Page 137 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“I’m sure you didn’t bring your entire net worth with you on the road,” I said.Goddess, Amy, now you’re annoying even yourself.“You probably have a safe full of seeds at home. It’s not like you’re indigent now.”
“Aye, so should we just turn back and refill my purse?” he retorted stiffly. “You wager we’d make it there and back before word spreads to the Shadow Palace of a harbinger traveling with a powerful zephyrist?”
I bit my lip.So that’s what it’s called. I’ll just add that to my list of rare and exotic titles.
“That’d be a poor bet indeed.” He wrenched apart his jerkin toggles. “Now it’s imperative that we reach the Shadow Court with all haste. Rumors of your power will run rampant. Your bounty will triple. It won’t be long before other harbingers are on the hunt for the zephyrist from the Goblin Market.”
Other harbingers?
“But wasn’t my capture assigned to you? They can’t just step on your turf.”
“There’s no honor among harbingers, Shorty. They’ll fight me to the death for the bounty you’ll bring.” He unlatched his last toggle and wrangled himself out of his jerkin, dropping it beside his bedroll. “Just thank Danu you didn’t spout fire tonight, or gossip would spur Gentian to send his whole bleeding army after your arse. You’d have destroyed all my plans in one fell swoop.”
My throat constricted. Gentian had an army? Was it bigger than mine?
“How would they even knowI’mthe zephyrist? Couldn’t it be any other harbinger’s captive?”
He growled, tired of explaining such simple things to me. “Harbingers are harbingers for a reason, Shorty. We made it out of Gentian’s cages, and in no small way was that due to our intellects. Any harbinger hunting you will question the marketeers you wronged tonight and get your description as well as mine.”
I wrung my hands, now cursing my loss of control. “Then what can we do?”
My agitation barely mellowed him. “Right now, we sleep. With luck, I’ll think of something over the night.”
I bit my thumbnail, fretting we’d be set upon by a band of kidnapping harbingers. “Can I do anything to help?” I asked, knowing it a weak offer at best.
“Oh, no.” He wrenched his large foot out of his boot. “You’ve doneenoughfor one night.”
Ourconversationsontheroad the next day were like those of co-workers who only tolerated each other. Clearly, he couldn’t forgive me for what I’d done, and I was so wracked by worry that I couldn’t lend my mind to any stilted kindness he deigned to offer.
I sat in the wagon, quiet as a mouse, as we traversed meandering hills. Sionna sat with me, sensing my tension, and allowed me to pet her sunny head as I awaited an ambush.
Somewhere before midday, Pete jerked the wagon up a rocky berm and into a sparse forest. I knew this was an unplanned detour, for Bob brayed like the devil at being rerouted. Though I wanted to ask where we were heading, I feared if I opened my mouth and further pissed Pete off, he’d turn demonic on me. His eyes had been black since dawn.
How can I create some lightness to balance him out?I wondered.
Fresh out of magic wands, I settled for several prayers to Danu—for Pete’s soul, also murmuring some badly sung lyrics to the Delaney song he’d said he liked. Whether these things worked as intended, I didn’t know, but they eased my disquiet.
Then I spotted a weathered sign stating a place called Humwater Dell was upcoming on the road we traveled.
As homesick as this city girl was for blacktop and 24-hour diners, I should’ve celebrated the prospect of passing through a town. However, my paranoia of attackers who’d make Pete look like Ichabod Crane was a bucket of ice water over any excitement. Right then, the mere thought of a populous area made my guts quiver. So, when the local citizenry thickened and the forest’s towering trees served less as shade and more as domiciles, I flattened in the wagon, burrowing into the hay like a chipmunk hiding from a gang of cats.
Suffice it to say, I was dismayed when the wagon stopped only minutes past the town’s social epicenter—rather crowded and rowdy from what I heard.
“What are you doing?” I hissed to Pete after he’d clomped through the leaves to the back of the wagon. I peeked at him from under my camouflage layers and hoped I wasn’t imagining that his eyes had lightened. “Shouldn’t we keep going? If we’re being hunted?”
Pete worked at unknotting his bow from the wagon ledge. “As a matter of fact, that’s precisely why we’re stopping now.” He jerked his bow free, his pointed eyes meeting mine.
Yep, they’re totally lighter. Still angry but not demonic.
“I don’t understand.” Finally daring to sit up, I whipped my head free of my cloak, ignoring the sprigs of hay poking my neck.
Beyond the dense myrtle blossoms sequestering our tiny party from public scrutiny, I saw the form of a bustling town square and heard the thrum of commerce and chatter that always galvanized a city. They had me gritting my teeth. “Are younuts?”
Pete wiped several trickles of sweat off his forehead, unmoved by my reaction to his decision to take a breakin the worst place possible in broad fucking daylight!
“Why the hell are we making a pit stop at city hall? I thought you wanted to reach the Shadow Palace as fast as possible because of last night’s shit show.”
That he didn’t immediately retort that it had beenmyshit show buoyed me. Still, his expression was granite. “Reaching the Shadow Palace with the utmost haste is imperative, Shorty, aye. The rub is, we won’t get there without stopping.”
