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fly like you're free — original Chapter 18
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A twig snapped under Daine's heel, but all she could hear was her heart pounding in her ears and Draper's words echoing off the walls of her skull.
Did you truly think being able to shoot a bow like that is just 'skill'? Your affinity with animals? Did you really think those were things an ordinary human could do? You seemed like a smart girl.
Every breath was labored; the air felt like liquid, and it fought her all the way down.
Here you are, power nearly leaking out of your ears, and instead of doing anything useful with it, you're shooting arrows at people.
His eyes bore into hers as he approached, inexorable as the tide.
You magic. Most mages can sense other sources of power if they try, you know.
Her first arrow shot point-blank slowed in front of him. He didn't even have to pause to pluck it out of the air. The edges of his robe and the hairs that had come loose from his horsetail floated as though submerged, lights flickering like fireflies throughout the clearing.
She tried to line up a second, and found that she couldn't. Green tendrils were reaching from behind her, snagging her weapons and wrenching them to the side, then out of her hands—then curling around her, tightening and tightening into iron bands around her wrists and torso and binding her to the tree behind her.
No matter how she struggled, she couldn't get away.
All she had wanted was to make him pay for what he had done (had made her do) to Evin. A fevered fury that had driven her to pick up her arrows and ask her friends where she might find him; a fevered fury that had led her here; a fevered fury that had had her throwing all of her weapons at him to no effect—
Instead of making him pay, she had walked into a nightmare.
Her eyes stung when he arrived in front of her. He stopped two feet away, bracing one hand against the trunk and catching her chin with large, warm fingers that still held her arrows.
And like that, Daine knew she wasn't dreaming.
He lifted her face and gazed down at her from his immense height, nothing but that burning heat in his handsome face, filling her vision from top to bottom with the black of his robe and the black of his eyes and her ears with the panicked, furious thudding of her pulse. His breath fluttered over her skin.
He stayed like that until she thought her heart might pop, then he let go.
Slowly, he slid her arrows back into her quiver.
"Well," he said mildly as he did so. "Never forget that you have real power, should you ever choose to use it."
She hated him. She hated him.
The look on her ma's face as she tested Daine again and again and came up with nothing flashed across her mind, and the Lioness's casual dismissal of the idea after Daine had asked her about it, and—
And the badger's mutter of, it wasn't supposed to be like this, before he breathed silver into her and told her it was the only way—
And Arram Draper using her body like a puppet to destroy the life of one of her closest friends, reminding her that she was nothing but a toy—
He made her look at him again with the touch to her chin.
Low and smooth and implacable, his black eyes glittering in cruel amusement, he said, "I think I shall call you 'magelet'."
To Daine's immense horror, Draper had meant it when he said he was going to become a Player.
"Wanderers have some reason to wander, or some business to conduct while they do so," he had told her on the road from Cetrins to Worfside, still juggling that night's dinner; his improvement had been quick. "Even those who only have a case of wanderlust must come by their coin somewhere. We can hardly start up a merchant's business with what we have on us, but if we were, say, members of a rich household in Tyra, or master and apprentice, and I juggled for our dinner, we would simply be odd, not immediately suspect as those on the run from the law—especially not a powerful warmage and the Lioness's previous right hand."
Now they were three towns and four close calls from Cetrins, and the shock of watching Draper smile and juggle and do tricks for an audience of youngsters and adults alike had for the most part worn off. Now it was merely irritating to watch him string along a crowd who had no idea of who he was and no idea what he was capable of.
Here in Millia, in the largest inn, she watched him gently coax a young girl away from her place against her nursemaid's skirts and gift her with a posy he had pulled from thin air—one of the several she had seen him gather and assemble at the roadside as they traveled, and tuck into his broad sleeves—evoking a shy beam. He ruffled her hair, dwarfing her head with his large hand, and the girl's face squished in happiness.
He was good at putting on an act for these folk; his jokes were well-timed, his manner comical, his smiles kind, his predatory grace tamed into understated elegance. If Daine hadn't known better, she herself might be eating out of the palm of his hand.
She knew she was lucky, knowing better. She couldn't be deceived like that.
That thought tasted bitter, but she swallowed it with another spoonful of her stew.
For her part, she had been driven to wearing skirts again. She hadn't missed them even a drop, but it was still unusual for women to wear breeches in Tortall, and they both found out quick enough that it was a part of the description the soldiers were asking of the locals. It wasn't near as much of a disguise as Draper managed with his light chuckles and nimble fingers, but every little bit helped.
Draper had just caught a children's toy and begun to toss it up and down when he caught her eye, and a strange smile crossed his face in the firelight—a slip of the sheep's clothing, a moment of acknowledgement—and then a boy of about seven eagerly pushed an apple into his hands, and the mask slid neatly back into place.
First he juggled three items, then four, then five, then six, then stopped accepting new objects, laughing at the taunting of the teenagers and putting on a show of shame for the little ones while still keeping all six up in the air.
One by one, each object was tossed back into its owner's hands—only to mix up the last two and apologize very seriously to a six year old, who forgave him equally seriously, then asked for the toy back.
As Daine watched, the hair at the back of her neck began to stand up. She thought at first it was simply the wrongness of someone so horrible pretending not to be horrible, but it was... sharper than that, the danger more mortal.
A crow shrieked at the window sill, warning his wing-sister of hunters in clattering, shimmering metal that wanted her and her mate.
Daine opened her mouth to object to the premise of Draper being her mate—then froze.
Hunters in clattering, shimmering metal?
She looked to Draper and found him watching her with a frown as the children scattered to his left after something or other.
She caught his eye and mouthed, horses!
He gave her the slightest dip of his chin, and managed to fade from the spotlight with hardly a murmur, going to get their horses ready.
Daine finished her stew in a gulp and headed for the stairs at a soundless charge, skirt held in her fist and steps ghosting between tavern-goers as she went.
The door to their room burst open as quick as she could manage without making the hinges screech.
It was a tidy space: two beds, a pair of small nightstands, a wardrobe, two armchairs, a vanity, and a table set for eating. Their bags had been tossed on the floor, unbuckled to show cloaks and travel supplies.
She spared a moment to mourn the rest she might have spent in an actual bed—Goddess, she hadn't thought she would miss that so much!—then started repacking their bags, shoving in clothes and personal items in haphazardly in the name of speed and silence.
There wasn't much between the two of them, but enough had been spread out that she had to step fast and couldn't spare much thought for making them all fit neat and proper. Cloth was bundled, books were shoved, her whetstone and spare arrowheads wrapped in their satchel without a thought to their quality.
Her pulse was pounding in her ears, but even that din didn't prevent her from hearing the echo of strong, purposeful voices, the lilt of in the name of the Crown on the wind, clearly audible, as the whole tavern had gone quiet.
Her hands froze over the packing, panic welling up to choke her for a moment—they were between her and the stables on all sides! How was she to get to Draper now?—and then she shoved it down, casting about the room to make certain they had left nothing behind.
(They were going to catch her and drag her back, turn her to face Alanna and admit her betrayal, then put her to the death while Draper was put right back into the hands of those who would use him and then the war would be back and they really might conquer Tortall this time, and—)
No time for that nonsense. If she was going to get them both out of this, she needed to think.
She remade the beds, then started plotting how she could get herself and the bags into the wardrobe, perhaps, or maybe—
Something struck the window with a sharp rap.
Daine nearly jumped out of her skin.
The crow cried out again as she fought the urge to bolt; that was his wing-sister's mate out there, with all their horses about him.
Daine rushed to the window and wrenched it open.
"What?" she hissed through her teeth as the chilly evening wind hit her full on, the shock of it resonating in her chest and the pit of her belly.
"They're here," he said, quietly enough that his voice almost didn't reach. He was holding all the reins; the horses were all saddled up properly and antsy at his stress.
"I heard," she snapped back, voice just as low.
He spread his hands, as if to catch something, and the gesture was the only reason she put together his next words: "Throw the bags down."
An argument was starting up in the common room, and Daine had no time for any arguments of her own.
She grabbed the nearest bag and hefted it out the window.
He caught it with a slight stagger, then gracefully set it onto Mangle's back and held his long arms out for the next.
The rest of their bags followed suit, secured to their saddles as neatly as she might have done it herself, and then Daine was alone in a passably untouched-looking room, listening heavy boots tramp up the stairs, the clattering of weapons, the clink of the head guard's plate—the squeaking of doors being opened as they went—
She would never be able to slip past them now. The wardrobe, maybe, but they would think to check there—or maybe under the beds, but there she would have no quarter—or maybe out the window, but there were no handholds and they were on the second floor—
Draper hissed through his teeth, making her look at him.
His arms were still spread wide, his gaze piercing even through the darkness. "Jump!"
"Jump, he says," she muttered to herself—her voice had no heat, even to her own ears—then gulped a breath, wrestled her skirts into one hand, got herself onto the windowsill, and jumped.
The moment of freefall was the moment she longed to shift and take flight, hated Draper for suggesting she do this, felt the acute sensation of having her mortality shaved too close—
—and then she was colliding with a wall of firm flesh, long arms wrapping around her in a supple embrace, and her hands latched tightly into his thin woolen tunic without her input.
He didn't set her down immediately, instead giving her a little squeeze and carrying her close to the wall, leading their horses behind him—towards the stables, where the shadows were the deepest.
Daine focused on her hands; they trembled with the strength of their grip, and no matter how firmly she instructed them to release him, they didn't.
They had bigger things to worry about than disobedient appendages; she could hear their pursuers going through the room she had just vacated, throwing open doors and muttering to one another.
"Not a mite in here—the old man's gone dodderheaded," she heard floating down from the open window. In the stillness down here, Draper was terribly warm and solid against her front, his heart pounding against her knuckles.
The second soldier muttered something impolite, but Daine's attention was on the warm, large fingers that had caught her chin.
Draper had lifted her face and gazed down at her from his immense height, inscrutable but for a hint of that heat his handsome face, filling her vision with nothing but the dark of night and the black of his eyes, the panicked, furious thudding of her pulse filling her ears just the same. His breath fluttered over her skin.
He stayed like that for a moment, then lowered his face until their noses were a fraction of an inch apart.
Daine remained frozen. She couldn't run—and, perhaps more importantly, she didn't want to.
That would puzzle her greatly later, but now, she was caught in the moment, sinking into the calm that came in adrenaline and fear. With nothing else to do, she held his eye and waited for his move.
"The window's open—"
"Anything—?"
"Uh, not them, just—blast—check the next one."
Draper breathed a count of ten over her lips, then released her, and she released him as well.
The night was terribly cold. How hadn't she noticed that before, she wondered. Now she felt it right to her bones.
"We should head for the forest," he said, low and rough, reminding her of the danger and sending a shiver of adrenaline down her spine. "Quickly."
Daine nodded, then began the entirely undignified process of mounting a horse in a full skirt, so focused on not falling that she couldn't stop to wince at Draper's own process of mounting.
Together, they carefully made their way to the tree line, and found a deer trail to follow deeper into the woods.
They had to stop sooner than she wanted because they were both nodding off in their saddles.
Draper freed Spots of his gear and left him to search for proper greens in this terribly thick leaf litter, then searched his own pockets. When Daine was done with Whisper, he offered up four coppers.
"I did not have the chance to finish my show tonight," he said quietly as she pocketed the coin; he referred to the point at which he wound into some truly impressive sleight-of-hand nonsense and asked the assembled crowd for tips that might let him and his darling student continue their journey across the coast. Depending on the size and wealth of the crowd, she had seen him come away with over twenty coppers and a silver or two.
"I still have the silver from the stag I sold to the butcher," she replied, brushing off the implicit apology. "We're fine."
He nodded, an inch or two of tension leaving his broad shoulders, then went to do his part in setting up camp, almost clumsy with exhaustion.
Daine smelled fog on the wind let out a sigh before attending to her own duties.
When Daine awoke the next day, the world had been plunged into pale grey. She could barely see Draper's slumbering form six feet away from her, much less beyond the treeline.
For a moment, she surrendered to her tired flesh. She gazed up to where she might have been able to see the sky if she could see anything at all, and thought of home, of Legann, of Corus, of Onua and the Lioness, of Sarge and the king and the Riders that yet lived—how were they all, she wondered. Were they well? Were they ailing? What were they doing now?
Would she ever know them again?
It was a difficult question to ruminate on, and it wasn't long before the pain in her chest drove her to her feet. After she stuffed them into her boots, she nudged Draper's ankles with a gentle kick and said, "Up with you, lazy tom."
He winced and stirred.
It was a trick finding tinder and wood dry enough to hold a flame, but the results—two bowls of hot porridge and dried berries with fried eggs—were well worth the effort.
The Lioness, she thought as she stirred the pot, would have liked it. Who was bringing the woman her meals now, Daine wondered. She hoped that whoever it was was doing it in a timely manner; the Lioness could turn into a bear when left to starve for too long.
Apparently she was more distracted than she had thought; she didn't even fully register that Draper had been watching her until he spoke.
"Is something the matter?"
She lowered her bowl of cooled porridge and gave him a confused look.
"There seems to be a matter right about..." He tapped his own forehead between the brows, gaze coolly cutting from beneath them.
She reached up to touch 'the matter' on her own face, and found that the flesh there had knit in worry. She rubbed the spot and sighed. She couldn't (didn't dare) say what she truly felt, but the light was silver and the world was quiet, and she couldn't summon up the proper amount of anger for him.
In the end, she muttered, "I shan't like to know what the Lioness will do to me if they catch us." Or, maybe, when.
"Not to worry on that front—if they catch us, we tell her I was the one to kidnap you. She'll rush to have you back at her side in a heartbeat."
Silently, Daine pointed her spoon at the cuffs and collar he still wore. They had been difficult, though not impossible to keep hidden so far, and it had the added effect of making him very difficult to see with magical vision. In the weeks they had been on the run, she hadn't seen so much as a spark from him. It was radiantly obvious that she was the one with the upper hand here.
(Some part of her was still quite certain that there was nothing that truly could hold him, and that if he truly wanted them off, they would be gone already, but whatever his reasons, they remained.)
"You forget—I am a black robe mage."
She shot him a stale look. She hadn't forgotten, actually.
The slight grin on his dark face was half ego, half wryness. "People will believe anything they like about a fellow with an impressive title—and not a one of them need know just how impractical it is to turn a stone into a loaf of bread." At her confusion, he explained, "It's all esoterica, you know. Hardly a lick of practical magic in any of the studies you need to qualify for the mark. If you knew what I'd spent my time on, you'd be shocked I managed to bumble my way out of the university library."
Daine spent a moment attempting to put Arram Draper and bumble into the same sentence, then decided that if she had time to waste on such silliness, she had the time to finish her breakfast and disassemble their camp so they could get back on the road.
And like that, their conversation came to an end.
The fog remained, forcing them to go at a maddeningly slow walk so the horses wouldn't turn a hoof. Daine was forced to ask her friends where they were again and again and pray Draper didn't notice.
The incident at the last town, his breath over her lips and the half-brightened heat in his eyes as he arranged them to look like lovers to any prying eyes, had shown her that he wasn't ready to take advantage of her at the drop of a hat, but the matter of her way with animals was something entirely aside from that.
(He had protected her modesty before, hadn't he? After he pulled her from the sky to warn her about the bloodrain. And the only times he had touched her were the times she had touched him back. Difficult as they were to see, he did have lines he wouldn't cross. He might leer and push and goad and snap, but...
...But when was the last time he had done any of those, either?)
Despite the fog, their progress was decent, and by the time it lifted, they were on track to arrive at the next town.
One last squirrel came to gossip and she didn't have the heart to send him away before he had said his piece—and then acutely regretted her lapse when, after the fellow had left, Draper spoke.
"He seemed to have a lot to say."
Daine clenched her jaw. She wouldn't be fooled by the deliberate mildness in his tone. "I wouldn't know."
They rode in silence for several yards—long enough that she dared to hope that he had dropped the subject—and then he spoke again: "Might I ask—"
"No."
"—why are you so certain you have no magic?"
"I've had testin'," she replied shortly.
"For the Gift? Surely by now you know there are more kinds of magic than that."
She grit her teeth, panic a painful knot at the back of her throat. "Don't got none of it. I'm a dud as they come." She saw him open his mouth again and cut him off with, "Enough."
(She had even asked the Lioness after he had said it the first time, and the woman had only given her a shrug and a careful look and an admission that she sometimes wondered if Daine had a bit of the Sight, with her archery skill, but that was it. Even if Ma had missed it, the Lioness surely wouldn't have... would she?)
Slowly, Draper shut his mouth again, tilted his head in concession, and fell silent once more.
A bird trilled overhead, greeting her wing-sister, and, furiously, Daine blocked the knowledge of the greeting out as much as she could.
She was still on edge when they got to the next town, but to her surprise, the soldiers seemed to have gone on ahead of them; there were wanted posters everywhere, but not only did Draper manage to finish his show in the inn's common room (earning them a solid twelve coppers), but they both got into their beds without issue.
Despite the comfort, Daine found that she simply couldn't sleep.
I think I shall call you 'magelet'.
Why couldn't he have left that ridiculous notion back in the war, where it belonged? She was a fair hand with animals—wasn't that enough? She wasn't failing her country by her 'negligence' anymore. She was doing just fine protecting the two of them, wasn't she?
Across the room, Draper's broad chest rose and fell with the rhythm of sleep, silhouetted by clear moonlight.
She wasn't magical. She didn't have anything of the sort. It wasn't her 'teenage acumen'. It was fact that had been checked by everyone who cared for her.
And yet he called her magelet.
Her fingers curled around the handle of the knife under her pillow, the feel of it comforting, even if she knew that this was no matter it could protect her from.
Magelet.
'Little mage'.
For the first time in a long while, she missed Cloud and her no-nonsense horse sense with her whole, aching heart. Surely the pony would know what to do with all of this—even if it was just to tell Daine to stop worrying about the little things.
Tears staining the pillow and the hilt of the knife settled against her palm, she drifted into an uneasy, haunted sleep that she was almost grateful to be pulled from.
The one who pulled her from it was a feline with masses of silvery fluff. The cat's needle-sharp claws were digging through the thin fabric of Daine's chemise, stabbing her shoulder almost hard enough to draw blood, determined to wake Daine as quickly as possible without sound.
Hunters.
The hunters were here, and they were sniffing about, looking for the mouseholes to watch—and the mice they were stalking were Daine and her colonymate.
"Thank you," Daine breathed, then waited until the cat had sprung from her chest to the windowsill to sit up and grab her boots and pull up her skirts.
Once she was dressed, she grabbed Draper's large shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. When he started to wince, she hissed, "They're here. Get up."
His eyes snapped open, long form tensing all over, then he gave her a tiny nod, and she drew back.
Packing went quicker and smoother with two, and they managed to avoid everyone as they carried their bags down to the stable and gear up, then tie rags to the horses' hooves and walk silently through the streets until they found the wood again.
"They're tracking us," he said once there was no chance of anyone overhearing. His tone was uncharacteristically flinty, and it resonated down her spine. "They have to be."
Daine yawned and stretched, then scrubbed her eyes. She was feeling the effects of her partial rest stronger than ever. "Magically?"
"I thought the spells on these binds would protect us, but I forgot—they have my opal."
Daine blinked. Thankfully, the night was dark enough to hide her guilty blush. "Opal?"
He tapped his breastbone with a finger. "There was one that I kept on me always. I kept it connected to my life force, so that it would stand between me and death by magical exhaustion. If anything were to show where I was, it would be that."
She had mostly forgotten about it herself. Its weight had been no more noticeable than the silver badger's claw. She had been a little more careful to dry it after she washed, because while the chain looked like pure silver, she had no way of knowing for sure that it wouldn't rust. Other than that, it may as well have not been there at all.
"They're not using the opal," she said, touching the charm.
"You sound... certain," replied Draper, sounding rather uncertain himself.
"They don't have it. I do."
His head whipped in her direction so quick she was surprised he hadn't snapped it, and she tapped her own breastbone.
"I didn't know what they'd do with it, so I took it when I found you on the field. I've had it on me since."
He only stared.
After a silence in which she only felt more and more like a dirty thief, she broke and asked, "D'you want it back?"
Her voice came out uncomfortably small, but he didn't scold her like an unruly child. He thought for a moment, then slowly said, "No. You keep it. You'll be able to protect it far better than I."
Tension left her shoulders that she hadn't known was there. She nodded, solemn.
"Of course, that only leaves the question of how they keep finding us. I was under the impression that you brought all of your most important belongings—without a tie, they should only be able to scry by location, not by individual, but they've been too hot on our tail for too long to be anything but tracking us."
"...I don't think that they are," said Daine as she considered it. Under her, Whisper plodded silently on, understanding the gravity of the situation and resisting the urge to fidget or prance. "Those two master mages who want you—they was putting up as much coin for you as the emperor was putting up for all his people together. You're fair costly. The whole army's going to be out for us until they stop offerin' all that up."
"I see." His tone was halfway between rueful and dry. "And Tortall is just down on its luck enough to make my head a very necessary prize."
She shrugged. "We've been following a bit off Coastal Way since Cetrins, too. I wanted us to get closer to the border of Tyra—you look it clear as day, and a Numair Salmalín'd stand out less in those parts—but the army's fleet afoot the big roads. If we go north, we can force 'em through the mountains, but then the villages all that way would have a tale to tell about our looks and names, what with them not having many visitors."
"You've thought about this." He didn't have to sound so surprised.
"What have we got, if not time to think?" At least, once Draper's illness and recovery had forced her to catch her breath, she had.
He didn't needle her on the blatant coverup, instead tilting his face skyward. "What of the villages at the foot of the mountains?"
They debated possible routes between them for a bit—it was a strangely relieving process, to no longer carry the burden of the planning alone—then decided to head up into the mountains and double back the way they came, dodging the towns and villages with stationed guards, then see if they couldn't finish their journey to the trade cities by Tyra once the initial wave had passed.
With that settled, they once more made a cold camp, and settled in to catch a few more hours of sleep.
Draper shivered near constantly once subjected to a bit of height away from the ocean, and Daine nobly did not comment, only suggested he wrap himself in a blanket under his cloak.
He did so, and looked marginally more comfortable as they worked their way up the slopes.
So far off the beaten path that only her friends could tell her of where it was, the village they found first greeted them with suspicion that melted quickly to Draper's glib manner and completely ignored Daine's rather more ornery one.
Whether it was the knowledge that she was no longer carrying the burden of their safety entirely alone, or the knowledge that Draper was willing to leave the opal in her possession without consequence, or the knowledge that he would touch her but not touch her—something had taken the fire from her anger at seeing him put up the comic mask.
Now, standing at the back of the crowd in the village's only tavern, watching him juggle for a crowd of laughing children and work-worn but smiling adults, Daine could only summon up hollow irritation. It still grated to see him fool them all so easily, but if it got them what they needed, then it was needful.
She was just considering retiring first when a girl started jostling her to try to peek her way over the crowd.
"Because there's a Player and I want to see!" she whined in an oddly familiar hiss, likely to the other short, cloaked figure beside her. "C'mon... just a little more...!"
"Don't bother—it's hardly impressive," Daine muttered tiredly as she glanced down—
—and felt the blood drain from her face.
Peering back up at her were two unmistakable sapphire blue eyes.
---
A twig snapped under Daine's heel, but all she could hear was her heart pounding in her ears and Draper's words echoing off the walls of her skull.
Did you truly think being able to shoot a bow like that is just 'skill'? Your affinity with animals? Did you really think those were things an ordinary human could do? You seemed like a smart girl.
Every breath was labored; the air felt like liquid, and it fought her all the way down.
Here you are, power nearly leaking out of your ears, and instead of doing anything useful with it, you're shooting arrows at people.
His eyes bore into hers as he approached, inexorable as the tide.
You magic. Most mages can sense other sources of power if they try, you know.
Her first arrow shot point-blank slowed in front of him. He didn't even have to pause to pluck it out of the air. The edges of his robe and the hairs that had come loose from his horsetail floated as though submerged, lights flickering like fireflies throughout the clearing.
She tried to line up a second, and found that she couldn't. Green tendrils were reaching from behind her, snagging her weapons and wrenching them to the side, then out of her hands—then curling around her, tightening and tightening into iron bands around her wrists and torso and binding her to the tree behind her.
No matter how she struggled, she couldn't get away.
All she had wanted was to make him pay for what he had done (had made her do) to Evin. A fevered fury that had driven her to pick up her arrows and ask her friends where she might find him; a fevered fury that had led her here; a fevered fury that had had her throwing all of her weapons at him to no effect—
Instead of making him pay, she had walked into a nightmare.
Her eyes stung when he arrived in front of her. He stopped two feet away, bracing one hand against the trunk and catching her chin with large, warm fingers that still held her arrows.
And like that, Daine knew she wasn't dreaming.
He lifted her face and gazed down at her from his immense height, nothing but that burning heat in his handsome face, filling her vision from top to bottom with the black of his robe and the black of his eyes and her ears with the panicked, furious thudding of her pulse. His breath fluttered over her skin.
He stayed like that until she thought her heart might pop, then he let go.
Slowly, he slid her arrows back into her quiver.
"Well," he said mildly as he did so. "Never forget that you have real power, should you ever choose to use it."
She hated him. She hated him.
The look on her ma's face as she tested Daine again and again and came up with nothing flashed across her mind, and the Lioness's casual dismissal of the idea after Daine had asked her about it, and—
And the badger's mutter of, it wasn't supposed to be like this, before he breathed silver into her and told her it was the only way—
And Arram Draper using her body like a puppet to destroy the life of one of her closest friends, reminding her that she was nothing but a toy—
He made her look at him again with the touch to her chin.
Low and smooth and implacable, his black eyes glittering in cruel amusement, he said, "I think I shall call you 'magelet'."
To Daine's immense horror, Draper had meant it when he said he was going to become a Player.
"Wanderers have some reason to wander, or some business to conduct while they do so," he had told her on the road from Cetrins to Worfside, still juggling that night's dinner; his improvement had been quick. "Even those who only have a case of wanderlust must come by their coin somewhere. We can hardly start up a merchant's business with what we have on us, but if we were, say, members of a rich household in Tyra, or master and apprentice, and I juggled for our dinner, we would simply be odd, not immediately suspect as those on the run from the law—especially not a powerful warmage and the Lioness's previous right hand."
Now they were three towns and four close calls from Cetrins, and the shock of watching Draper smile and juggle and do tricks for an audience of youngsters and adults alike had for the most part worn off. Now it was merely irritating to watch him string along a crowd who had no idea of who he was and no idea what he was capable of.
Here in Millia, in the largest inn, she watched him gently coax a young girl away from her place against her nursemaid's skirts and gift her with a posy he had pulled from thin air—one of the several she had seen him gather and assemble at the roadside as they traveled, and tuck into his broad sleeves—evoking a shy beam. He ruffled her hair, dwarfing her head with his large hand, and the girl's face squished in happiness.
He was good at putting on an act for these folk; his jokes were well-timed, his manner comical, his smiles kind, his predatory grace tamed into understated elegance. If Daine hadn't known better, she herself might be eating out of the palm of his hand.
She knew she was lucky, knowing better. She couldn't be deceived like that.
That thought tasted bitter, but she swallowed it with another spoonful of her stew.
For her part, she had been driven to wearing skirts again. She hadn't missed them even a drop, but it was still unusual for women to wear breeches in Tortall, and they both found out quick enough that it was a part of the description the soldiers were asking of the locals. It wasn't near as much of a disguise as Draper managed with his light chuckles and nimble fingers, but every little bit helped.
Draper had just caught a children's toy and begun to toss it up and down when he caught her eye, and a strange smile crossed his face in the firelight—a slip of the sheep's clothing, a moment of acknowledgement—and then a boy of about seven eagerly pushed an apple into his hands, and the mask slid neatly back into place.
First he juggled three items, then four, then five, then six, then stopped accepting new objects, laughing at the taunting of the teenagers and putting on a show of shame for the little ones while still keeping all six up in the air.
One by one, each object was tossed back into its owner's hands—only to mix up the last two and apologize very seriously to a six year old, who forgave him equally seriously, then asked for the toy back.
As Daine watched, the hair at the back of her neck began to stand up. She thought at first it was simply the wrongness of someone so horrible pretending not to be horrible, but it was... sharper than that, the danger more mortal.
A crow shrieked at the window sill, warning his wing-sister of hunters in clattering, shimmering metal that wanted her and her mate.
Daine opened her mouth to object to the premise of Draper being her mate—then froze.
Hunters in clattering, shimmering metal?
She looked to Draper and found him watching her with a frown as the children scattered to his left after something or other.
She caught his eye and mouthed, horses!
He gave her the slightest dip of his chin, and managed to fade from the spotlight with hardly a murmur, going to get their horses ready.
Daine finished her stew in a gulp and headed for the stairs at a soundless charge, skirt held in her fist and steps ghosting between tavern-goers as she went.
The door to their room burst open as quick as she could manage without making the hinges screech.
It was a tidy space: two beds, a pair of small nightstands, a wardrobe, two armchairs, a vanity, and a table set for eating. Their bags had been tossed on the floor, unbuckled to show cloaks and travel supplies.
She spared a moment to mourn the rest she might have spent in an actual bed—Goddess, she hadn't thought she would miss that so much!—then started repacking their bags, shoving in clothes and personal items in haphazardly in the name of speed and silence.
There wasn't much between the two of them, but enough had been spread out that she had to step fast and couldn't spare much thought for making them all fit neat and proper. Cloth was bundled, books were shoved, her whetstone and spare arrowheads wrapped in their satchel without a thought to their quality.
Her pulse was pounding in her ears, but even that din didn't prevent her from hearing the echo of strong, purposeful voices, the lilt of in the name of the Crown on the wind, clearly audible, as the whole tavern had gone quiet.
Her hands froze over the packing, panic welling up to choke her for a moment—they were between her and the stables on all sides! How was she to get to Draper now?—and then she shoved it down, casting about the room to make certain they had left nothing behind.
(They were going to catch her and drag her back, turn her to face Alanna and admit her betrayal, then put her to the death while Draper was put right back into the hands of those who would use him and then the war would be back and they really might conquer Tortall this time, and—)
No time for that nonsense. If she was going to get them both out of this, she needed to think.
She remade the beds, then started plotting how she could get herself and the bags into the wardrobe, perhaps, or maybe—
Something struck the window with a sharp rap.
Daine nearly jumped out of her skin.
The crow cried out again as she fought the urge to bolt; that was his wing-sister's mate out there, with all their horses about him.
Daine rushed to the window and wrenched it open.
"What?" she hissed through her teeth as the chilly evening wind hit her full on, the shock of it resonating in her chest and the pit of her belly.
"They're here," he said, quietly enough that his voice almost didn't reach. He was holding all the reins; the horses were all saddled up properly and antsy at his stress.
"I heard," she snapped back, voice just as low.
He spread his hands, as if to catch something, and the gesture was the only reason she put together his next words: "Throw the bags down."
An argument was starting up in the common room, and Daine had no time for any arguments of her own.
She grabbed the nearest bag and hefted it out the window.
He caught it with a slight stagger, then gracefully set it onto Mangle's back and held his long arms out for the next.
The rest of their bags followed suit, secured to their saddles as neatly as she might have done it herself, and then Daine was alone in a passably untouched-looking room, listening heavy boots tramp up the stairs, the clattering of weapons, the clink of the head guard's plate—the squeaking of doors being opened as they went—
She would never be able to slip past them now. The wardrobe, maybe, but they would think to check there—or maybe under the beds, but there she would have no quarter—or maybe out the window, but there were no handholds and they were on the second floor—
Draper hissed through his teeth, making her look at him.
His arms were still spread wide, his gaze piercing even through the darkness. "Jump!"
"Jump, he says," she muttered to herself—her voice had no heat, even to her own ears—then gulped a breath, wrestled her skirts into one hand, got herself onto the windowsill, and jumped.
The moment of freefall was the moment she longed to shift and take flight, hated Draper for suggesting she do this, felt the acute sensation of having her mortality shaved too close—
—and then she was colliding with a wall of firm flesh, long arms wrapping around her in a supple embrace, and her hands latched tightly into his thin woolen tunic without her input.
He didn't set her down immediately, instead giving her a little squeeze and carrying her close to the wall, leading their horses behind him—towards the stables, where the shadows were the deepest.
Daine focused on her hands; they trembled with the strength of their grip, and no matter how firmly she instructed them to release him, they didn't.
They had bigger things to worry about than disobedient appendages; she could hear their pursuers going through the room she had just vacated, throwing open doors and muttering to one another.
"Not a mite in here—the old man's gone dodderheaded," she heard floating down from the open window. In the stillness down here, Draper was terribly warm and solid against her front, his heart pounding against her knuckles.
The second soldier muttered something impolite, but Daine's attention was on the warm, large fingers that had caught her chin.
Draper had lifted her face and gazed down at her from his immense height, inscrutable but for a hint of that heat his handsome face, filling her vision with nothing but the dark of night and the black of his eyes, the panicked, furious thudding of her pulse filling her ears just the same. His breath fluttered over her skin.
He stayed like that for a moment, then lowered his face until their noses were a fraction of an inch apart.
Daine remained frozen. She couldn't run—and, perhaps more importantly, she didn't want to.
That would puzzle her greatly later, but now, she was caught in the moment, sinking into the calm that came in adrenaline and fear. With nothing else to do, she held his eye and waited for his move.
"The window's open—"
"Anything—?"
"Uh, not them, just—blast—check the next one."
Draper breathed a count of ten over her lips, then released her, and she released him as well.
The night was terribly cold. How hadn't she noticed that before, she wondered. Now she felt it right to her bones.
"We should head for the forest," he said, low and rough, reminding her of the danger and sending a shiver of adrenaline down her spine. "Quickly."
Daine nodded, then began the entirely undignified process of mounting a horse in a full skirt, so focused on not falling that she couldn't stop to wince at Draper's own process of mounting.
Together, they carefully made their way to the tree line, and found a deer trail to follow deeper into the woods.
They had to stop sooner than she wanted because they were both nodding off in their saddles.
Draper freed Spots of his gear and left him to search for proper greens in this terribly thick leaf litter, then searched his own pockets. When Daine was done with Whisper, he offered up four coppers.
"I did not have the chance to finish my show tonight," he said quietly as she pocketed the coin; he referred to the point at which he wound into some truly impressive sleight-of-hand nonsense and asked the assembled crowd for tips that might let him and his darling student continue their journey across the coast. Depending on the size and wealth of the crowd, she had seen him come away with over twenty coppers and a silver or two.
"I still have the silver from the stag I sold to the butcher," she replied, brushing off the implicit apology. "We're fine."
He nodded, an inch or two of tension leaving his broad shoulders, then went to do his part in setting up camp, almost clumsy with exhaustion.
Daine smelled fog on the wind let out a sigh before attending to her own duties.
When Daine awoke the next day, the world had been plunged into pale grey. She could barely see Draper's slumbering form six feet away from her, much less beyond the treeline.
For a moment, she surrendered to her tired flesh. She gazed up to where she might have been able to see the sky if she could see anything at all, and thought of home, of Legann, of Corus, of Onua and the Lioness, of Sarge and the king and the Riders that yet lived—how were they all, she wondered. Were they well? Were they ailing? What were they doing now?
Would she ever know them again?
It was a difficult question to ruminate on, and it wasn't long before the pain in her chest drove her to her feet. After she stuffed them into her boots, she nudged Draper's ankles with a gentle kick and said, "Up with you, lazy tom."
He winced and stirred.
It was a trick finding tinder and wood dry enough to hold a flame, but the results—two bowls of hot porridge and dried berries with fried eggs—were well worth the effort.
The Lioness, she thought as she stirred the pot, would have liked it. Who was bringing the woman her meals now, Daine wondered. She hoped that whoever it was was doing it in a timely manner; the Lioness could turn into a bear when left to starve for too long.
Apparently she was more distracted than she had thought; she didn't even fully register that Draper had been watching her until he spoke.
"Is something the matter?"
She lowered her bowl of cooled porridge and gave him a confused look.
"There seems to be a matter right about..." He tapped his own forehead between the brows, gaze coolly cutting from beneath them.
She reached up to touch 'the matter' on her own face, and found that the flesh there had knit in worry. She rubbed the spot and sighed. She couldn't (didn't dare) say what she truly felt, but the light was silver and the world was quiet, and she couldn't summon up the proper amount of anger for him.
In the end, she muttered, "I shan't like to know what the Lioness will do to me if they catch us." Or, maybe, when.
"Not to worry on that front—if they catch us, we tell her I was the one to kidnap you. She'll rush to have you back at her side in a heartbeat."
Silently, Daine pointed her spoon at the cuffs and collar he still wore. They had been difficult, though not impossible to keep hidden so far, and it had the added effect of making him very difficult to see with magical vision. In the weeks they had been on the run, she hadn't seen so much as a spark from him. It was radiantly obvious that she was the one with the upper hand here.
(Some part of her was still quite certain that there was nothing that truly could hold him, and that if he truly wanted them off, they would be gone already, but whatever his reasons, they remained.)
"You forget—I am a black robe mage."
She shot him a stale look. She hadn't forgotten, actually.
The slight grin on his dark face was half ego, half wryness. "People will believe anything they like about a fellow with an impressive title—and not a one of them need know just how impractical it is to turn a stone into a loaf of bread." At her confusion, he explained, "It's all esoterica, you know. Hardly a lick of practical magic in any of the studies you need to qualify for the mark. If you knew what I'd spent my time on, you'd be shocked I managed to bumble my way out of the university library."
Daine spent a moment attempting to put Arram Draper and bumble into the same sentence, then decided that if she had time to waste on such silliness, she had the time to finish her breakfast and disassemble their camp so they could get back on the road.
And like that, their conversation came to an end.
The fog remained, forcing them to go at a maddeningly slow walk so the horses wouldn't turn a hoof. Daine was forced to ask her friends where they were again and again and pray Draper didn't notice.
The incident at the last town, his breath over her lips and the half-brightened heat in his eyes as he arranged them to look like lovers to any prying eyes, had shown her that he wasn't ready to take advantage of her at the drop of a hat, but the matter of her way with animals was something entirely aside from that.
(He had protected her modesty before, hadn't he? After he pulled her from the sky to warn her about the bloodrain. And the only times he had touched her were the times she had touched him back. Difficult as they were to see, he did have lines he wouldn't cross. He might leer and push and goad and snap, but...
...But when was the last time he had done any of those, either?)
Despite the fog, their progress was decent, and by the time it lifted, they were on track to arrive at the next town.
One last squirrel came to gossip and she didn't have the heart to send him away before he had said his piece—and then acutely regretted her lapse when, after the fellow had left, Draper spoke.
"He seemed to have a lot to say."
Daine clenched her jaw. She wouldn't be fooled by the deliberate mildness in his tone. "I wouldn't know."
They rode in silence for several yards—long enough that she dared to hope that he had dropped the subject—and then he spoke again: "Might I ask—"
"No."
"—why are you so certain you have no magic?"
"I've had testin'," she replied shortly.
"For the Gift? Surely by now you know there are more kinds of magic than that."
She grit her teeth, panic a painful knot at the back of her throat. "Don't got none of it. I'm a dud as they come." She saw him open his mouth again and cut him off with, "Enough."
(She had even asked the Lioness after he had said it the first time, and the woman had only given her a shrug and a careful look and an admission that she sometimes wondered if Daine had a bit of the Sight, with her archery skill, but that was it. Even if Ma had missed it, the Lioness surely wouldn't have... would she?)
Slowly, Draper shut his mouth again, tilted his head in concession, and fell silent once more.
A bird trilled overhead, greeting her wing-sister, and, furiously, Daine blocked the knowledge of the greeting out as much as she could.
She was still on edge when they got to the next town, but to her surprise, the soldiers seemed to have gone on ahead of them; there were wanted posters everywhere, but not only did Draper manage to finish his show in the inn's common room (earning them a solid twelve coppers), but they both got into their beds without issue.
Despite the comfort, Daine found that she simply couldn't sleep.
I think I shall call you 'magelet'.
Why couldn't he have left that ridiculous notion back in the war, where it belonged? She was a fair hand with animals—wasn't that enough? She wasn't failing her country by her 'negligence' anymore. She was doing just fine protecting the two of them, wasn't she?
Across the room, Draper's broad chest rose and fell with the rhythm of sleep, silhouetted by clear moonlight.
She wasn't magical. She didn't have anything of the sort. It wasn't her 'teenage acumen'. It was fact that had been checked by everyone who cared for her.
And yet he called her magelet.
Her fingers curled around the handle of the knife under her pillow, the feel of it comforting, even if she knew that this was no matter it could protect her from.
Magelet.
'Little mage'.
For the first time in a long while, she missed Cloud and her no-nonsense horse sense with her whole, aching heart. Surely the pony would know what to do with all of this—even if it was just to tell Daine to stop worrying about the little things.
Tears staining the pillow and the hilt of the knife settled against her palm, she drifted into an uneasy, haunted sleep that she was almost grateful to be pulled from.
The one who pulled her from it was a feline with masses of silvery fluff. The cat's needle-sharp claws were digging through the thin fabric of Daine's chemise, stabbing her shoulder almost hard enough to draw blood, determined to wake Daine as quickly as possible without sound.
Hunters.
The hunters were here, and they were sniffing about, looking for the mouseholes to watch—and the mice they were stalking were Daine and her colonymate.
"Thank you," Daine breathed, then waited until the cat had sprung from her chest to the windowsill to sit up and grab her boots and pull up her skirts.
Once she was dressed, she grabbed Draper's large shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. When he started to wince, she hissed, "They're here. Get up."
His eyes snapped open, long form tensing all over, then he gave her a tiny nod, and she drew back.
Packing went quicker and smoother with two, and they managed to avoid everyone as they carried their bags down to the stable and gear up, then tie rags to the horses' hooves and walk silently through the streets until they found the wood again.
"They're tracking us," he said once there was no chance of anyone overhearing. His tone was uncharacteristically flinty, and it resonated down her spine. "They have to be."
Daine yawned and stretched, then scrubbed her eyes. She was feeling the effects of her partial rest stronger than ever. "Magically?"
"I thought the spells on these binds would protect us, but I forgot—they have my opal."
Daine blinked. Thankfully, the night was dark enough to hide her guilty blush. "Opal?"
He tapped his breastbone with a finger. "There was one that I kept on me always. I kept it connected to my life force, so that it would stand between me and death by magical exhaustion. If anything were to show where I was, it would be that."
She had mostly forgotten about it herself. Its weight had been no more noticeable than the silver badger's claw. She had been a little more careful to dry it after she washed, because while the chain looked like pure silver, she had no way of knowing for sure that it wouldn't rust. Other than that, it may as well have not been there at all.
"They're not using the opal," she said, touching the charm.
"You sound... certain," replied Draper, sounding rather uncertain himself.
"They don't have it. I do."
His head whipped in her direction so quick she was surprised he hadn't snapped it, and she tapped her own breastbone.
"I didn't know what they'd do with it, so I took it when I found you on the field. I've had it on me since."
He only stared.
After a silence in which she only felt more and more like a dirty thief, she broke and asked, "D'you want it back?"
Her voice came out uncomfortably small, but he didn't scold her like an unruly child. He thought for a moment, then slowly said, "No. You keep it. You'll be able to protect it far better than I."
Tension left her shoulders that she hadn't known was there. She nodded, solemn.
"Of course, that only leaves the question of how they keep finding us. I was under the impression that you brought all of your most important belongings—without a tie, they should only be able to scry by location, not by individual, but they've been too hot on our tail for too long to be anything but tracking us."
"...I don't think that they are," said Daine as she considered it. Under her, Whisper plodded silently on, understanding the gravity of the situation and resisting the urge to fidget or prance. "Those two master mages who want you—they was putting up as much coin for you as the emperor was putting up for all his people together. You're fair costly. The whole army's going to be out for us until they stop offerin' all that up."
"I see." His tone was halfway between rueful and dry. "And Tortall is just down on its luck enough to make my head a very necessary prize."
She shrugged. "We've been following a bit off Coastal Way since Cetrins, too. I wanted us to get closer to the border of Tyra—you look it clear as day, and a Numair Salmalín'd stand out less in those parts—but the army's fleet afoot the big roads. If we go north, we can force 'em through the mountains, but then the villages all that way would have a tale to tell about our looks and names, what with them not having many visitors."
"You've thought about this." He didn't have to sound so surprised.
"What have we got, if not time to think?" At least, once Draper's illness and recovery had forced her to catch her breath, she had.
He didn't needle her on the blatant coverup, instead tilting his face skyward. "What of the villages at the foot of the mountains?"
They debated possible routes between them for a bit—it was a strangely relieving process, to no longer carry the burden of the planning alone—then decided to head up into the mountains and double back the way they came, dodging the towns and villages with stationed guards, then see if they couldn't finish their journey to the trade cities by Tyra once the initial wave had passed.
With that settled, they once more made a cold camp, and settled in to catch a few more hours of sleep.
Draper shivered near constantly once subjected to a bit of height away from the ocean, and Daine nobly did not comment, only suggested he wrap himself in a blanket under his cloak.
He did so, and looked marginally more comfortable as they worked their way up the slopes.
So far off the beaten path that only her friends could tell her of where it was, the village they found first greeted them with suspicion that melted quickly to Draper's glib manner and completely ignored Daine's rather more ornery one.
Whether it was the knowledge that she was no longer carrying the burden of their safety entirely alone, or the knowledge that Draper was willing to leave the opal in her possession without consequence, or the knowledge that he would touch her but not touch her—something had taken the fire from her anger at seeing him put up the comic mask.
Now, standing at the back of the crowd in the village's only tavern, watching him juggle for a crowd of laughing children and work-worn but smiling adults, Daine could only summon up hollow irritation. It still grated to see him fool them all so easily, but if it got them what they needed, then it was needful.
She was just considering retiring first when a girl started jostling her to try to peek her way over the crowd.
"Because there's a Player and I want to see!" she whined in an oddly familiar hiss, likely to the other short, cloaked figure beside her. "C'mon... just a little more...!"
"Don't bother—it's hardly impressive," Daine muttered tiredly as she glanced down—
—and felt the blood drain from her face.
Peering back up at her were two unmistakable sapphire blue eyes.