Page 7 of The Fire Apprentice (Sylvania #5)

A fter their break for lunch, Rowan and Jane returned to the road. He led her into the trees on the far side to fill up their water gourds at a stream he somehow knew of and they continued on.

A short way up, the double track ended at an empty wagon standing abandoned.

“The wagons for the mine stop here,” Rowan said, running his fingers along the edge of the wooden sides. “It’s strange they’ve left one. Usually they come back down with the ore.” Beyond the wagon, the path gave up all pretense of being a road. As if he heard her wondering, Rowan added, “They use packs on mules to carry the ore from the mine to here.”

Jane didn’t reply as they started up. After a few paces, she was already puffing from the climb.

How did he know so much about this area? It probably had something to do with his long and personal story about knowing a dragon.

After five minutes on the narrowed path, Jane didn’t have the breath to talk even if she wanted to. The climb was steep and she had to watch every step she took. Someone had wedged flattish rocks into the path to give it some semblance of being the way to follow—the rocks were too orderly to be random—but it only barely resembled a human-made path. So many stones protruded from the ground at odd heights and angles that each step required care. In places water trickled down the rocks as if it might actually be a creek bed that had dried up for the summer. The places where it did flatten into a dirt path were pits of mud she had to skirt around.

A few times, Jane had to stop and use her hands to push herself up a steep step. Or in one place, where the path crossed a sheer rock face, she took baby steps to cross it, sure her feet would slide out from under her at any moment. Rowan never struggled—he strode along the path and balanced easily as he stepped up the rocks without needing his arms. But somehow he remained the same distance in front of her no matter how slowly she went. Maybe he slowed his pace to match hers. She never caught him looking back. But he could probably hear her panting behind him.

On the narrow path, as she walked under the bushes, they grew down just enough to brush against her head. After an hour, wisps of long hair were tickling her neck. One kind of bush eventually dominated the greenery. It had twisty branches and large, oval leaves in a deep, waxy green color. The leaves splayed out in rings with a clump of small, paler green fronds sticking up in the center. It must be some mountain species.

How far did they have to go? Would it be another day of this tomorrow, or three more days? Or ten? Did Rowan know? If she asked, he might think she was complaining. She had to treat this situation like basket orders before the winter solstice celebrations—you never knew how many were going to come at you, so you simply wove one after another until the orders stopped coming.

Sooner or later he’d have to stop for the night. Hopefully it would be soo—

Jane’s foot slipped from a rock and twisted sideways and a pain shot through it. She landed on her knees, taking the weight off her foot. She’d cried out without meaning to.

Rowan crouched before her.

“What happened?” he asked with concern.

“My foot slipped.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No.” She held it off the ground.

“Let’s see if you can stand on it. May I help you up?”

She nodded.

Rowan reached his hands to her sides and lifted her as he stood. A memory flashed in her mind of Larch doing something similar, that second day when she’d been following him through the forest and they’d come to a downed tree. Only Larch hadn’t asked first; he’d picked her up and swung her over the trunk like it was all a game. At the time she’d found the action romantic, but now it seemed presumptuous that he hadn’t asked.

When she was upright, she lowered her right foot gingerly toward the ground. The moment it touched, the pain flared again and she winced. Rowan’s hands tightened around her.

“It hurts,” she said.

“You might have twisted it. There’s a place we can stop ahead.”

Could she make it? Maybe if she crawled. But Rowan slipped himself under her right shoulder and lifted her weight up with his arm around her waist. He took a step and she hopped after him.

“It’s not far,” he said.

As slow as slugs, they made their way up the steep trail. Rowan took steps one by one and waited for her to catch up. His arm was hard against her side and warmed her through her shirt, and if she turned her face toward him she caught the scent she’d sniffed on his blanket that morning. She kept her hand firmly on his shoulder, hanging on, but several times she caught herself wanting to squeeze him a little more than necessary.

When they came to mud or a large rock across the way, he practically lifted her over it. Would it be easier for him to simply carry her? He should be able to with those bulging arms he had. Was it rude to ask? Maybe he didn’t suggest it because he thought she wouldn’t like it.

He paused as they caught their breath.

“Would it be easier to carry me? You know, piggyback or whatever.”

“You’d have to wear my pack.”

“I can do that.”

His grip around her loosened and she balanced on her uninjured foot. She withdrew her arm from his shoulder to give him space and shifted her satchel to hang by her hip. He hefted the pack off with a clang and helped get it onto her arms, over her own bag, without tipping her sideways. When he eased it down onto her, it hung on her shoulders like a dozen sacks of flour. What in the skies was he carrying, a set of cast iron cookware?

He turned away and crouched down before her.

Skies, his back was broad. And once she climbed onto his back a whole lot of her body would be pressed against him—from her legs wrapped around his hips to her face beside his neck. But he was waiting and she couldn’t back out now and besides, taking a ride would get them to their stopping place faster.

She leaned over his back and put her arms around him.

His hands found her thighs and clamped on to them as he stood, lifting her from the ground and drawing her legs around him. The bags pulled her backward but he compensated, hitching her up once until she settled against him. She eased off on her hold once she was balanced.

Rowan resumed climbing the trail.

Riding on his back was as jarring as hopping had been. But it was jarring her in an entirely different way. How had she not anticipated this? She tried to keep her mind off the sensations—the thud of his footsteps shaking her inside her thighs and the temptation to nudge herself against his back. It had been so long since she’d pressed herself up against a man. Would it feel as pleasurable as she imagined?

She had some nerve calling Rowan a stalker earlier. She was the lewd one. Here he was carrying her when she was injured, and she was imagining humping his back.

Jane leaned her cheek against him and tried not to think.

Rowan stepped off the trail at last. They were at another wayside like the one where they’d had lunch, with an identical firepit, log and all. Her right ankle had begun to ache with a dull throbbing. Rowan leaned forward and slowly let go of her legs, allowing her to slide down his body until she stood behind him, balancing on her good foot. He took the bags off her back, set them down, and held her hand as she hopped to the log and sat.

Her ankle was swollen.

Rowan was eyeing it. “Can you get your shoe and sock off?”

She carefully undid the laces. He immediately squatted down to help ease the shoe off. For a moment the pain returned. As long as she didn’t touch anything, she could pretend the injury wasn’t that bad. Before he could start undressing her, she peeled the sock down and off.

“Well, at least your foot’s not swollen,” he said. “Tell me if this hurts.”

He pushed at her foot and she felt nothing—well, nothing other than his fingers touching her. She shook her head. He pushed a few more places, pressing her foot this way and that. She kept shaking her head. He let go of her and touched the ground to balance himself, straightening up to peer into her eyes.

“I think it’s only a twisted ankle.”

“Did you apprentice with the healer before the chairmaker?” she asked.

He almost looked like he almost smiled. “It’s just the basics.”

“Thank you for helping me.”

“I’ll make a poultice to reduce the swelling and we can bind it for the night.”

He stood and retrieved his pack. Around them, the light was dimming and a chill was creeping into the air. Trees and more of the twisted bushes with the waxy leaves formed a ring around their clearing, but directly over the firepit was open to the sky, which had faded to a deep twilight blue. Maybe they’d have stopped to camp here anyway, even if she hadn’t injured herself. They’d just have arrived a bit faster, with more daylight left.

Rowan poured water from his gourd into a corner of the firepit and stirred with a stick that had been leaning nearby. He scooped out a handful of wet dirt and ashes, turned to her, and smoothed it up against one side of her ankle. His other hand did the same on the other side.

The muddy ashes were surprisingly cold. The water from the stream had been cold but his gourd must insulate water better than hers. Rowan kept his hands on her leg, looking at the ground.

“Do you want me to hold it?” she asked.

He shook his head once. “My hands are already dirty.”

The sky darkened a little more.

The chilled poultice didn’t warm. A soothing relief stole through her ankle. It wouldn’t be cured but it felt less angry than it had. At last he lifted his hands.

“It’s mostly dried,” he said. “Keep it on and I’ll start a fire.”

She expected him to reach into his pack for a pouch of fire powder, to use the way Larch had many times, but instead he stood and marched into the trees. As she held the dried mud, branches snapped in the darkness. He returned with an armload of fallen wood and broken tree limbs.

He used a regular, human-made steel and flint to light the fire, feeding in small bits of moss and twigs until a flame caught. He stacked the wood he’d gathered beside her.

“Keep feeding it and I’ll gather more.”

He kept telling her what to do, but somehow it never sounded like he was giving her an order. The words were bossy but his tone was low and quiet. As he headed off again, she let go of one side of the poultice and picked up a branch to hold in the fire until it caught. The small flame cast out a wave of heat before she tossed it on top. The poultice slipped down. It no longer felt cold at all. Jane peeled it off her skin on each side and lay it on the ground. She added a few more sticks to the fire, careful not to press on her right foot.

Rowan appeared silently from the shadows with another armful of wood. He unloaded it and moved to her right side. “Can you get your leg up here?” He leaned to pat the log. As she twisted sideways and lifted her leg, his hand caught under her calf and eased her leg over the log and down until her foot rested gently. He took a kerchief from his pocket. His rough fingers slid out from beneath her ankle, pulling the kerchief after them. In a few quick motions, he’d tied the cloth tightly around her ankle. He stood without a word and stalked off into the shadows again.

Jane kept her leg up and turned back to the fire. Night animals were starting to call, and overhead the first stars were peeking through the leaves. She hadn’t been in a forest like this in many seasons, not since... not since Larch. Didn’t humans ever end up out in the forest at night? Or was it a fairy thing? Or maybe, her boring life was what kept her at home in the village, making baskets and hanging laundry. Never having an adventure.

Well she was certainly having one now.

Should she be? Look what had happened the last time she’d abandoned her settled life to have an adventure. But she hadn’t had a choice this time. She was here to rescue Elle.

Rowan reappeared from the darkness with one more bundle of wood. He set it down without speaking and left. But he quickly returned, cradling something in his hands. For a heartbeat she imagined he had a rabbit or some other helpless creature, but of course he wouldn’t have that. Fairies didn’t eat the animals they could talk to.

He held mushrooms and onions.

“I assume you know what you’re doing,” Jane said, pointing at an orange mushroom. “I don’t know that kind.”

“They’re fire mushrooms.”

“Fire mushrooms?”

“I don’t know the human name. They only grow near dragon dens.” He spread the cloth with the bread on the ground and set out the vegetables.

“So we’re close to the dragon?”

“We should reach him tomorrow.”

“Does he have a name?”

“I called him Axe. He seemed to like it.”

Jane’s brow furrowed. “How old were you when you met?”

“Ten winters. Keep feeding the fire.”

Jane glanced down. The few twigs she’d lit had almost burned out. She reached for a few bigger ones and dropped them into the pit one by one. Before she could ask more questions, Rowan left again.

She fed the fire more carefully this time, and by the time Rowan returned, she had a few larger branches crackling in the flames. She was distracted tonight. At home, she could keep a steady fire going all morning when they needed one. If she ever did ask Master Smith to take her on as an apprentice, at least she’d have that skill to offer. Although a fire made with coal would behave differently—she’d have to learn how to manage a coal fire.

Rowan sat beside her, adding to the pile of mushrooms. They were the flat, wavy kind that grew in clusters on the sides of logs or other hosts. He got out a short knife and began whittling down the end of a relatively straight stick into a sharp point. His thumb was twice the width of the stick but he handled it gently, rotating it as bits of wood flew off into the fire. When he had a sharp point, he skewered a few mushrooms and handed it to her. She held it over the flames.

“It’s easier to roast things if the fire’s burned down,” he said, “but I’m too hungry to wait.”

“Me too.”

He gathered up several of the spring onions with their long green fronds and wiped off the dirt clinging to them, pinching the roots off too. His fingers nimbly braided the greens together.

Jane pulled her gaze away from his working hands and jerked her skewer up, rescuing her mushrooms from a flaming death. Drat. It was always the hands that got her. Rowan leaned forward and hung the bundle of onions on the end of her skewer. He began to prepare a second stick.

When she held both skewers, he cut the rest of the wedge of cheese, and soon they were finishing off the bread and cheese and eating juicy mushrooms and onions straight off the fire. The mushrooms were tasty with a pungent, meaty flavor. Jane kept the fire small to make the wood last. Outside of the flickering flame and the small glow around it, the woods had gone dark. Stars filled the sky overhead.

“There’s a spring nearby,” Rowan said as she pulled the last mushroom off her skewer and popped it into her mouth. “After you wash up for the night I’ll refill your gourd.” He took a long drink from his and splashed water over his fingers, wiping them clean and drying them on his pants. “I’ll re-bind your ankle,” he added, “and then I’ll leave so you can get ready for sleep.”

He had a plan. Of course he did. She’d wondered how she would manage taking care of her personal needs with him nearby and herself unable to walk into the woods for privacy. With her bad ankle, she’d imagined herself crawling into the thickest bushes to pee and hoping he couldn’t see her through the leaves. But he’d thought of what she needed.

He took up his knife and began cutting a wider piece of wood than he had for the skewers. When he’d produced two relatively flat pieces, he moved to sit on the log beside her ankle and undid the kerchief. The dying firelight flickered on his face, smoothing out the rough edges and making him look like a fresh-faced young knight in a tale.

“How does it feel?” He gestured at her ankle.

“Much better since the poultice.”

“Tell me if it hurts.” He gently slid his hand beneath her ankle, pressed into her skin, and held the two halves of the splint up against her, fitting them behind her ankle bone on either side. The skin on his fingers was rough like a laundryman’s or a farmer’s. Every time the smallest bit of him scraped against her, she felt it up her calf and down to her toes.

She had to stop thinking about the scuff of his hands on her skin. It was too easy to lose herself daydreaming, imagining him sliding his hands up her leg. She didn’t want to be inappropriate when he was only trying to help her with her injury. “It’s useful to know how to do this,” she said to distract herself. “I’m sure the children will be spraining things soon enough. So far we’ve only had scrapes and bruises.”

He held the splint firmly as he wrapped up the kerchief, pulling it tight. “Oh?”

“Maryanne usually handles healing-related crises. She’s the one who’s gifted at mothering. She was born to do it. I’m always ten steps behind where I’m supposed to be.”

“You’re probably doing fine,” he said. He wrapped the kerchief around her ankle again to swathe a larger area. One hand was wrapped clear around her leg, holding the tight kerchief in place.

Skies that hand was large. And he held her leg so tightly she wouldn’t be able to kick it free if she tried. “But not like Maryanne,” she rambled on. “Mothering comes naturally to her; she loves it. She seems perfectly content raising five children and sneaking out to tumble Wells three times a quarter-moon.”

“Wells? I wondered why he was always getting new baskets.”

Jane frowned. What did Rowan have to do with Wells? Oh right—Rowan had been Wells’s apprentice last winter. “What do you mean, new baskets?”

“Maryanne would come into the smithy,” Rowan said, “and Wells would say, ‘I need to show you the length of the tools for the new basket’ and they’d disappear upstairs for half an hour.”

Jane grinned. “You didn’t realize what they were up to?”

“Well...” He grimaced. “Maybe they made a lot of noise looking at his, um, tools.”

Rowan had to be joking. He had to have known what they were doing—from what Maryanne said, she and Wells were noisy lovers.

And now Jane was thinking about tumbling again. Because Maryanne would come home from those daily rendezvous and blather on about Wells this and Wells that, his giant size, and how they’d done it on the kitchen table and cracked it down the middle and then he’d had her up against the doorway or over an empty ale barrel that rolled back and forth as he thrust into her, and on and on. And Jane would laugh and smile and try not to let on how jealous she was that Maryanne had someone to romp around with, and that Maryanne was able to do all that tumbling without any pain. Her stories were what Jane wished for, for herself. But she’d never be able to do all that, not with the way her body wouldn’t work right.

Rowan pulled the kerchief extra snugly and tied the tips in a knot. He kept holding her bound ankle in both his warm hands. What if he started rubbing her leg or... or massaging her foot... or stroking her—

“It was too soon for me,” Jane blurted out. “I wasn’t ready to be a mother.” Rowan tensed and his hand was still touching her, tightly, so she babbled on. “I love Elle but if I could do it again, I would wait. Well, obviously, if I could do it again I wouldn’t be tricked by a fairy into leaving my family to follow him into the woods with no thought to the future. But I also wouldn’t stop drinking bitter tea because he assured me fairies had some magical ability to prevent pregnancy.”

A shocked silence followed her words.

Rowan’s hands had clamped on to her leg. His splint was effective, though, because she felt no pain. He blinked and loosened his grip as he lowered her foot back to the log.

“He told you that?”

She nodded, trying not to cry. She’d been foolish to believe something like that.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“He must’ve worded it carefully since it’s such a glaring lie, but that’s what he implied. By the time I realized I was pregnant, the love potion had me so addled I don’t think I cared.”

Rowan stood and studied the ground. A lit ember glowed nearby and he flicked it back into the crackling fire with a bare toe. “I meant to mention this before but I didn’t know how. I can boil water for you to make tea.”

Her eyes smarted again at his kindness. “I didn’t bring any bitter herbs. I packed so fast thinking of Elle that I forgot. Even Maryanne forgot. But it’s not like I need to drink any right now since I’m not...” Skies this was embarrassing.

They passed a few beats in silence. Night insects and perhaps a few frogs cheeped in the dark, but the chirping wasn’t as loud as it could be, not like the pond in the village when the frogs were really going at it. An owl hooted in the distance.

He held out a hand. “Let me help you to the edge of the clearing.”

Awkwardly, she got to her feet and let him support her to move away from the fire. He brought her to a poplar sapling she could hang on to and crossed to the far side of the fire to disappear into the darkness. Knowing the darkness cloaked her as well was a comfort. After she’d taken care of her needs, she hopped slowly back to the fire and found her toothbrush.

When Rowan returned, he didn’t comment on anything she’d said earlier. He pulled two woven hammocks from his bag and hung them from the trees. She didn’t protest when he gave her his blanket with the heated chips, which he’d laid in the sunshine while they’d rested after lunch. She handed him hers to replace it. He had her wrap herself in the blanket before sitting sideways on the hammock so her underside wouldn’t get cold in the night air. With one pivot, she turned lengthwise and lay back, and the hammock curled around her.

“All set?” Rowan asked.

“Yes.”

She was warm and her muscles were so tired, and lying in the hammock felt decadent. But her mind was too awake. Tonight was Elle’s second night away from home. Was she all right? Did she miss her mother? After the first two winters of her life, serving the fairy queen, what if she thought being taken from home like this was normal?

Jane listened to the rustling of Rowan lying down. She should have asked him how far away they were, but surely he’d have told her if he knew. They had to reach his dragon friend first and then they’d know where Elle was. Rowan’s movements ceased and he was silent, but she lay awake into the night.