Page 32 of Keeper of the Word

“Elanna!”

Knights pounded out of the towers, racing toward them, swords drawn.

“Forgive me!” Elanna yelled behind her.

Tolvar stepped off the edge and swung them around—Elanna giving a yelp—and positioned his feet against the wall.

“Tighten your grip,” he said, pushing his feet off the wall with force and descending several feet. “And do not look down.”

But ’twas too late. The ground was so far away. The three knights gripped against the tension of the rope.

“Oh stars,” she said, burying her face in the back of Tolvar’s neck. She closed her eyes, their bodies bouncing over and over as they rappelled down, and she tried to block out the noise of the knights yelling over the parapet.

All the while, Elanna couldn’t ignore the tightness that grew more strained and stressed the closer they came to the bottom. The light that stitched her and her sisters together was fraught as they separated. She’d experienced its overextension when she’d left the first time, but it seemed like a nudge compared to what now inflamed in her.

When they were on the ground, Elanna collapsed to her knees and gripped her chest.

“M’lady?” Joss ran to her side.

The cord of starlight burned. ’Twas as if her ribs might burst apart. She tossed herself onto her back and gaped up at the stars.

“Help me!” she groaned. Her focus on the night blurred.

“What is it?” Tolvar knelt beside her. Behind him, the others gathered the horses that Elanna hadn’t noticed when on the wall. Rasa pawed a hoof into the grass, snorting.

“Give me a moment’s peace.” Her legs writhed as if trying to break free from being bound. Sweat coated her forehead.

New yells broke her concentration of the tension flaring up and down her body.

“Damnation!” Tolvar yelled. Knights on horseback were rounding the south wall. “Gus, take Rasa. Barrett, leave Hux’s horse here.” Elanna was shifted into Tolvar’s arms and placed in front of him on Valko’s saddle. He kicked the stallion into motion, and they galloped to the north toward the Ashwin-Askella border.

“Breathe,” Tolvar repeated gently. Elanna kept her eyes closed and centered herself on his voice. The thunder of hooves behind them died away. “Breathe.”

A kernel of a memory swelled into her mind. Daved, kneelingdown to her, using the same word when she became too overwhelmed. The sting of the tightness gripping her did not extinguish, but Elanna dug deep within herself—praying to the stars as she did so—and shoved the sensation elsewhere. Elsewhere. The place that stored memories, feelings, and thoughts she could not carry on the surface as a StarSeer.

Little by little, the clutch of tightness convulsing within her diminished into a tug. Elanna could not banish it entirely, and truly, she had no desire to do so.

Sisters. I am sorry.

But it no longer seized her. A calm cloaked her, and she opened her eyes.

To her surprise, it was full morning, and they rode along the main road. She squinted in the sunlight. Tolvar’s hand touched her forehead.

“Your fever is diminished.” Relief was inlaid in his voice.

“Fever?”

“You’ve been thrashing around for the last few hours. I worried you’d fall.” He gave a distinct whistle. Valko and the others dropped from a canter to a trot. Tolvar turned in the saddle to search behind him. “Still nothing. That is two hours since we’ve marked them.”

“You do not truly think they gave up their chase?” Joss came to ride beside them. “Theyallrode Ashwinian Lusters,” she said, referring to the breed of horse special to Ashwin.

Ashwinian Lusters—sometimes referred to as the roans of Ashwin—were rare horses whose coats were an evenly mixed pattern of colored and white hairs, giving them a speckled appearance. Close up, a roan’s coat might be mistaken for a constellation. They were the fastest horses in the Capella Realm. Most remarkable about them, however, was they tired at a significantly slower pace than other horse breeds. Legend said it was because the stars gave them their stamina. Only Rasa, a blue roan, and Valko, a bay roan—the first Luster that Elanna had ever seen not belonging to an Ashwinian or a knight of the Order of Siria—were of that breed in their traveling party. She noticed the knights’ horses foamedand were smeared in significantly more sweat than Rasa and Valko.

“I would certainly doubt it,” Tolvar responded. “But you witnessed what I did, Joss.”

“What was that?” Elanna said, clearing her parched throat.

“I do not know if you’d believe us.”