Page 17

The soldier had just made it into the alleyway when Herrick pressed his face into Maude’s neck, effectively masking them. She had wrapped her arms around his neck when he had lifted her, so she clung to him like any impassioned lover might, putting the final touch on their deception.

“Oh, p-pardon me, sir, I didn't mean to interrupt,” the soldier stammered.

“Then don’t,” Herrick practically growled over his shoulder at the young soldier. The possessiveness in his voice made her outraged and cracked some deep resolve in her simultaneously.

Telling herself that she was doing this to torture him a bit for putting her in this situation, she ground her hips into his at the tone of his voice, but she did not fake the intake of breath when she discovered the hard length concealed in his pants.

Herrick growled again as he had when she had arched against him, and he turned his face back to her neck.

By this point, the young soldier had turned and retreated to his patrol. The group took off down the street, leaving Herrick and herself in this compromising position. He made no move to disentangle them from each other, and Maude should've been upset, but she hadn’t moved either.

At once, they both pulled back and looked at each other.

Herrick searched her face in the darkness of the alley while she caught her breath.

Her skin was on fire; she could’ve been a burning pyre with how desire was fueling her galder at this moment.

She remembered the last time they had been so close and felt the phantom touch of Herrick’s nose run up her neck like it had the last time they were in darkness like this and shivered again.

Herrick must’ve felt her because his hips twitched further between her thighs and, up against the wall like she was, she felt everything. Maude groaned but quickly cut off the sound. It didn’t matter, Herrick had heard. He leaned in to whisper in her ear.

“If you keep making sounds like that, minn eldr , we’ll never get out of this city.”

Maude shifted her hand beneath Herrick’s hood and behind his head. Wrapping her fingers in his hair, she yanked his head backward, exposing his throat to her.

With a savage smile, she whispered, “Then you’d better let go of me, beast.”

Herrick only let out a low chuckle and released her, letting her drop to the ground. She fixed her shirt that had ridden up in the hastiness of the ruse and internally brushed off how affected she was by him, remembering her promise to her mother.

Love, like the ones in the stories, does not have a place in your reality.

That may be true, but lust, she found, was a heady drug.

“Let’s go. We're almost to the wall,” Maude said to him, pretending like the last few minutes never happened.

“After you, minn eldr ,” Herrick chuckled, shaking his head before securing his hair out of his face with a leather band around his forehead.

His beard had started growing in, she noticed, so disguising his face wouldn't be too difficult.

Her face, on the other hand, would have to remain in the shadows, her scar giving her away too easily.

She turned down the alley and made her way to the wall, Herrick close behind her.

As they came upon the towering old red brick of the southern wall, Maude experienced only a second of hesitation before she began to climb.

Herrick was matching her pace as they ascended.

It wasn’t until they were almost to the top when she heard the s woosh of arrows flying past. She looked down over her shoulder and saw a contingent of soldiers making their way to where they were on the wall.

The wind picked up, and she heard their voices carry.

“This is the second group scaling the wall tonight. More arrows, but don’t kill them until we know if they are vitki too.”

Herrick must’ve heard them, too, because he exchanged a worried look with Maude and then looked down to the ground. Knowing where his thoughts went, Maude stopped him before he could descend by grabbing his arm.

“You do them no good by getting yourself captured or killed by trying to find out if they're even talking about your friends. We keep going up, we keep moving. Come on.”

Herrick only gave her a stiff nod before they continued to climb, faster now that more arrows were being shot in their direction.

Maude’s hand landed on the top of the wall, and she pulled herself up before extending a hand down to Herrick.

As soon as she managed to get him pulled up to stand on top of the wall, the thick tearing sound of an arrow slicing through flesh rang in her ears.

Herrick cried out in pain before he almost stumbled over the edge, an arrow protruding from his thigh.

Maude was still gripping his arm, and had she not been, he would’ve fallen.

“ Fuck . Can you climb down like this?” Maude quickly ripped a piece of cloth off her cloak and tied it above his wound to stop the bleeding.

None of it had the bright red look of arterial blood, at least, thank the gods.

The arrow had gone clean through his leg.

Maude noticed the arrowhead was sticking out of the back of his thigh, so she broke the sharp tip off, leaving the shaft in until she could properly bind it .

Herrick shook his head, beyond words as he breathed through clenched teeth.

Maude assessed how far the drop would be and quickly decided that path was unlikely as she wouldn’t be able to catch him in time.

The soldiers below her were nocking more arrows, so she quickly untied her mother’s shawl from around her and created a sling big enough for the two of them.

“Ok, I’ll carry us both, then. Get behind me, wrap your arms around my waist.” He followed her directions, and she wrapped the shawl around him under his armpits to fashion a sling that she then looped around her own body.

“This is going to be the hard part. I know you can't climb, but I need you to steady yourself when I lower us so that you don't fall and drag me with you,” she instructed.

He nodded as she lowered them both, and she took a step down over the other edge.

She felt him grab the edge of the wall as they both dropped.

Using his arms and one good leg, he maneuvered himself down until he was mostly hanging from the sling being supported by Maude.

Slowly, so slowly, they began their descent.

If they could touch the ground before the soldiers made it to the closest gate, she could get them out of range of the Kingdom of Flame’s riders.

After what could’ve been an eternity, she felt Herrick’s feet on the ground and heard his protest of pain.

He had kept conscious the entire way down, trying to take his weight off her when he could.

Now that they were both on solid ground, she had to make sure they got to Engate in one piece.

Gunnar had mentioned that the town lies a few leagues southwest of the city.

She looked to Herrick, whose face was alarmingly pale, and laid him down in the sand on top of his cloak.

She yanked the shaft out of his leg without any warning before ripping his pant leg open to see the wound more clearly.

He bit down on his fist to stop from screaming and giving away their position and glared down at her as she probed his leg.

She looked up at him, rolling her eyes at his anger.

“You’ll thank me later.”

“Not likely,” he breathed out.

“Can you use your galder to wash out the wound? I can burn it so it doesn't bleed anymore, but I don’t want to do that if it will be dirty.”

Herrick nodded shallowly before she saw him move his fingers in a circular motion.

A small cyclone of water broke free from the sand and moved toward his leg.

With a flick of his hand, he sent the water rushing through his wound.

Without missing a beat, Maude snapped her fingers and ignited a small flame over her fingers.

Usually, under pressure like this, she struggled with her galder, but her utter focus on healing him cleared away any doubt, and her control over her fire had never been better.

“Brace yourself,” Maude told him but gave him no time before she jammed her fingers into his open wound, cauterizing the bleeding.

The smell of burnt flesh filled her nostrils; she had to bite down on her gag.

Herrick only bit into his fist again to stop himself from making a sound, drawing blood this time.

When she withdrew her fingers, his bleeding had stopped, so she wrapped his legs in the clean cloth from her cloak.

She stood once she was done and helped him into a sitting position.

“Can you put any pressure on that leg?” Maude asked him, scanning the sky for the position of the moon.

“A little, but it will be a slow walk,” Herrick replied quickly.

“Ok, I’ll have to support you on your right side until we can get somewhere to rest and come up with another plan.”

“No, we keep going until we reach Engate. I can take it; I’ve had worse.”

Maude looked him over and took in his pale face.

“If I feel like you are pushing it too far, we stop.”

“Of course, we wouldn’t want to do anything you wouldn’t allow,” Herrick responded flatly.

“I got us down that wall; I make the rules right now,” she snapped at him. “Now get up. Your leg is as clean as I can get it in the sand, and we are running out of time before they send riders out to find us. Once we are further into the desert, we can slow down a bit.”

“I know. I’ve done this before, remember?”

“Then get up, let’s get moving.”

“Gods, you are so pushy,” Herrick said, annoyance flashing in his eyes. He extended his hand to her.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Now, let’s go.”

She moved to grab his hand, but he stopped her.

“Wait.”

Herrick untangled the runes that hung from his neck and picked out the water rune. He tore it from his neck and handed it to Maude. She reflexively grabbed it but looked at him blankly, unsure of what he was doing.

“Put it on. They’ll know you are a friend when we arrive in Engate if you’re wearing it,” he said weakly.

Choosing not to argue, mainly because Maude didn’t like the way he was starting to look, she slipped the rune over her head.

Grabbing his arm, Maude pulled him up and slipped his arm around her shoulders so she could support some of his weight, then wrapped an arm around his waist. They started making their way through the freezing desert toward Engate.

The sounds of alarm died down on the city side of the wall as they got further away.

All she had to worry about now was whether one of the unnatural desert monsters would find them or if Herrick would keel over first .

In the silence of the plains surrounding Logi, Maude thought about the soldiers who had had an encounter with another group scaling the wall. They had called them vitki , but there was no way to know if it was Herrick’s friends or his brother.

As they trekked through the dead of the night, the sands thinned out, and the ground gave way to hard dirt and rocks.

Herrick was stumbling a bit more now than when they had begun, but he kept giving her a look that said don't fuck with me so she let him run himself ragged.

She knew he was worried about his friends, and while Maude would never admit it, so was she.

So even when she had wanted him to rest for a moment, she let him keep pushing on toward the hope that his family was waiting for him when they got to Engate.

They could only pray to the goddess Gefion for luck that they made it there unharmed.