Page 13 of The Arrow and the Alder

A lder surveyed the carnage all around, scanning for movement—just to be sure—and slung his bow over his shoulders.

Infernal oversized bats.

They were what’d inevitably convinced him to alter course. Depraved didn’t gather without reason. Not these days. Massie might have a silver tongue, but he hadn’t exaggerated about their evolving intellect—though to call it intellect was generous. It was more that they’d developed a kind of hive mind, subject to the commands of their ruler.

Whoever it was. Massie had pinned it on Alder.

Ironically, if that were true, it would make Alder’s situation a lot easier. For one, he’d have an army. It was unfortunate that he hadn’t fully appreciated the benefits of this when he’d retained one the first time.

Sybaritic fool.

Alder’s footsteps crunched upon the earth as he maneuvered through depraved carcasses, searching. Where was that pit he’d spied earlier? There’d been a lantern burning at the floor of it, and he was certain he’d shot a depraved inside?—

Alder’s ear twitched at the faintest whimper. A human sound.

He slipped the enchanted rock from his satchel as he walked, spoke the word, and the symbol etched upon the surface glowed with silvery light. The glowing rock now floated beside him, as he’d enchanted it to do, and—thus illuminated—he spotted the edge of a gaping hole.

Ah.

The little light followed him as he approached the pit and peered over the ledge, startled to find Rys’s sister standing at the bottom of it. He marveled at the state of her, all covered in dirt and blood—both depraved and human, to his surprise. Her shock of white hair stuck out in every direction, a wild look lit her eyes, and Alder thought she looked every bit the lion Rys had described.

“ You again!” she snarled.

She had the temperament of one too. Truthfully, it was a lot to package in such a little person, and Alder wasn’t altogether sure what to do with it.

“Yes, it’s me again,” he said, “and I believe what you meant to say is thank you .”

Josephine wasn’t having any of his good humor. “You want me to thank you?” Those sky-blue eyes burned through him like the summer sun. “Since you’ve shown up, I’ve learned my brother is dead, I was chased down by the baron, and nearly torn apart by a horde of depraved, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not feeling much gratitude toward you at the moment.”

She did have a point.

But this business about the baron surprised him.

Alder looked around the pit, spotting the dead depraved near her feet—the first one he’d shot—and beside it, sprawled in the mud with limbs contorted at odd angles was…

The baron?

Alder lifted his hood to be sure that he was seeing correctly—yes, that was definitely the baron’s severed head lying on its side, but why had he…

“You’re kith !” Josephine exclaimed.

Alder frowned at the girl, who was staring at his exposed ears, and it was then he noticed the bundle clutched in her hands.

The coat.

The very one Massie had been carrying when Alder had pursued him through the small tear in the veil.

Well, this had just taken a very interesting turn.

“Isn’t that the coat Massie is after?” Alder asked, eyeing her.

Josephine blinked and glanced down at the coat, as if she’d forgotten she was holding on to it. Her lips parted and closed, and her anger morphed into trepidation.

“What is it to you?” she asked carefully, gazing back up at him, her expression guarded.

“It is nothing to me.” Yet . “I just wasn’t expecting to find it here , with you .” He stared at her long and hard as if he might stare out the truth.

Her gaze faltered. “Well, it’s a bit of a long story, and?—”

“I’ve got time.”

She turned those huge blue eyes boldly back upon him. “Oh, now you’ve got time.”

“And you’re certainly not going anywhere.” He gestured emphatically to the pit, ignoring her blooming fury as he sat down on the edge and draped one leg over, taunting her with his freedom.

“You’re serious,” she fumed.

“Perfectly.”

She looked like she might throw something at him. The baron’s head, for instance. “Then let’s start with my brother, since you were in too much of a hurry last time.”

“I am not the one who offered a story.”

She cursed and looked sharply aside, squeezing the enchanted coat to her body, and Alder realized she must be freezing. She wore only a nightdress beneath her drenched coat, though how she could be cold at all with so much fire in her soul, Alder could only wonder.

“You’re incorrigible,” she ground out.

“So I’ve been told, but I am also your only way out. So.” He leaned forward and folded his arms. Waiting.

Still she hesitated, rubbing her arms as she glanced about them. “Shouldn’t we find someplace safe first?”

“Why?”

“What if more depraved attack?”

“That’s hardly your concern. It’s not as though you contributed to my victory this last time.”

She was incensed and speechless, but before she could muster a retort, he said, in all seriousness, “Your story for my aid, mortal. That is my bargain. Do you accept?”

His words seemed to stir something within her—something greater than this moment and their present circumstances—and her gaze speared right through him. “You kith and your damned bargains. Is that the real reason Rys is dead? Because you left him to die when he didn’t agree to your terms?”

This time, it was Alder who looked away.

And he was getting nowhere with this conversation. Time to employ a different tactic.

He stood abruptly. “Best of luck to you then, Lady Alistair. May the Fates deliver a savior worthy of your high esteem.” He tipped his head in a mockery of respect and walked away, taking his enchanted light with him.

Alder counted to three. He wasn’t really going to leave her there, but she didn’t know that, and he absolutely would not engage with the direction she’d taken the conversation. He was sure three seconds alone in that pit of hell was all it would take for that stubborn, intractable girl to see some sense, but when he made it to five, he started to doubt.

By seven, he stopped and glanced back toward the pit with a frown. Rys said his oldest sister was headstrong, but Fates above, this was downright absurd?—

“Fine!” Her voice echoed from the darkness, and Alder sighed. “I’ll tell you whatever you wish to know.” She mumbled other things she probably thought he couldn’t hear, none of which flattered his person but made him grin nonetheless. She had heart; he’d give her that.

Alder returned to the pit in three strides, with the light.

“So?” Josephine said bitterly, breathing warm air onto her hands. “What is it you wish to know, exactly ?”

Alder crouched on the balls of his feet and rested his forearms upon his knees. “I want to know— exactly —how you came about that coat.”

“I have no idea,” she replied with a mark of exasperation. “It belongs to my grandfather, apparently, but I only learned about it this morning—saints as my witness.” She even raised a hand in pledge, which Alder found oddly endearing. “My mother showed it to me just before your high lord’s little speech in the square, and then she intended to bargain for it.”

Alder hid his surprise. She’d only learned about it this morning? That was unexpected, but he believed her. “Your mother wished to bargain for… what ?”

“I think…well, she’d caught on to the notion that this coat would save our family from starving to death, but if you want more information, I can’t help you. Like I said, I only learned about the coat this morning, and I’ve told you everything I know. I have no idea why your high lord wants it, other than keeping it from that Prince Alder…” She stopped and narrowed her eyes on him. “By the way, you’re not working for Prince Alder, are you?”

Alder couldn’t help it; he laughed. Of all the…“No. I most certainly am not working for Prince Alder.”

She appeared satisfied, somewhat, then glanced about her, specifically at the depraved carcass lying at her feet. “No, I suppose you couldn’t be.” She glared up at him. “But you still haven’t told me your name.”

He gazed at her, considering. He couldn’t tell her the truth; she’d never trust him now. “Marks,” he replied at last.

She mulled this over. “Well, Marks , if that’s really what you’re called?—”

“It is.” Though no one had used it in decades, and the one who’d given him that name utilized other, more defamatory names for him now.

She looked skeptical, but let it go. “Anyway, I have nothing more to tell you, so if you don’t mind, I could really use?—”

“I do mind. I have one more question.”

Frustration made her a glory of color. “I don’t know anything else?—”

“How did you manage to take the coat back from Massie?”

This stopped her short. Alder knew the question would make her uncomfortable, just like he knew there was more to this story than greeted him on the surface. More to her , and this family. But would she confess?

Or…did she even know?

Her gaze fell to the coat. She deliberated before saying, decidedly, “What I gave to Massie was a fake, but…I did not realize it at the time.”

Premonition tingled at the back of Alder’s mind. “And…how, precisely, did you learn about the real coat?”

“I…” Her brow puckered, and she didn’t seem to know how to proceed.

“You’re saints-touched,” Alder said.

She appeared equal parts relieved and concerned. Alder didn’t doubt this had been a closely protected secret, and he knew very well the burden of carrying a secret alone.

Especially a dangerous one.

“Is it Sight?” he asked, and when she hesitated, he added, “You have nothing to fear from me on that account?—”

“I don’t have the Sight,” she interrupted quietly.

Alder stilled, eyeing her.

“Well, I mean, I have something that resembles it a little.” She glanced away, as if she couldn’t look at him while confessing something so closely guarded. “My nani had prophetic dreams, and while I sometimes experience those, mine is…different.”

That premonition needled, stronger than before. “Different, how?”

Josephine fidgeted with the fabric of the enchanted coat. “I can interpret them.”

It took Alder a moment to gather himself, for her words to settle in, and then his world drew to a sharp and very definitive point. “You’re a soothsayer.”

Oh, yes, there was definitely more to this story than what was evidenced upon the surface. The timing was of no coincidence, and Alder didn’t doubt for a second that the Fates were finally weaving their story toward its inevitable climax, with him, the coat, and this mortal girl at the center.

What did the Fates mean by it? Why put Rys’s sister in his path? Was it to test and torment him further? He was a terrible danger to her, and the sooner they parted, the better for her. He’d failed her brother in so many ways, but he would not fail Rys in this. Already, he felt his time drawing short.

“Is a soothsayer someone who can interpret dreams?” she asked.

Among other things. “Yes.”

“And is it a common gift?”

No, not even amongst the kith, and he doubted Massie would have let her go had he known, but Alder wouldn’t tell her that. “It is a special one, I’ll give you that.”

She looked as though she suspected more to his words, but she didn’t ask him to elaborate. Perhaps it frightened her, insightful girl. “Anyway, I told you my story. Now will you help me out of here?”