The Essence
Page 44

Every ounce of common sense I had warned me to stay away from him, while every instinct strained to bring me closer.
“How is he?” I kept my voice low, not wanting to disturb him.
Zafir had prepared a poultice for Niko’s wound, some sort of thick paste he’d concocted by smashing the root from one of the nearby shrubs and mixing it with a salve he found in one of the saddlebags. The smell of oiled mint reminded me of the ointments my mother used to spread on my scrapes when I was young, making me cry because they stung the abraded flesh.
Whatever it was, though, I doubted Niko could even feel it after drinking from the flask his men had given him. He’d drained the contents right before they’d held him down to yank the arrow from his shoulder. After he’d stopped screaming, when the arrow had been completely extracted, Zafir went to work treating the injury and Niko had passed out.
As I stared upon him now, sweat beaded across his forehead. He stirred as I squatted closer, trying to get a better look. He thrashed as if my very presence disturbed him.
Inside of me, I could feel Sabara awakening, swelling and reaching toward him.
I squeezed my eyes closed, tamping her back down.
“He’ll be okay,” Zafir answered, leaning down beside me and wiping Niko’s forehead with a rag. “He just needs to rest for the night. He’ll have to take it easy tomorrow.”
“So, we’re letting them ride with us? Are you sure he’ll be up for that?”
Zafir glanced at me. “He’ll be sore, but they’re going to the summit too. Besides, there’s safety in numbers. And right now, all I care about is getting you there. Alive,” he added, his brow raised.
“Thanks,” I said with a smirk. “I’m glad to hear you don’t want me dead.”
A royal guard can scowl like no other, and Zafir was no exception. “It’s not amusing, Your Majesty. We don’t yet know who we can trust. Having Bartolo and his men with us adds one extra layer of protection around you.”
He was right, of course.
But I was worried, too, about what Zafir had meant by “taking it easy.” I didn’t want Bartolo slowing us down—injured or not. Brooklynn didn’t know yet what Zafir and I knew, what Floss had inadvertently revealed to us about a traitor, and I was worried about her and the others making it safely to the summit.
Plus, there was the other matter to contend with. Floss and his riders weren’t quick to forgive the men who’d attacked them—Niko’s or Brook’s—even though they’d explained that they’d believed Zafir and I had been captured and were being held as prisoners.
Niko’s men had come across Brook’s soldiers after they’d left the train depot, where they’d been ordered to turn the town upside-down if that’s what it took to find me. Eventually, that trail had led them to Floss’s place.
Apparently, we hadn’t been all that hard to track from there.
Also, apparently, that wasn’t the first group of Brook’s men Niko’s riders had come across. The first party had been butchered and left for dead. Every last one of them.
My stomach heaved as I considered the implications of that attack. Those riders weren’t the only ones who were vulnerable.
Floss didn’t seem to care about any of that. He didn’t much appreciate being accused of kidnapping. . . . Although I wasn’t sure what, exactly, he would have called it. He had snatched me from the tavern, after all.
Still, I couldn’t help noticing the glint of pleasure in his eyes when he realized that it was Avonlea who’d struck one of their attackers with her arrow. “That’s my girl,” he claimed boastfully to the others as they threw more wood on the fire.
“So, Floss is your father then?” I whispered as Avonlea came over to join us. I sat on an old log, which had been ossified from exposure to the cold.
Avonlea, who’d been staring at me, at the faint shimmer just beneath the surface of my skin, made a face. “Of course not. I haven’t always lived with them.” She leaned in closer, her eyes dancing impishly as if sharing a secret with me. “I was brought there to be Jeremiah’s bride.”
I frowned at that. “Really? So, are you? His bride, I mean?”
“No,” she answered, scoffing at the notion. “Jeremiah has no interest in having a wife. He’s practically a child still. All he really wants is someone to tell him tales and help him build forts in the caves outside the settlement camps. He doesn’t even like living by himself, even though Floss insists that every man needs his own home.” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t blame him, though. His place smells like dung.” I thought of the one-room cottage I’d first been brought to. If that was where Jeremiah lived, Avonlea was right, it wasn’t much of a home. “Mostly, he sleeps in the main house with us.”
“So what do you do there, exactly? Why are you still with them?”
She used a stick to trace shapes in the gravel at her feet. Shrugging, she said, “Floss bought me, is why. He owns me fair and square. Wouldn’t be much of a bargain if I up and ran just ’cause I didn’t marry his boy, would it?”
I tried not to react, but I wondered if she could see it in my cheeks, if my anger glowed as brightly as . . . well, as brightly other emotions did. “What about your parents? Don’t they want you back?”
“I don’t have parents,” she explained. “Never really did, I guess. I had a mom once, sort of, when I was real small. People said I looked liked her, back when I knew people who could tell me so. I don’t remember her much anymore. I wish I did.” She lifted her shoulders again. “Never knew my dad, not sure my mama did either.”