Page 37 of Cold Hearted
What would Master Duncan do?
I hoped that Zander, being an amazing guy who was kind to his nephews and cared for his people, was a fluke and that the next Ethereum lord was an evil that needed vanquishing from these lands—the type of lord my mother warned me about my entire childhood.
Taking a deep breath, I let the fresh air clear my head. There was only one way to get through this, and that was to deaden myself to my task. The truth was that Ethereum and its people were nothing like I expected. This wasn’t a wild and savage land filled with dark magic and evil beasts like I’d been told. There was goodness and beauty here, in the landandthe fae, both seelie and unseelie. Zander was proof of that, and so were Brienne and Kipp and Kegan and a number of other fae I’d met since I stepped through the portal from Faerie.
But if I let my emotions leak out of the cage I’d shoved them in last night, I’d never complete my task. So evil or not, the Western lord would die, and by my hand.
I pulled out my compass, pleased to see that the trail and direction we had been riding was indeed south, which ironically led to Windreum, the capital of the Western Kingdom. But how far south had I gone? If we were over the Northern border and no longer in Zander’s kingdom, we needed to head west, deeper into the Western Kingdom to reach Windreum. But if we’d traveled too far south we’d need to backtrack, or I would have to make the decision to just keep going until I hit Soleum, the capital of the Southern Kingdom.
I ground my teeth. I was back to where I was the first day I’d portaled to Ethereum. Well, not quite back to where I was. I had an updated map and several days’ worth of experience in this new realm, but I would still have to ride into a town and ask someone where I was. This time I would be less conspicuous than I had been with Zander. I wouldn’t announce I had to see the lord and demand to be brought to the castle. No, I would need a different cover story now.
After filling the canteen with water, I gave Omen a good rub on the neck. “Can you keep going? At least until we find an inn for the night?” I asked after I’d swung up onto his back.
I wasn’t sure if he understood me, but he pulled away from the creek and onto the path, so I took that as a good sign. I was ready for whatever lay ahead so long as it ended with the heart of an Ethereum lord at the tip of my sunstone dagger.
The ride was long. We’d been at it almost two hours with the sun passing its zenith and the air warming as the day dragged on. I wasn’t complaining. I loved the heat and sunshine. But my butt was numb, and I was starting to wonder if we would have to make camp off the road, when I saw an old man on the trail ahead cursing over a broken wagon tied to a mule.
“Stupid bloody thing!” he screamed, and kicked the wooden wheel that had fallen off the axle and was now stuck in a couple inches of mud. The seelie was short and round at the middle, with long gray hair that hung in a braid down his back. His fingers were knobby and scarred, the telltale signs of years of hard labor.
“Hello there,” I called to the man. “Do you need some help?”
Maybe I could help fix his cart in exchange for information about where exactly I was.
He looked up at me in relief and then walked closer to me, leaving his cart behind. There were bags of barley spilled all over the trail.
“Oh, deary, that would be wonderful. I’m afraid I’m too old to fix this myself,” he moaned as a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face.
I slowed Omen, pulling him off to the side of the trail, and dismounted, not bothering to tie him to a tree in case I needed his help to pull the cart. He seemed pretty trained to stick with me; we had built a level of trust.
I walked on stiff legs over to the wheel that lay in the mud and reached down, gripping its edge to pull it out. It took some work, but I got it. Right as the mud freed the wheel, the fae near me cried out.
“Now!” he said, and Omen gave a warning neigh.
Before I knew what was happening, a black hood fell over my face, and I sucked a pungent powder into my nose and mouth as I gasped in shock. I bucked backward, coughing and sputtering as I tried in vain not to inhale the powder.
One thing had just been made abundantly clear. This had all been a ruse, and I was being attacked.
Instead of knocking into my attacker, I lost my balance and fell on my butt. Hard.
Zings of pain shot up my back as I coughed on the bitter powder, and dizziness washed over me. Sleep dragged at my limbs and terror rushed through my veins as I realized I was being drugged.
No.
Omen whinnied again, the sound of his hoofs stomping as he no doubt tried to help free me. I held out my hands, ready to shoot light from them, but was afraid I would hit Omen.
“Omen, run!” I told him, terrified to hear how deep and groggy my voice was.
I was seconds from sleep.
Someone grabbed my ankles, and I aimed my palms at him, shooting as much light into him as I could. I was satisfied with hearing a yelp of pain before everything went black.
* * *
I awoke with a moan, coughing as the bitter powder still clung to my tongue like a sour meal. My eyelids flew open, and I quickly took stock of my surroundings. My stomach dropped when I gazed upon the two dozen terrified-looking women, all squished into a cell with me.
The floors were natural solid rock slab, and I spun to find that we were actually in a small cave; the bars on the entrance were thick steel. The entrance of the cave was quite large, and although barred, allowed fresh sunlight and air into the space. In the corner was a bedpan whose scent permeated the air.
“It burns the back of your throat for days,” a woman next to me said. “The powder they drug you with.”
