Page 15 of A Hunt Bound in Blood

Questions scurried through my mind, and I shooed them off. None of it was my business, and it wouldn’t do to show interest or even develop anything remotely like curiosity about him. He was my assistant, and I was on a mission. Four weeks, and I’d never have to see him again. Regardless of his reasons for being in my country, it would be wiser and safer for me to stay well away.

Despite everything my head was telling me, my body betrayed me by sucking in a breath at the sight of him standing in the early morning sunlight. His cream-hued shirt was tucked into dark brown breeches, which were held up by a pair of matching suspenders. Leather boots climbed halfway up his muscular calves. When he turned to face me, the stroke of sunrise caught his dark brown hair, bestowing it with flecks of red fire among the chestnut. His crimson eyes stood out in his tanned face, and although he’d obviously shaved this morning—a last hurrah for his chin before we started out—everything about him screamed rugged.

I didn’t have much experience with rugged, being far more used to the clean softness of most court nobles. Even the few, brief, uninspired sexual encounters I’d had over the years had been with bookish types like myself. The heat that pooled in my lower belly and between my legs suggested my hormones wanted to explore the novelty. I warned my hormones to climb back into their cave and stay there, then strode forward as though my pause hadn’t happened. Any lingering desire vanished, replaced by my shock over the inky black swirls creeping across Cammon’s eyes. He blinked, and the blackness receded.

“Ready?” His morning voice was deep and husky, and he cleared his throat. “You know where we’re going?”

I pulled a thin notebook out of the side of my pack and flipped it open to the first page. “This is a summary of the clues I’ve deciphered about where the signposts are. Between these notes and the map, we should have an easy time finding the first few.”

He held out his hand and twitched his fingers. I ground my teeth but handed the book to him. He knew this country better than I did for all that he was a recent resident while I’d lived here all my life.

He scanned my notes, then held his place with his thumb as he referred to the map. “You’re right. The first one is close. The mention here of a water wheel with the tree growing beside it suggests the village of Clindale. What’s left of it, anyway. We should be able to reach it by midmorning.” He frowned at the notes. “Though we might be able to skip that one. See this description of the second signpost? ‘Where the rivers meet and the lilacs grow.’ That’s along the Trachan River where it crosses the Dragonspring. The lilac trees there are famous enough that they’ve been carefully tended over the past few decades instead of torn up.”

I’d already deduced both of those locations myself, so I didn’t feed his ego by celebrating his cleverness.

“I know, but I have reason for wanting to start at the beginning. Mage Tersey’s notes hint that each signpost involves a puzzle that needs to be solved in order to find the clue to the next and that each subsequent puzzle increases in difficulty. I’d prefer to find out what our base point is in terms of complexity so we can estimate the potential danger of the next trials and, hopefully, prepare for what the final clues might bring.”

Cammon raised an eyebrow. “Who was this guy? Did he hate people, or was he really bored?”

“He was a powerful mage,” I replied, unamused. “A brilliant man. Obviously, considering he created this amulet. Shall we?”

I gestured to our path, and Cammon stepped aside to allow me space to pass him. He fell into step behind me as we started away from the inn and farther into the forest. At this hour of the day, the road was bathed in shadow, and the faint chill in the air made me grateful for my tweed waistcoat, though I was certain I’d regret it by midday.

We didn’t speak much while we walked. In fact, I kept just ahead of Cammon to discourage conversation. I didn’t want to get distracted and miss where we needed to be, nor did I want to end up in some winding chat where I revealed more about myself than I should. From Cammon’s silence, I suspected he was no more inclined than I was to exchange words. But his presence was absurdly hard to ignore, even without the sound of his voice. He was like a cloud, or a fog. Something pervasive and pore-clogging, and I wished he’d widen the distance between us.

By midmorning, the sun was behind me, raising sweat on the back of my neck and turning the tendrils of escaped hair at my nape into moist ringlets. I checked my map for the fifteenth time, certain we had to be getting close to the first signpost. So much hinged on this first stop—more so than I’d let on to Cammon. Yes, once we found it, we’d have a better idea of what to expect from the others, but even more important than that was the if. If we found it. If it was there. If I hadn’t presented rumour as fact to my king.

Mage Tersey had written his journal over a hundred years ago. So much could have happened since then that would end my mission before it began. I also couldn’t rule out the possibility that, as brilliant a mage as he’d been, he was also a madman. Or a liar. If everything in his journal was a story to aggrandize himself, then I would have wasted years of my life, many people’s time, and raised such high expectations based on a wish and a dream.

My heart pounded, my mouth grew drier, and I was certain that if we didn’t reach the destination the notes suggested soon, I would bring up the little I’d eaten for breakfast.

I did my best to bury my trepidation, not wanting Cammon’s opinion about our odds or having him heap his doubts on top of mine. Best to let him believe I was confident about my research so when we did stumble across the first clue, he would accept that, at the very least, I knew what I was talking about.

“Are you sure we’re headed the right way?” he asked.

“Yes, I am. Very. Thank you.”

“What are you nervous about, then?”

I cursed myself for being a fool. Of course he knew I was nervous. A day, and already I’d forgotten to keep my emotions to myself. “It’s not nervousness, it’s excitement. We’re working towards the results of years of research.”

He chuckled, then cleared his throat as if to hide it. “I can tell the difference between the two, Buttons, and you’re not excited. You’re about to shit yourself. Why? Do you not think it’s there?”

“Will you stop calling me Buttons?” I snapped. I’d hoped to distract him from his line of questioning but realized my error when I glanced over my shoulder to find him wearing that smug grin again.

“Don’t think I will, no. Are you going to answer me?”

Frustration bled through my attempts to stay neutral. “Fine, yes, all right? I’m nervous we won’t find anything. But we won’t know unless we look, correct? So let’s just… go.”

I stomped ahead, not giving him another chance to speak.

The sound of trickling water caught my ear before anything else, and I veered towards it.

“Careful,” Cammon called after me when I stepped off the road. “The bank’s eroded pretty badly around here. The Trachan might have run almost dry in this area, but that’ll make it all the easier for you to snap your neck if you fall.”

I swallowed my retort that it would benefit him if I did and continued towards the waterline. He was right—the land was dry and crumbling along the edges of the once-thriving river. At some point, a dam had been built farther upstream to redirect the flow, and this village had been abandoned. Now the only water making its way along the bed was murky rainwater that threw up scents of mould and decay.

I pressed my finger to the space between my nose and upper lip to block the worst of the reek and followed the bank downstream to where the water wheel was supposed to be.