Shield of Sparrows

The déjà vu of waking to only a pillow on the room’s floor and a note on the table was so strong I almost hoped yesterday had been a dream. That I’d leave the Ashmore inn and find Sariah at her tavern.

But when I slid out of bed, I was still wearing the borrowed tunic, and when I pulled on my boots, they were speckled with putrid green blood.

I slipped out of the room, my satchel strapped across my chest, more than ready to leave Ashmore. The Guardian wouldn’t need to worry that I’d dare more escape attempts from Treow. At least for now, I wanted nothing more than to hide away in my treehouse and nurse my wounded heart.

And body.

Shades, I hurt. Every step was agony as I descended the staircase to the inn’s lobby. My muscles were sore and tender. Bruises were blooming across my skin.

I was alive to suffer today. I’d swallow these pains. Seventeen people could not say the same.

“Odessa.” Cathlin stopped me as I passed the inn’s small parlor.

“Good morning.” I gave her a sad smile as she pulled me in for a hug.

It was nice to be hugged.

“Are you all right?” she asked, letting me go.

I shrugged. “You?”

She shrugged, too. “You’re leaving today.”

A statement, not a question.

She walked to the chair where she’d been sitting, retrieved a book, and handed it over. “I brought you this. It’s a book on Turan customs. I’ll bring more when I see you again.”

“When will that be?”

“Soon. I’ll be leaving Ashmore within the week. I have a goodbye to say first. Though I don’t want to rush it.”

“To the woman you came to visit.”

Cathlin nodded. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask about her yesterday.” I’d been preoccupied with digging graves. “Is she…all right?”

“She’s fine. Devastated like most. But Turah is full of survivors. She’ll endure, like you. She’s strong, like you.”

“I don’t feel strong,” I said on a breath.

“Yet you are.” Cathlin’s eyes softened as she brushed an errant curl off my forehead. Then she took a step backward and pressed both hands over her heart, giving me a slight bow.

“What does that mean? That gesture?”

“It means I wish you a safe journey, Princess Odessa Wolfe.”

Normally, I would have balked at the formal name, but there was something in her voice that gave me pause. Something serious that said I needed to get used to that title.

To embrace it.

Who was this woman? We’d survived the unthinkable yesterday, and I didn’t even know her last name. Maybe it didn’t matter.

I put my hands over my heart and bowed.

Boots thudded across the floor. Purposeful, long strides that I was beginning to recognize.

The Guardian stopped at my side, his attention on Cathlin. “You’re leaving.”

Another statement.

“Yes.”

I waited for his hands to cover his heart, but instead, he pulled her in for a hug.

Wait, he hugged? That seemed so…sweet. Very un-Guardian-like. When he let her go, he jerked his chin for me to follow. No sweet for me.

“Goodbye, Cathlin,” I said.

“Farewell, Odessa.”

I hoped I’d see her again soon. Life felt fragile at the moment. Fleeting.

With my book tucked into my satchel, I rushed to catch up to the Guardian.

He and his horse waited outside. The stallion’s black coat was glossy beneath the morning sun.

The Guardian stroked the animal’s cheek, murmuring something low. The horse leaned into his touch.

It was a lovely day, clear skies and a crisp sweetness in the air. It seemed like a waste. No one here would enjoy it, certainly not me. People walked with their heads bowed as they hurried down the streets.

All happiness had been slaughtered.

“They should have had a warning. Protection,” I said.

The Guardian’s jaw clenched as he fastened his sword and its scabbard to the saddle.

I hadn’t meant it as an insult, but as I replayed my words, I heard it from his side of the horse. I’d just implied he’d failed these people. “I didn’t mean from you.”

“And who else would protect them?”

“The king. The crown. Can’t Zavier step in? Send some of his rangers to these towns to help?”

The Guardian’s eyes, hazel and angry, met mine. The glare was all I needed to realize I’d crossed a line.

A reminder that this princess, this future queen, this Sparrow, was to be seen and not heard.

“I’m only asking. I think I have that right.”

“Really?” He arched an eyebrow. “Who gave you that right?”

“My blood. The moment I signed my name on that treaty. The day Zavier claimed his bride prize. I’m here. I’m in Turah. I have the right just like any other person in this kingdom. This cannot stand. This cannot continue.”

“And what do you suggest, my queen? What should we do about this? What solution do you propose that Zavier, myself, and all of our rangers have not already considered?”

A flood of embarrassment made me draw my shoulders up to my ears, wishing I could be like a turtle and duck my head inside a shell.noveldrama

I didn’t have a solution. I didn’t know anything about Turan politics.

So I kept my mouth shut.

“That’s what I thought,” he muttered, turning to adjust the stirrup.

“I want to make a difference,” I said. “I want to do what’s right. I want to help.”

The Guardian stilled but didn’t turn. “Get on the horse, Cross.”

I shifted closer to the stallion, hiking up my skirts in an attempt to put my foot in the stirrup. But the animal was too tall, and I was too short. I couldn’t reach.

The Guardian let out a frustrated growl, picked me up by the waist, and plopped me onto the saddle.

“Thanks?” I adjusted my skirts, wishing I had another pair of pants. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What horse will you ride?”

“Mine.”

Oh, hell.

He flicked the hems of my skirts. “Move these out of my way.”

I balled them up as best I could, the fabric bunching on my lap. Then he swung into the saddle behind me, his thighs hugging my own. His chest pressed against my back as he took up the reins, his arms locking me in place.

Without delay, the horse started down the street.

The movement forced me deeper into the Guardian’s hold. The heat from his body, the scents of leather and spice and wind, were inescapable. Damn how I wished I hated that smell.

This ride would be agony. Absolute torture.

Maybe that was the idea.

“Relax,” he ordered.

Relaxing meant I’d have to lean against him. Sink into that broad chest. Melt against his frame. Not. A. Chance.

“I am relaxed.”

“Sure you are.” His voice was too close to my ear.

A shiver rolled down my spine.

And without a doubt, he felt it.

Another day, he probably would have teased me for the reaction. Another day, he would have reveled in the way I squirmed. But today was not a day for jokes. Not as we passed the burial grounds outside of town.

I took a long look at the tree where we’d laid Sariah to rest, then cast my gaze to the sky, to the twin moons’ faint outline. Even battling the sun, they shone white.

The color of Arabella’s shade.

I hoped that Sariah’s soul, that all those from Ashmore, had come to rest with the Goddess of Love.

There were those in Calandra who didn’t worship the gods. They didn’t believe in the Six or their shades. They believed our bodies returned to the earth as dust. That we simply ceased.

Then there were those who believed our souls were reborn, that for every life lost, another was created. That somewhere in this realm, Sariah’s soul was breathing anew.

“Do you believe in the gods?” I asked the Guardian.

“Why do you ask?”

“No man should have survived that fight yesterday. You have powers unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I guess I wanted to know if you believe the gods gave them to you as gifts.”

His laugh was low. Menacing. A rumble from his body that vibrated against mine. “What you call gifts, I call a curse. Yes, I believe in the gods. I believe they watch us from their precious shades. And I believe they’re vindictive, manipulative bastards intent on tormenting us from their thrones.”

Never in my life had I heard a person speak of the gods with such hate. Such malice. I wasn’t sure what to say to that. It felt like we were inviting trouble, taunting them so.

“Any other questions this morning, Sparrow?”

I shook my head.

We passed the edge of town and set out on the road that would lead us to Treow. A day. That was all I had to endure. Just one day.

Except with a tug of the reins, he steered the horse off the road. He turned us away from the forest and toward a range of mountains, its peaks jagged and capped in white. Beneath them looked to be a river valley.

“We’re not going to Treow, are we?”

“No.”

“Where are we going?”

“Ellder.”

“Why?” What about my things? What about Brielle and Jocelyn?

“Will you always ask so many questions, Cross?”

“Yes.”

He sighed. “Zavier.”

My stomach twisted. My husband was in Ellder. And I was being returned to my keeper.

“All right.” I sat tall and rigid, attempting to maintain a fraction of space between our bodies. I didn’t let the sinking feeling in my chest weigh me down.

This was for the best. I should be with Zavier. We needed more quiet walks, time to be alone. I wasn’t certain, but I had the feeling that the Guardian wouldn’t stay at the fortress. Not once I’d been locked behind its walls, no longer needing his protection. Which meant after this ride, he’d likely disappear.

Good. I needed him to disappear. To go away for weeks, months, and give me time to put my head, my heart, back into place. To banish him from my mind.

We argued constantly. He was a thorn in my side. The sooner he was gone, the better.

The horse’s hooves were the only sound as we rode across the landscape. We flowed up and down the hills that surrounded Ashmore, until the town itself was nothing but a memory. My restless night caught up to me by midday, and every few minutes, I covered a yawn.

“You should rest.” It was the first thing the Guardian had spoken in hours.

“I’m fine,” I lied, righting my shoulders from where they’d slumped.

“Sure you are.”

I concentrated on the foothills in the distance, forcing my eyes open as the trees slowly grew taller and taller against their mountain backdrop. Every few moments, I’d look left, then right, searching for any monsters that might come out of hiding and attack.

“The pack from yesterday. Is that the normal size?” I asked.

“No. It was larger. Usually bariwolves travel in packs of three or four.”

Gods. That pack had been more than double. Was it their number that had made them fearless enough to strike a town?

Those people in Ashmore were lucky to have had the Guardian around. To rid this area of that pack. But I had a feeling if I told him that, he’d only scoff.

I might blame myself for Sariah, but he blamed himself for all seventeen deaths.

The hours dragged on, and the heaviness in my eyelids became impossible to fight. Until the battle was futile.

Until somewhere in Turah, curled against the wrong man, I drifted off to sleep.