48

Since the moment she appeared here, in this world that was so different from her own, Lyra felt like she had an endless amount of worries, each of them more pressing and urgent than anything she’d had on her plate at home. Maybe she was better at compartmentalizing than she thought, because she found it easiest to focus on one thing at a time and shove everything to the side to be dealt with later. Everything that happened with Erik, Milo, and Luke yesterday was lingering at the back of her mind, a heavy weight she couldn't completely ignore, but could put off for the time being while they packed up their camp and got the horses ready to go.

She looked Aeliana over as the horse used her soft lips to tug at the hem of her tunic, hoping for a treat. There was a shallow scratch on her shoulder, probably from their blind flight in the darkness the night before, but other than that, the horse seemed unbothered by everything that had happened. Lyra wasn't sure if she needed it, but she put a dab of the numbing salve on her injury anyway.

"There you go," she murmured. "You did so well yesterday. I still feel a little bad that Galen and his family gave you up, but I don't know what we would have done without you."

Kel's stolen horse let out a sharp whinny. Looking over, she spotted him trying to soothe the horse, who seemed agitated. Either agitated, or eager to go. He had jsut finished tacking it up, and the horse was practically prancing in place, bursting with energy.

Yeah, she would definitely take Aeliana over a horse like that any day.

Since Kel was busy with his horse, she took it upon herself to take down her hammock, pack her saddlebags, and then lead Aeliana over to the creek to drink before they left. Kel had already packed up the dishes Luke was cleaning, and the younger man was just sitting by the creek, one wrist still tied to a tree with a long rope, and his arms around his knees.

"You probably heard, but we're going to the Aketian camp nest.” She paused. He didn't have a horse and she suspected they would be moving too fast for him to walk alongside them. "I guess you'll have to ride with one of us."

Luke shrugged, still staring at the clear water of the creek. "That's all right. Erik didn't trust me with my own horse anyway. I'm used to it."

She hesitated. Those cuffs were bothering her, but she didn't know if now was the time to ask what his situation had been like. It looked like Kel was almost ready to go, and all of her things were already packed. They would be setting off any minute. She could ask him later, just like she could ask Kel if what he had done to Erik was a sin later, and she could learn more about the Northern Kingdom and King Nicholas later. One thing at a time. She untied Luke from the tree, but kept the rope in her hand.

"I don't like keeping you tied up," she said. "But I also understand why Kel did it. Keep the rope tied to your wrist for now, and maybe we can figure something else out later. Let’s go see if he’s ready to go."

Sharing a horse with Luke the night before had been uncomfortable but necessary, and frankly, everything that happened between Erik slamming her head into the fence and reaching this little valley had faded into a sort of horrible blur. She assumed Kel wouldn’t want to ride with Luke on his fancy new warhorse — he didn’t seem to like that they’d brought Luke in the first place, and seemed perfectly fine to let him be Lyra’s problem — but when she led Aeliana and Luke over to where he was checking his horse’s gear one last time and she started considering the logistics of riding two to a saddle, he surprised her.

“Our captive will ride with me.”

By the look on Luke’s face, he wasn’t exactly thrilled with this turn of events, but he didn’t say anything. Kel seemed even more displeased, his expression sour as he looked at Luke.

“He can ride with me, it’s okay.” She’d ridden on motorcycles with people before, not much and mostly just with her uncle, but it meant the close contact wouldn’t really be awkward for her. Plus, Luke was her responsibility. It had been her choice to bring him, and her choice to let him stick with them until they got to somewhere more populated.

“Less than half a day ago he was traveling with two men who plotted your murder,” Kel said flatly. “It’s my duty to protect you, but I can’t do that if you insist on embracing danger with open arms at every turn.” He paused. “Besides, the new horse is significantly larger than Aeliana. She will tire more quickly if she has to carry both of you.”

Aeliana was resting the tip of one front hoof on the ground, already halfway dozing as her tail swished at errant flies. Kel’s horse was practically quivering in spot, its ears pricked pricked up as it shifted impatiently, ready to go. Yeah… maybe Kel had a point. About both things, but she wasn’t ready to think about the mistakes she had made yet. It was easier to admit that the stolen horse was better suited for Kel to ride double with Luke than Aeliana was.

Relenting, she tossed Luke’s rope to Kel, who tugged on it non too kindly. Luke gave her a dramatic look and mouthed, “He’s going to kill me.”

Lyra just grimaced at him. Kel was a bit too quick to go for his sword, so it wasn’t even something she could swear he wouldn’t do, but Luke was a priest, so Kel probably wouldn’t treat him too harshly. She hurried to mount Aeliana before he could offer to help her, and as she watched him swing into his horse’s saddle then pull Luke up behind him and tie the rope on the younger man’s wrist to the front of the saddle — something that seemed like a dangerous idea to her, because what if Luke fell while the horse was running? — she wondered how well she really knew him. He had been willing to kill Galin at a moment’s notice and according to Oleander, he had a sword made out of human body parts, and he’d cut off a man’s hand last night and didn’t seem phased at all.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

She wasn’t used to violence. She wasn’t completely naive; she knew people were violent on Earth too, they killed and tortured and got into fights, and most of the perpetrators lived with themselves just fine afterward, but it all felt so raw to her. She had spent her entire life sheltered from any real violence or danger, and now she felt like she couldn’t trust her own judgment about what was right and wrong; what was normal, and what wasn’t. In her old life, the threat of violence had always been a far away thing, something that happened to other people. Here, it was immediate and real. A man had tried to kill her last night and Kel had cut his hand off to stop him.

And now they just… moved on?

Apparently so. Kel’s horse snorted and pawed at the ground, but he held the reins tightly as he spoke to her. “Follow two horse lengths behind. I will ride out of the valley first and make sure no one is waiting for us.”

Then they were off. Aeliana, agreeable as always, fell into an easy walk behind Kel’s horse. Ascending out of the rocky valley was less nerve-wracking than their nighttime descent had been, but even so, Lyra’s heart skipped a beat every time she felt her mare slip on the loose stones. When Kel crested the rise and vanished from view, she tugged on the reins and Aeliana came to a halt, her ears pricked, and together they waited for the all-clear.

When Kel returned to wave her onward, she breathed out a sigh of relief. Part of her wondered if they were being silly to worry about pursuit, but that was the same part of her that had told her it would be fine to meet three strange men alone at night just because they came from the same world as her, so she ignored it. Her instincts weren’t right for this place. She needed to stop listening to them.

“We’ll ride northwest until we reach the road,” Kel told her. “I don’t think there is any advantage to avoiding it. They would be able to see us from a distance whether we are on it or not.”

He was right; now that it was daytime, she could finally see the landscape they had fled through last night. Far in the distance to the south she saw a smudge that was Ersgath and the darker splotches of the wooded areas. To the east, the direction they had been traveling from for the last two weeks, the dense forest spread like a shadow on the horizon. She could see the patchwork of perfectly square fields every couple of miles in a line that must have been following the road they had taken, which meant they were above the trees in the distance. They had fled uphill last night, and the ground continued to rise in an easy slope ahead of them. Further north, dramatic forested foothills rose from the rocky terrain, and beyond those, blue with distance, were white-capped mountains.

The sight of the snow in the distance made her even more aware of how hot she currently was. During most of their trip so far, they had spent a good portion of the day walking in the shade, but there was no shade up here. The sun gazed down at them, too warm already even though it was early in the morning, and the the dry vegetation and cracked, rocky ground was anything to go by, the dry heat would only worsen as the day went on. She couldn’t imagine what this place was like in the rainy season. Would it be cooler, or would it be just as hot but also humid?

Clicking her tongue to encourage Aeliana to pick up the pace a little, Lyra caught up to Kel and Luke and they settled into a brisk walk. Aeliana had to quicken her normally sedate pace to keep up with the larger horse, and the motion was giving her a headache again, but she did her best to ignore it. It was time to focus on the next issue at hand.

“Kel,” she began after giving Luke an uncertain glance. He was sitting stiffly behind Kel on the horse and looked like he was somehow simultaneously wishing he was anywhere else in the world and also completely resigned to his circumstances. She didn’t really want to talk about this around him, but there wasn’t another option, especially since she didn’t know how crowded the Aketian camp would be this evening. This was probably as close to privacy as they would get for a while. “Will you be in trouble for what you did?”

He glanced at her, his eyebrows twitching in a way that she knew meant he was trying to figure out what she was trying to say.

“Hurting Erik,” she clarified. “Since, you know, he’s a priest.”

“Ah.” His expression cleared, but he still looked troubled. “My duty is to protect you.”

“Yes, but hurting a priest or priestess is a sin. Does it sort of get negated or something, since you only hurt him to protect me?”

“I… don’t know,” he admitted. “What happened last night should not have happened. I know of only one case of one member of the clergy attacking another, and in that circumstance, the temple god dealt with it. All I know is that it is my duty to protect you, and not doing so would have broken the oath I took when I became a sentinel.”

“So there’s a chance you might die on God’s Day, like Galin will if he doesn’t stay in Saofoth’s temple?” she asked, aghast.

He shook his head. “Unless Erik died from his wounds, I do not believe what I did to him was a great sin. My first duty is to you, and he was trying to kill you. However, when we arrive at the city, I will pray at a temple and ask the clergy whether my soul needs cleansing of any minor sins.”

“What if he did die?” she asked. Everything she knew about this place indicated that killing someone with holy blood and sacrificing someone to a god were one way tickets to hell, or at least a gruesome death, and the thought of that happening to Kel because of her was horrific.

“Do not worry.” To her surprise, he gave her a rueful smile. “I am not a very good sentinel, and an even worse paladin, but I would gladly give my life in service of my oath and my duty. That being said, I believe there is a good chance that Erik survived, especially if his companion stayed to help him. All will be well. You may ask the Aketian god to examine my soul when we get to the camp, if it will ease your mind.”

His words reminded her with a jolt that she had intended to ask Loreas to do exactly that, but had gotten sidetracked. It was probably a good thing she hadn’t remembered to bring it up; asking a god to examine someone’s soul without their consent seemed intrusive, in retrospect. But now that his life was on the line, she would definitely remember to bring it up to the next god she met. Hopefully, they could put the matter to rest once and for all, and it would be one less thing she had to worry about.

It was a little strange to hope that the man who tried to kill her hadn’t died, but as they rode, she sent out a wish that was almost a prayer for Erik to recover. If he died from blood loss or infection, then Kel was doomed.