Page 83 of Lady Knight and the Thief

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Forest help me

TorrenwatchedCypressetchher message into her lieutenant’s chestplate.

Stay out of the Wylds.

He huffed a silent laugh. She’d signed it with her mother’s name. Caelith might recognize it, though Torren doubted it.

Caelith never troubled himself to learn the names of the Fair Folk Nobility.

But what wasTorrento do with the Lass?

She was apparently Faerie nobility, someone with influence and power in his realm.

The trouble was, Torren didn’t know how she would use that influence. What would her mission be now?

Perhaps Cypress would want to turn him in just to regain favor with Caelith.

And there was the ever-persistent problem of the imminent Hunt. Every day, the escaped Hounds grew hungrier and more restless. They sought their master—to wake him with their call and wreak havoc across the continent.

Cypress stood and put her dagger away, then spun on her heel to look at him. “Where are we taking the horses?”

"A’aravos Paravale is close. We can take them there, rest, and come up with a plan?" Torren said, leaving the last as a question.

He still wasn’t sure what she would want, or what her next move would be.

Cypress nodded, then, without a word, went to her horse and mounted. There was a long scratch on her cheekbone, several bruises, and bits of broken skin across her knuckles.

The woman fought like a warrior—someone without fear, not because she welcomed death but because she’d trained for moments like this, living and breathing the dance of battle, more so than her opponents.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Cypress drawled when Torren still did not move.

Torren smiled to himself and shook his head. “Are you leaving him a horse?” He asked while he placed his foot in the stirrup and mounted.

“No. He can find his own traitorous way.”

Torren nodded his approval, then uttered his thanks to the Dryaads of this area for their help.

Truthfully, A’aravos Paravale was still a distance away. Butwhen you know the right words to ask, the right plea to the forest, the Wylds will shift. Suddenly, your destination would be around the next bend.

Sometimes the forest wouldn’t answer, wanting travelers to see its beauty—enchanting them for good or bad. But in this instance, Torren thought it would help. The Dryaads would choose to bend the land to their whim. Cypress had accepted the Wylds as part of her, so Torren doubted the Forest would abandon her now.

“Rrófhada heach, ach caillte. Cabhraigh fhoraois,”1 Torren said in the language of Faerie.

The trees whispered back. All around them, branches swelled and sighed in the wind.

Torren didn’t hesitate. He spurred his horse into action, Cypress hot on his heels. Then they were galloping, the forest shifting around them.

It would be slow going with ten horses trailing Torren’s, but nothing compared to crossing through the Wylds unaided by the Dryaads.

Compared to what the lieutenant's journey out of the Wylds would be like, Torren and Cypress’s walk to A’aravos Paravale would be simple. Fun, even.

As they trotted through the forest, Torren’s mind wandered once more to Cypress’s use of her mother’s name.

Did it mean she’d aligned with Faerie, or just used a name Caelith would potentially recognize?

Torren sighed and tried to focus on planning how to get the scepter, now that they were fugitives—wanted dead or alive, as Oswald’s posters had declared.