abandon stealth. She shoved aside branches as she hurried to help. A root tripped her, and she barely kept her balance and her sling loaded.

Through the leaves, the blue fur of the taybarri came into view. Levitke sprang about and flashed, fighting in a clearing of trampled vegetation her movements had made.

She snapped at a man with a sword and shield, the hint of a gray uniform visible under his cloak. A guard from the royal castle?

His hood had fallen back, but Kaylina didn’t recognize him. Blood streamed down the side of his face as he leaped about with impressive agility, evading the taybarri snaps and being tangled in the brush.

A second man—the gunman—stood on a log, his hood remaining up, hiding his face. He lifted the blunderbuss and aimed at Levitke.

The branches and bushes didn’t offer Kaylina enough space to use her sling. Afraid for her taybarri friend, she sprang onto a mossy boulder, roots half growing over it. From the elevated position, she hurled a round at the gunman. It struck his hand an instant before he fired. Her shot shifted his aim, and the pellets flew over Levitke’s head.

She snarled, flashed, and appeared behind the swordsman. He must have expected the maneuver because he whirled in time to deflect her snapping jaws, his blade meeting her fangs with screeches.

Kaylina had to breathe, her lungs demanding that she gulp air. Fortunately, it didn’t seem as tainted here. She still caught a pungent whiff of something foul but hoped she was far enough downwind that it wouldn’t hurt her.

The gunman turned toward Kaylina, not appearing alarmed by her appearance. She slid another round into her sling, hoping she could reload faster than he.

But the man dropped the firearm and withdrew a throwing knife. Kaylina ducked down behind the boulder as he threw. The blade flew over her head and thunked into a tree trunk.

To her side, a vine twitched, its tip pointing at her. No, behind her. Was that a warning?

Attack! Kaylina yelled silently to it—to any vines in the area.

The brand on her hand warmed, and she sensed power flowing from it. Then, instincts promising it was a good idea, she scrambled over the boulder to the other side. Maybe getting closer to the gunman wasn’t wise, but she stayed low, keeping her head below the bushes.

She came down, afraid to turn and put the gunman at her back, but a gasp from the spot where she’d been demanded a look.

Four vines had descended from the trees, and they gripped a man clenching a dagger in his hand, hefting him from the ground. There was a third person? She’d only seen two. This guy must have already been waiting somewhere along the way, ready to join the others and pounce. It had almost worked. He’d been an instant from catching her, probably intending to press that blade to her throat, a move she’d suffered far, far too often.

Keep him there, please, she thought, willing more power into the words.

The vines hefted him higher from the ground, and another snaked in, wrapping around his wrist.

“Spymaster,” the man blurted. “She’s got?—”

Another vine whipped in and flattened across his mouth, like the brutish hand of a kidnapper.

Spymaster?

Branches rustled behind her. Kaylina whirled back, reaching for her sword, certain her sling wouldn’t be enough.

The gunman was creeping toward her, but a huge blue blur arrowed in, slamming into him. Levitke knocked him five feet as she took him to the ground, smashing foliage. The blunderbuss tumbled free from the man’s grip, hit a tree, and went off, pellets flying wildly.

An owl high above screeched and flapped away.

Kaylina looked toward the previous fight to make sure the swordsman wasn’t poised to attack. But Levitke had defeated him. He had collapsed halfway in a bush, his throat torn out.

“Get off me,” the man under Levitke yelled, his voice familiar. “You craters-cursed?—”

Levitke shifted, using her bulk to smother his mouth, cutting him off even more effectively than the vine had silenced the other man.

Kaylina crept forward. The gloom was deep, but enough daylight remained for her to make out the face of the man—what wasn’t smashed under a taybarri rear end. Levitke had chosen to sit on her foe to keep him still and quiet.

“You’re a good girl, my friend,” Kaylina whispered, not positive there weren’t more enemies about.

Levitke whuffed and shifted her weight slightly, eliciting a groan from the pinned man. His hood had finally fallen back, and Kaylina recognized him.

“Spymaster Milnor,” she said, surprised he’d come personally to do his dirty work. Had he intended to kill her? Or hoped she would lead them to Vlerion? That latter seemed more likely. “If you’re looking for Lord Vlerion, he’s not with me.”

Milnor glared at her but couldn’t speak.

Kaylina was tempted to leave it that way, but Levitke couldn’t sit on him forever.

“Will you move off his mouth but not the rest of him?” Maybe she could convince some more nearby vines to help. Milnor would look good strung up from a tree with a tendril gagging him.

Levitke shifted her rump to the spymaster’s chest but not without growling a warning at him.

“Where is he?” Milnor demanded, then spat, fur probably coating his tongue. “I know you know.”

“I actually don’t know.”

The haunting memory of her dream—or her vision?—came to mind, of Vlerion on top of that tower, the wind tugging at his clothes, the promise of death gazing up at him.

She shook it away, refusing to believe he’d taken his life. Even if she knew for certain he’d been on that watchtower, she wouldn’t have admitted it to Milnor.

“Why do you want him?” she asked.

“Why do you think ? He’s a threat to the proper succession. The rangers are refusing to obey the prince, the rightful heir. There shouldn’t be a question about his coronation. But Vlerion , the traitorous bastard—” Milnor broke off with a gagging noise.

If taybarri fur had clogged his airway, Kaylina had no sympathy. “Vlerion is as far from a traitor as possible. He’s been loyal to the crown all along. Even when the king and queen did nothing to deserve his loyalty. And you can...”

She trailed off because the spymaster was still gagging. Or… was he trying to breathe?

His legs kicked as he tried to thrash free of Levitke. She looked down at his face, then lunged away from him, whirling and baring her fangs.

Milnor grabbed for something wrapped around his neck. In the gloom, Kaylina hadn’t seen it, but it had to be another vine.

Why? She hadn’t used her power again to order the foliage to attack him.

For a moment, she stared as Milnor rolled over and thrashed about, trying to pull it from his neck, trying to breathe. She was tempted to let this play out, but Vlerion was still in trouble for the last spymaster who’d died at her feet. And there was a witness again—the man dangling from the branch, watching with wide eyes.

Sword raised, Kaylina stepped forward. Attempting to summon her power, she uttered the word she’d once spoken, somehow knowing it without ever having heard it.

“Sywretha!”

The end of the vine partially lifted from the spymaster without loosening its grip on his neck. It hissed , cold reptilian eyes turning toward her, and a tongue flicked out.

Kaylina cursed and backed away. “You’re not a vine.”

No, that was a glacier viper, a white-and-gray venomous snake she only knew from the ranger handbook. They weren’t supposed to live at this low of an elevation.

No wonder Levitke had been worried.

The deadly snake hissed at Kaylina, showing its fangs as its long body tightened around the spymaster, fully cutting off his air.

Don’t kill him, please, Kaylina thought toward it, willing her power to convince it to return to its den.

But her power met resistance, as if it had encountered a wall of energy. Or... a wall of someone else’s power?

Before she could process the thought—and what it might mean—a snap sounded. Milnor’s neck breaking. His flopping legs stilled in death.

The snake released him and slithered into the undergrowth. Levitke backed further to avoid its path, and she growled low in her throat, body tense.

A chill went through Kaylina, and she turned slowly toward the remaining man.

Eyes wide, he still dangled from the vines, and a fearful moan escaped his gagged mouth. Abruptly, he went rigid, and another snap rang out. Kaylina gaped in horror. There wasn’t anything around his neck, no snake, no vine, nothing.

But his eyes rolled back in his head, and he went limp, as dead as the spymaster and the swordsman.

Though Kaylina stood still, her heart pounded, vibrating her whole body. She and Levitke weren’t alone in the preserve, and she didn’t know if an ally or an enemy had arrived.