Page 29 of Winds of Destiny

Turo

There’s barely a moment to bask in the glow of being linked together before I feel panic rising from Cam. Kai and I share a look from the backs of our rams. “I can’t tell what’s going on,” he calls over to me. “Is he hurt?”

“I don’t think so.” Hurt would feel sharper, wouldn’t it? “I think he’s…afraid.” That might mean he’s going to be hurt, or Embros is fucking with him, or any number of things. Unless I get off this bouncing, grunting carpet of a beast and meditate until I get a clear connection to him, I’m not going to know what exactly, though. “We need to pick up the pace.”

Kai nods and taps his mount’s hindquarters with a hand, and the ram goes from a jolting trot to a run in the space of a few feet. I can’t control mine that way—I’d as likely get thrown off as find any success if I tried—but luckily it follows in the other’s footsteps. We run, the pearls guiding us toward Cam like the moons draw the tide, and, despite the fact that the clouds have lingered, I’m no longer worried about being able to find him. We don’t need to rely on tracks any more. Still, I’m tense to the point of aching as I wait and wonder whether things are going to get worse for him.

Instead, I get the sensation of him forcibly relaxing, like he’s in control of my lungs and just took a deep breath. The anxiety and fear die down, and I know he did it on purpose for us. He’s taking care of us the only way he can. I think grateful thoughts in his direction and get a feeling of warmth back.

We run until the rams need a break, which doesn’t happen for several more hours. Even a jaka bird could never run so far so fast. I don’t find the creatures comfortable, but I can’t deny that we’d be lost without them. It’s almost enough to make me want to offer a prayer to Carnuatu…almost. But my prayers are reserved for the last connection I have to my old home, the home I can’t remember. Ophiucas welcomed me into his city, but I’ll never be more than a guest in Zephyth. And yet… There might be some recourse for me. Someone for my faith to cling to. I know she’s very small, but perhaps… Perhaps if I ask, she’ll protect my heart.

Watch over Cam for us if you can, I think to my little black cat. Keep him safe until we get there.

“Who were you talking to just then?”

I open my eyes with a jolt.

Kai is staring at me, curiosity plain on his face. “It wasn’t Cam,” he went on. “I’d have felt that.”

“I was just thinking,” I say.

Kai looks amused by my attempt to lie. “You joined your fingers together and mouthed the words as though you were in prayer,” he points out, and—shit, my fingers are still braided together. I unknot them instantly, but it’s too late for denial. “Was it a prayer to Ophiucas? I thought Zephythans bowed with their arms along the ground when they pray to him.”

“I’m not Zephythan.”

“I know,” he says, absolutely unmoved by the thread of irritation in my voice. He’s so even-tempered that sometimes I feel a little ridiculous for not being able to match his calm. “But he’s the god you grew up with, isn’t he? Who else would you pray to?”

“I don’t know.” I’m being perfectly honest—I have no memory of worshipping any god by name, and I’ve tried so hard not to remember my life from before the fire. All that brings is pain, and the little black cat has never summoned up any specific recollections of my past. I just know that I have a connection to her that goes deeper than my own memory. “I…” We have a few minutes here, so I might as well be honest. “Did you know that some of the larger villages develop their own gods?”

Kai shakes his head, but he looks fascinated. “Huridell is very isolated,” he says. “And I’ve never noticed other gods being worshipped in the smaller towns I’ve been to, but… That would make sense. Have you seen others?”

I nod. “There’s a town near Antasa that’s got over a thousand people living in it. They worship a god that looks like a gull—every post is topped with its image, and when they pray, they throw food into the air. If it’s caught by a gull, that’s considered a good sign.” So was being shit on by the birds, which I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t seen it myself. “There’s another town, just north of the desert region, that has a lizard god. It’s red and black and scaly, and it lives right there in town with them—walks the streets, hisses at children, eats chickens…”

“No,” Kai says with a laugh.

“Oh yes. Its bite is just as poisonous as Kamor’s snake god, but the magic it passes on to its people is the ability to eat food that would probably kill someone else.” Rotten food, weeks-old carcasses crawling with maggots or worse—those villagers could eat it all without suffering. A useful skill for those who live in such a desolate region.

“And yours?” he asks.

“I don’t know her name. She’s a tiny black cat about this big.” I hold up my hands to indicate her diminutive size. “I’m not even sure she’s a god, but she keeps showing up when I least expect her.”

“Your body clearly remembers a bit of how you once worshipped her,” Kai points out, joining his fingers together the way mine had been a moment earlier.

“Maybe it does.” I like that idea. It would be nice to hold on to something of my past, even when I don’t really know what that past is.

One of the rams snorts and bucks his head while the other paws at the ground. That’s clear enough. Our rest period is over. It’s time to go back on the hunt.

The low clouds are slowly lifting, but it’s still a shock to me when we see actual evidence of Embros’s passage. The chariot tracks are nearly gone, but only a few hundred feet farther along are a pair of corpses.

The second I see them, I cover my nose and mouth with the bottom of my shirt. “Don’t ride any closer,” I call out to Kai.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, slowing and stopping about ten feet ahead of me. “This is the way we need to go, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but we have to divert around the bodies.”

He looks at them, then squints. “What do you see that I don’t?” he asks at last.

Once more, I find myself appreciative of the fact that Kai is willing to listen to another person’s opinion instead of being a bullheaded, stubborn princeling about everything. If I was out here with Cam, he would already be in danger of infection from going too close. “They’ve been poisoned.”

“I… All right, it’s a fair assumption, but as long as we don’t touch them, what’s the harm?”

“Look at the grass beside them,” I press. We should be on the move already, but this is important for Kai to learn to recognize. “See how the stalks are wilting? Whatever Embros killed them with, it’s spreading to the land around the bodies, too. They’ve probably been dead for hours, and yet no flies have found them?” I shake my head. “They’re killing off whatever gets too close.”

“That’s…” Kai frowns. “That’s a dangerous trap to lay.”

“And without knowing how far it spreads, we have to give ourselves an excess of room. Come on.” I turn my ram from Cam’s cardinal direction and head south for another few hundred feet before turning back. “Keep your eyes open for more bodies.”

It’s not bodies we find over the next few miles, though—it’s damp. Not damp from the rain, but the telltale squish of mud under the rams’ hooves signals that we’re getting closer and closer to the inland sea. Soon, we won’t be able to ride them any farther. If we haven’t found Cam by then…

I’m worried enough by the potential of missing Cam that I miss out on another threat entirely. A huge lion, invisible one moment and there the next, lunges out of the tall grass at me. Its jaws are open wide, front paws extended and ready to swipe me off the ram’s back. I don’t even have a chance to draw my sword before it’s in striking distance.

My ram is smarter than I am. It leaps away before the lion makes contact, but the wet earth makes it hard for it to stay on its hooves. Its back feet slide out from under it, and a second later, we’re down on all fours with the lion stalking closer, ravenous and ready to kill.

Bow, bow, I need my bow!

Kai is there a second later, his own ram urged into a run that sends its heavy horns careening right into the lion’s side. There’s a hideous crunch of bone against bone and the lion is tossed at least ten feet into the air before it lands some distance away. It gets up with a heavy limp, snarls at us, then vanishes back into the grass.

I stare at it, then at Kai, who looks vaguely satisfied by the incident, like using a godly ram to smash into huge, deadly lions is just the sort of thing that happens to him on a daily basis. I pride myself on being able to hide my emotions from others, but I’ve got nothing on the ridiculous amount of control Kai had.

The other option is that he really is just that calm in the face of danger, which…is unfairly attractive. I don’t have time to waste wanting to throw him on his back and ride him right now—we’ve got Cam to find. Still…

Kai must get some of my thoughts through the pearl because his satisfaction morphs into a smirk as he looks over at me. “If fighting lions is what it takes to get your interest, you know we have a special breed of them in the mountains, right?”

“If you think I want to watch you endanger your life just to make me needy, you’ve got another think coming.”

“I wouldn’t be in danger,” he assures me. “You’d have my back.”

“That is…” Fucking true. And if Cam was watching—stop it. “Not the point.” My ram is standing again by now, stomping its feet in an effort to get some of the mud off. “Let’s go.”

It’s not long before we realize why the lion was there. The Kamorans have abandoned their war chariots and are making their way across the ground on foot. It doesn’t take long for me to pick out the tread of Cam’s boots. I grab the pearl and close my eyes for a moment. “We’re coming,” I tell him. “We’re almost to you. Be ready for us.”

We forge ahead. The grass is sparser here, not able to grow as well in the water. After another half an hour, the rams are submerged up to their knees. I’m getting worried—this is deep enough for some flat-bottomed boats to handle. What if they’ve already boarded them? What if they’ve pushed off into the lake? And the water itself isn’t safe—every so often, I see a red- or green-bodied viper appear out of the brackish depths and strike at the rams’ legs. Their hair is too thick for the bites to penetrate, but Kai and I don’t have that advantage.

I can’t help but curse myself. We should have kept a boat for ourselves instead of burning them all outside Fremont’s Height…but it had felt like we were being pulled overland, and the rams had come back to us. Don’t second-guess yourself now. Just figure it out. It’s not too late, it’s not—

“There!” Kai says, pointing ahead of us. The clouds have lifted, but the sun is setting, and I have to squint to see what he does. Dark shapes, broad and flat, and on them are moving shadows…

“ Cam! ” I can’t help yelling. I probably shouldn’t, it’s going to let everyone on those boats know that we’re here, but it’s no use. This is our last chance, but it’s a decent one. If he can jump off and get to us before one of the vipers bites him… We’ve still got mounts. They don’t. They’d never be able to catch us now. It’s the only way.

I’m holding the pearl, but all I feel from it is intense frustration and a sense of aborted movement. He’s writhing but getting nowhere, fighting against something… “He’s restrained,” I choke out. “He can’t come to us.”

Kai’s face fixes in a grimace. “Then we’ll go to him.” He drives his ram forward, pushing it despite how it flounders in the deeper water. It’s not happy, fighting back for the first time since we’ve had them. I don’t like to see the great beasts upset, but this is Cam . If we can’t get to him…

Free yourself! Come to us , we’ll meet you! I think I can make him out now on one of three boats. He’s at the very edge of it, and both hands are bound tightly behind his back. Embros is standing there with him, grinning. He looks deeply satisfied. That’s not a look I want to see.

What trap has he laid for us?

Too late, I realize it’s not a trap at all. It’s simple tactics, which in my panic and haste, I’ve completely forgotten about. He has greater manpower and a more suitable weapon for the distance. I see his soldiers draw their arms back, and I know what’s about to happen. Even with my bow at the ready, I could never kill enough of them to hope to save us now.

A second later, a flurry of dark shapes fly with a deadly hiss into the air. Javelins. And we’re not mobile enough to avoid them.

We’re going to die here, right where Cam can see us.

I’m so sorry . My hand hurts from how hard I’m holding the pendant, but I can’t let go.

Forgive us.

I love you.