Page 15 of Her Cruel Redemption (The Dark Reflection #3)

Chapter Fifteen

I was riddled with tension, the skin on the back of my neck constantly prickling. We were picking our way across the country through back roads and woodlands, trying to stay out of the way of other travelers, but I knew better than to think that would be enough to keep us from being found. Not when we’d left the man who’d attacked us alive. Trussed up, dosed with something Daethie had concocted and hidden in the trunk of a tree, but alive all the same. Full of information that he could spill as soon as his companions found him. If there had been any doubt about who we had been when they attacked us, there wouldn’t be when they found him.

I should never have let Gwinellyn insist on leaving him alive, but the way she’d looked at me when I’d attacked him had bruised something in me. I didn’t want her to see me as a monster. I didn’t want to be a monster. I wasn’t one.

Was I?

‘We’re making good time,’ Mae said as she drew up next to me and my horse turned to sniff hers in greeting. ‘We should reach the border tomorrow.’

‘If we can avoid getting caught,’ I muttered, staring at the river before us as dread coiled its way around my throat. ‘We can’t make the border without crossing the Cro.’

The river here was a distant relative of that sluggish, polluted canal that crawled past the Winking Nymph back in Lee Helse. Here, the Cro was rigorous, the water frothing where it met jagged rocks, forming white-peaked rapids as it plunged towards a drop.

‘Do we try to swim across?’ I suggested, though it looked too wild and wide. If it got ahold of us, we would be at its mercy.

‘There’s a bridge not too far from here,’ Mae said as the others pulled up behind us, accompanied by the sound of Tanathil’s fast-paced chatter. ‘The river looks deep. We’ll wind up with all our supplies soaked through if we try to swim. All our clothes and sleeping gear will be saturated. The nights have been too cold for that.’

I didn’t reply. She was right. But I didn’t like the idea of using a bridge, not when there were people looking for us. Not when he was looking for us. If the rumours had reached him and he knew we’d come out of hiding, he’d figure out our next stop was Oceatold. I had to assume the few places we could cross the river were being watched. Draven’s flaws were numerous—and depraved—but stupidity couldn’t be counted among them. If he knew we were travelling, he would surely be watching the bridges. Our only hope was that the rumours hadn’t reached him yet, or at least that they hadn’t been confirmed by the men who’d come across us in Garlein. It was a risk we were going to have to take if we ever wanted to reach our destination.

‘Then let’s be quick about it,’ I said, turning my horse south.

We followed the crooked path of the river, our pace quick. My horse frequently pranced about and shook his head, eyes flickering, and I didn’t know if it was because he could pick up on my nerves or if there was something he could sense in our surroundings that I couldn’t. Either way, I held the reins in a white-knuckled grip. The sight of the bridge we were headed for only enhanced my tension. It was a covered bridge, narrow and constructed of wood, which I didn’t like. Felt like a good place to wind up trapped. Tentatively, I felt for the prickle of my magic, quickly shying away from it before it could stir too vigorously. The loss of consciousness after I’d used it in Garlein had unnerved me. I’d felt shivery and light-headed for hours after, my vision shifting strangely as we rode. And for what? I hadn’t been able to strike a single one of the men who’d attacked us. If my aim was so shonky and it wound up knocking me out, it was more of a danger to me in a fight than it was to an opponent.

We didn’t approach the bridge straight away, instead retreating to a nearby crop of trees while Goras went on ahead. It was a concession to my paranoia, and one that didn’t really mollify me when he eventually returned and declared it safe to continue. He’d watched the bridge for longer than necessary, he’d said. He’d used magic to feel out the area, seeking hidden soldiers, and found nothing. The surrounding area was mostly open fields, and the town across the river seemed deserted, emptied as residents fled the fighting zone. We would cross the bridge and then we’d be only a day’s journey from the border. There was no reason to try another way when we were so close.

But those reassurances did nothing to unravel the knot of dread I carried in my stomach.

‘No stopping. Let’s keep our pace quick and stay in the group,’ I said as we approached the bridge. A restless wind pushed us from behind, as though eager for us to be gone. When Goras nudged his horse onwards, I followed suit. I craned my neck around, looking for last minute warning signs as the mouth of the bridge swallowed up first Goras, then Tanathil, then Gwinellyn. But there was nothing. My horse’s hooves sounded hollow against the wood, and the shadow of the bridge's roof was cold as soon as it covered me. It smelled like horseshit inside. The wind didn't quite shift the musty smell of the air.

We didn't speak as we moved forwards, holding the strained silence, infused with the sound of rushing water and horse hooves, and that knot in my stomach only seemed to wind tighter. Something wasn't right. I didn't know what, but something was very wrong. Something about the way the world beyond the other end of the bridge looked as Goras reached it.

I didn't care how paranoid it would make me sound; I wanted to turn around. 'I think we should–'

A crack split the silence.

I yanked on my reins just as a flash of light erupted from the trees beyond the bridge. Too late. Whatever it was hit the ground in front of us, sending up a blast of splintered wood and smoke. My horse reared, screaming in panic, and I barely kept my seat, holding onto his mane for dear life as the smell of smoke and gunpowder choked the closed air of the bridge, burning my nose, my lungs. Ahead, something struck Goras, knocking him askew in his saddle, and suddenly there were soldiers everywhere. I glanced behind us, ready to pull my horse around, but there were horses charging towards us. Someone commanded that we halt in the name of the king. That wasn't going to fucking happen. The solders on the other side of the bridge were on foot. They were the weakest target.

'Push through!' I bellowed, kicking at my horse’s sides and charging ahead with a scream.

Gwin and Tan's horses were forced to surge forwards, and we charged the quickly gathering soldiers, our momentum vicious. They seemed caught off guard by the sudden charge and as I barrelled towards them, only two of them raised their swords as though to attack me. But they didn’t swing. Just held them aloft like they didn’t know what to do next. Wide eyes fixed on my face for a second as I pushed forwards, but then I was through, thundering away as adrenaline surged in my blood. I looked back, saw the others hadn’t been so lucky. They were being herded back into the bridge by the blades brandished at them. One of the soldiers had reached Kelvhan’s horse, slashing at its legs. It reared back, throwing him off balance. Goras was on foot, his hulking frame no match for mounted riders. I circled my horse around, yanked one of the throwing knives from my belt and threw it haphazardly, hardly stopping to aim in my terror. It whizzed past a soldier and embedded in the bridge just as a mounted rider pushed through the throng, blade swinging, catching Kel in his struggle to regain his seating. The blade seemed to meet him in slow motion, a glittering arc of steel. I could almost see the shock in Kel’s eyes as the blade bit into his shoulder, the force knocking him forwards. He teetered, grasping at his reins, but he couldn’t seem to grip them. He slid sideways, and in a heartbeat, he was falling.

My pulse hammered as I spurred my horse forward, my mind a blur of instinct and desperation. Another soldier lunged at me, sword raised, and I barely managed to pull my second knife in time, deflecting his strike with a glancing blow. Rage flooded me, sharp and cold, cutting through my fear. I twisted in my saddle, sending a fierce kick into his midsection, forcing him back as I wheeled around, trying to get back to the others.

Without warning, the bridge shuddered. Vines slithered across the ground, creeping up the wooden beams, twisting and curling like living snakes. I faltered in terror at the sight of it, mind reeling. Magic. Yoxvese magic? Were there renegades among these soldiers? The vines snapped and writhed across the opening, turning the bridge into a cage, obscuring my view of my friends. My horse balked at the sight, rearing up, jolting my vision, his eyes rolling in terror. His front legs returned to the ground as his back legs left it, flinging me from my seat, my grip on him slipping, and then I was falling. My breath was knocked out of me as I crashed into the riverbank, spots bursting before my eyes before my momentum carried me over.

I hit the water in a slap of freezing cold. It was in my nose, my ears, my mouth, clawing its way down my throat, pulling at me with the might of a raging frost giant, dragging me down and onwards. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. My lungs burned, desperate to fill. My arms flailed about in a desperate attempt to reach the surface, fighting against the pull of the river. For a moment, my head broke the surface. I lurched out of the rushing water, gasping a lungful of air. It tasted like life . I gulped it down, fighting to keep from being dragged down again. But the current surged up, thrashed against a cluster of rapids and I was under again, fingers scrabbling at rock, legs kicking out to find purchase as the river dragged me down, down, down.

My course jolted, momentum snagging. Something pulled at me, fighting against the water. Force on my clothing, pulling my bodice tight, struggling against the current. Unrelenting. Whatever the force, it wasn’t cowed by the river. It would win. I could feel it with a certainty that resonated in my bones. I was clawing at whatever had me, trying to find purchase, to drag myself up, my nails digging in, becoming a creature composed of nothing but the instinct to find air.

My head broke the surface again. I gulped down another lungful of air. So sweet. I was being dragged, pulled. My knees scraped the riverbed, rocks cutting at my skin as I was hauled away from the grasping current. My clothes slicked against me, determined to drag me back under, and I gasped down the sweet air like it would be gone again at any moment as I was dragged from the water. The river finally relinquished its grip on me and I found my feet, slipping as I staggered a few steps up the bank before collapsing to my knees, my palms hitting rocky ground. I was coughing, heaving up the water, my vision struggling to find focus, to make sense even of the rough ground beneath my hands, my body trembling with cold or fear or elation at being alive. But there was fighting nearby. And as my body steadied and my vision cleared, I remembered that I wasn’t safe, even if I was free of the river.

And then someone spoke, and the breath I’d fought so hard for fled.

‘Get up.’

That voice. It immobilised me.

‘Get up, Rhiandra.’

I’d know that voice anywhere.

‘I like you on your knees, but I don’t want anyone else seeing you that way.’

I stole another breath, steadying myself against the tide of panic rising in my blood, holding out for a few precious moments more before I lifted my head, raised my eyes. And there he was before me, no invention or dream-dipped hallucination. Solid and tense and dripping wet, dark hair slicked to his head with river water, mud streaked up his bare forearms, grey eyes boring into me. No mockery, no arrogance, no calculation. Just pulsating, tactile fury.

Draven.

I staggered to my feet. My hands were shaking. I could see the moment I’d run the blade through him wavering in the air between us like a haze.

The tracker’s words snapped through my mind. There’s no mercy in him. Not for anyone, and definitely not for you.

I cast about for words, tried to make my tongue work as I scrabbled for a plan, for a next move, for something , while everything scrambled and whirled around me in a sickening chaos of shock because he was here . I could flee. Back into the river? Up the bank and down the streets of the town on the other side of the bridge? I shifted my weight to the balls of my feet. He caught the movement, his gaze flicking for a moment to my feet before returning to my face.

His mouth twisted in a bitter, vicious smile. ‘ Run .’