Promising Light (51 page)

“Go, Dar!” she yelled.

Dar urged his horse on, and they
went back down the path. Dar glanced over his shoulder to make sure
Lee was behind them; he was following, as were the Cosas. One had a
bow and arrow; Dar pressed his horse to go faster.

An arrow whizzed by him, nearly
hitting his horse, and the horse picked up speed. Dar looked down
at the animal in bewilderment before realizing Lee was probably
speaking to him.

Grace screamed again, and Dar
looked over his shoulder to see a woman attacking Grace on her
horse. Grace’s horse was stumbling as he tried to keep up the
weight of the two women and their violent struggle. The Cosa had
Grace’s hair in her hand, and Grace was blindly striking out with
her knife. Dar reared his horse and turned it around.

He approached Grace’s horse, his
sword drawn, but he saw a man in the tree next to him. Dar realized
what he was going to do just as the man jumped off from the branch.
Dar didn’t move in time—the man grabbed a hold of his shoulders and
pulled him off the horse. Dar slipped out of the saddle and landed
hard on his back. The man who’d tackled him grabbed Dar’s right
wrist, which held his sword, and tried to pin Dar down. Dar brought
his leg up, kneed the man in the stomach, and wrenched his wrist
out of the man’s grip.

He tried to get to his feet, but
the man tackled his legs, bringing him back down to the ground. His
back slammed against the ground again. For combat this close, Dar
needed a knife, but his dagger was on his boot, which was too far
down to reach while he and the man wrestled.

Dar dropped the sword and punched
the Cosa in the face. Another Cosa suddenly kicked Dar in the side.
Dar reached for his dagger, but someone kicked him again. One of
the two pinned Dar to the ground, striking Dar in the face. Pain
blossomed and warm blood flowed from his nose, and he brought his
arms up to protect his face.

The man paused for a moment as
yells surrounded them, and Dar writhed underneath the man’s legs.
He shoved the Cosa off of him and clambered to his feet. Grace and
Lee were still on their horses, both of them bleeding and fighting
other people. At least a dozen Cosas stood in the clearing now, and
some of them were fighting with each other.

Someone grabbed Dar from behind,
putting a knife to his throat. “Lady Grace comes with me, or I slit
his throat,” the man shouted.

Only a few people heard him at
first, but then he repeated himself and the crowd quieted. Grace
stared at them, her eyes wide and her mouth open.

“Hash,” someone said. Dar
recognized the slender woman with copper-colored hair: Dalya. “Let
him go. We have a treaty with the Avialies.”

Hash scoffed. “I don’t care! Lady
Grace?”

“Don’t do it,” Dar
said.

Hash dug his knife into Dar’s
throat, slitting a bit of skin, and Dar hissed in pain.

“Don’t!” Grace yelled.

“If you do this, you can never
come back here,” Dalya spat, staring at the man behind
Dar.

“Please let him go,” Grace said.
“We have to find—we have to break the curse!”

Hash did nothing, and her face
fell. “Fine,” she said quietly. She slowly dismounted; Dar began to
shake his head, but the knife was too close, and he could already
feel a small trickle of blood creeping toward his shirt
collar.

Hash suddenly gasped, and his hand
dropped. Dar darted away from him, spinning on his heel. Hash
dropped to his knees, revealing Matilda behind him as she held a
bloody knife. Hash rolled over onto his stomach, groaning in
pain.

Grace grabbed Dar and pulled him
into a hug.

Dalya stepped forward.
“Matilda!”

“You killed him!” someone
yelled.

Matilda silently cleaned off her
knife. “And if anyone tries to get her, I’ll do it again.” She
examined at the group. “I’ll tell the Zinnas where the stronghold
is.”

Dalya glared at her, her face
reddening. “You wouldn’t.”

Dar pulled Grace by the hand to
their horses. Lee fell behind them as they led the horses toward
Matilda, past glaring men and women.

“Get out of here,” Matilda
whispered. “I won’t be able to hold them off for long.”

“Matilda,” Dar
began. He wasn’t sure what to say—
thank
you? Come with us?

“Go! I’ll be right behind
you.”

Grace grabbed Matilda’s wrist.
“Thank you.” She turned and mounted her horse.

“Be careful,” Dar said.

They set off again, shooting
through the forest.

* * *

That night, they stopped three or
four hours from Nyad. They set up camp a couple hundred feet off
the road underneath a large maple tree. Grace changed the bandage
around Dar’s neck; he watched her concerned expression. She had a
few cuts on her face, as well; he cleaned them for her from the
water in their skins.

“Do you think Matilda’s all
right?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” Dar said,
swallowing. “I think I would have heard from Holden by now if
something went wrong.”

“But wouldn’t he tell us if they
escaped?”

“I think they might wait for
Sierra and Evan.”

As if on cue, Holden contacted him.
Dar stared at the vision of the short Zinna. “Matilda and I stayed
behind to make sure Sierra and Evan got through the forest. Evan’s
wounded, but he should be fine to travel. The four of us are
traveling together; we’re just past the village of Hurcin. Your
update?”

“We’re fine,” he said. “Three or
four hours from Nyad.”

The ghost-like Holden faded, and
Dar looked at Grace.

“Was it Holden?” she
asked.

Dar told her how the others were,
and she visibly relaxed.

“Hurcin, that was two hours ago?”
Grace asked.

Dar nodded. “Yes… but now the Cosas
know everyone of our party. The Protectors could find it out
easily.”

Grace frowned. “I wonder where Chad
is.”

Dar brushed some hair from her
face. “Should we go to sleep?”

Yawning, Grace nodded. She took
Dar’s hand and stood up. “I love sleep.”

They left an hour past dawn the
next day after stalling over a small meal and pampering their
horses. The animals seemed reluctant to start, but they traveled at
a steady pace by mid-morning. The terrain around them was changing,
as was the weather. The dirt was red, the plants different, the air
humid. Ahead of them to the north loomed mountains; Mumbar Jungle
ranged over the foothills of those mountains.

They stopped mid-day once they saw
the city of Nyad ahead. They’d agreed to meet the others at the
ruins of a house on the outskirts of Nyad. Dar suggested the place;
an Avialie couple used to live there, but they’d been killed two
years ago. Lisbeth had used their house as a safe place after
Sierra and Sashe had miscarried, but the Protectors had found them.
It was where Seth died, where they thought Evan died, where Sierra
disappeared from, where Sashe nearly lost her life.

“This place we’re going,” Grace
said as they rested. “Do you think they’ll be expecting us to go
there?”

“They shouldn’t be expecting us to
go to Nyad at all,” Dar said. He had changed again, and his
different voice still sounded strange to his ears. “Unless they got
the information from Chad. Which wouldn’t be hard.”

“Where are we going to hide?”
Grace asked.

“I’ll show you when we get there.”
He took a drink from his water skin.

Grace leaned against a nearby tree
with a sigh.

Dar looked at Lee, who was munching
on an apple, staring toward Nyad with a solemn
expression.

“How are you feeling, Lee?” Dar
asked.

Lee shrugged and gave a weak smile.
“I don’t know, really. I hope they’re not waiting for us down the
road.”

“Me, too,” Dar said. He looked up
at the clear blue sky, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Me, too.”
He put his water skin back into his bag. “Well, are you guys
ready?”

Grace nodded, pushing herself onto
her feet. “Yes, but wait.” She took his hand. “Can I see you in
your normal form before we go in? Just in case…” Her gaze met his,
and he glanced around.

“We’ll be right back,” Dar called
to Lee. He pulled Grace behind a couple trees and changed back into
his original form, holding Grace’s hands. When he was finished, she
wrapped her arms around him. He smiled, hugging her close and
running a hand through her hair. “Don’t worry. Everything will be
fine.”

“We wait for the others, then we
go to Mumbar Jungle,” Grace said. “Easy.”

“Easy.”

Neither of them mentioned the
Cosas, the Protectors, the dangers of the jungle; all of it was
already on their minds. All the things standing between them and
their goal swirled in his mind, rearing their heads during every
moment that passed. He dipped his head down and kissed Grace
deeply. Her hands held onto his shirt as she kissed him back. He
had no idea what lay ahead of them, but he knew their group would
face it with courage and determination. He just hoped this
worked.

* * *

Sierra had to force herself to
breathe: in, out, in, out. She kept looking over at Evan and
telling herself it was Evan. It was, even though he looked like a
preteen boy again. It was her husband. He didn’t die in this mass
of ruins, in the crumbling foundation. His body wasn’t burned up
here because his body was brought somewhere else.

This was where Sierra had run and
left him behind. She should have waited longer before running. But
if she had, Niculai may have killed her. She’d seen the scars where
he had stabbed Evan. She’d actually touched them, ran her fingers
over the raised skin.

Matilda and Holden were ahead of
them, slowly circling around the ruins. The plants were growing
into the foundation; in a couple years, it may look like a house
never stood here here at all.

“Where are they?” Evan
asked.

Holden held up a finger and closed
his eyes. Only a moment passed before someone whistled to them.
Sierra turned on her horse and saw Lee standing by a cluster of
trees a hundred feet away. “They’re over there,” Sierra
said.

“Wait, let’s make sure it’s them,”
Matilda said, motioning to Holden.

Holden had hardly spoken over the
last few days. He was stoic, determined. His lips twitched for a
moment, and then he opened his eyes. “Yes, Sierra’s
right.”

Sierra led them to Lee, who
disappeared behind the trees after they arrived. A brunette woman
in baggy men’s clothes sat on a stump, and Grace sat on the ground
next to her.

“Dar?” Sierra asked.

The woman nodded. “Are you four all
right?”

“Yes, considering.” She turned to
Evan, who was staring behind them at the ruins. She knew he
couldn’t feel his injuries while in a different form, but he was
weakened from the cut in his leg. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” Evan said quietly, not
looking at her.

Sierra wanted to say something, but
words would fall flat. Seth had died here, and Evan’s life had
changed completely. She, Sashe, Evan, Seth, Dar, and even
Matilda—the six of them, so close before, were completely torn
apart on the day of that battle.

Seth deserved some kind of
commemoration. She suddenly wanted to know where he was buried and
who buried him and how Sashe reacted. Sierra had once visited
Evan’s grave to lay a wreath of lilies, as was Rahudan custom for
someone to do when their spouse died. She’d expected Seth to be
buried next to him, but he wasn’t. She hadn’t waited around town to
ask where his body had been taken.

But Sierra couldn’t dwell on all
that right now. Later, when they got through this.

“The Cosas just let you go?” Lee
asked.

“Dalya and Ned talked them into
it,” Matilda said. She glanced over her shoulder. “But I wouldn’t
be surprised if some of them followed us.”

Sierra looked at the others. “We
should get moving just in case they did. The Protectors could be
close, too, since we have no idea what’s going on with
Chad.”

“I told you—” Matilda
began.

“I know,” Sierra said, “but we
still have no idea where they are, okay?”

“The edge of the jungle’s only
half an hour north,” Grace said, getting to her feet. Her face was
streaked with dirt, and she had a cut just under her left eye that
had scabbed over. Sierra briefly wondered what her life might have
been like had the Avialies never kidnapped her.

“Let’s just rest for a little
while,” Matilda said, dismounting.

Grace groaned. “We’ve been waiting
for two hours already.”

“Well, I just saved your neck in
that forest,” Matilda snapped. “And I don’t expect you to
understand, but this is where nine people died two years ago, so
have some respect.”