“Whatever you do,” he said, “you must not unbind me. I cannot yet call Os. My head is spinning, and it is hard to keep my feet and thoughts straight. But if I have even a tiny bit of willpower, I am still bound to return you to your new husband.” He almost seemed to choke on the word. “You must not allow that. Keep me bound. Keep me blindfolded, so that I cannot use Os to overpower you, even if I can call him. I cannot fight what I cannot see. I trusted you, House Apidae. Now you must trust me – and follow my advice.”
I looked anxiously around me, wishing there were more options to get him away from here – a likely river with a handy boat in it, or a road with friendly travelers, or even a barn to hide in. But there were none of those things. So where to? Too bad we weren’t closer to the undertrails. I didn’t think I could find my way back to them from here without swinging closer to the city and that would mean capture.
I shuddered. I must not be captured. He must not be captured.
“Don’t fear, House Apidae,” Osprey said gravely. “If anyone can keep away from the strike of the snake, it’s you and your bees.”
I was grateful he couldn’t see my face. I was certain my expression would show all my doubts.
“Come on,” I said gently. “We can’t stay here.”
I led him through the forest, keeping to game trails and little forest paths so I wouldn’t get lost. We were still hidden partially by treetops above, but at least this way we weren’t completely in the open but also not completely wandering through thick woods.
What would be worse? Getting lost with no belt knife, no water or food and no way to survive alone, or being found by the Wings?
“Have you thought through a plan?” Osprey asked.
“I plan to not get caught.” I had no plan.
“That’s the whole plan?” His mouth formed a wry smile.
“We can’t go back to the city, so I can’t get the horses Retger left at the inn,” I said, explaining my logic in a low tone as I led him through the woods. It was hard to keep my eyes on everything at once – on his feet to keep him from tripping, on the sky where the Wings might be hovering, all around where anyone might notice and say something. “I refuse to steal one – and even if I wanted to, I haven’t seen any to steal – so that leaves us with our own feet and any coin we have. I only have our weapons and a single silver piece with me right now. Everything else was left in my saddlebags.”
He grunted in agreement. He didn’t have his usual pack with him. He must have stashed it somewhere before coming for me in the monastery – or lost it. But that didn’t seem like him.
“We should not enter the Forbidding, Aella,” he said to me gently. “As horrible as being caught by Juste Montpetit may be, suicide is not a better option and if you flee into that tangle without anyone to help you and without the aid of your bees, it will be suicide.”
“What do you mean, ‘without the aid of your bees?’” I asked. Could he see through his blindfold? Did he realize they were not here?
He shrugged. “You must have carried me this far with them, or you would have a horse or cart with you still. Which means they were strong enough to carry a grown man – an impressive feat. But if they were still here, you would have taken me further than this. You’ve run out of strength. Did you sleep at all last night?”
“Hardly,” I admitted with a tight voice.
His tone seemed to soften. “You watched over me instead.”
I didn’t want him to feel bad about it, so I didn’t reply.
“And you wore yourself out.” He sounded certain. “Until you rest properly, your manifestations will continue to slip through your fingers. It takes strength and energy to maintain a manifestation – even if the actual magic doesn’t come from you but from the heart of the earth and the air of the sky. You need rest before you can manifest your heart again, House Apidae.”
“I’ll rest when they’re all off my land,” I said grimly. “I’ll rest when this feather is out of my chest.”
“I have long loved your ferocity,” he said, and his dimples showed as he backed it up with a smile.
“How did you know my bees were gone?”
He chuckled. “I couldn’t feel their constant angry hum. Usually, you almost seem to vibrate with your energy and passion. But right now, you feel – lighter. Less full than usual.” He paused. “You had a way to travel very quickly to Glorious Ingvar. Can you use the same method to travel away from it?”
“No,” I said miserably. “The only way I could find it again would be to go back to just outside the city.”
“So, we are on foot – one of us bound – and they are in the sky and all around us.”
In the silence of my answer, I heard a raven shriek.
I barely made out a flash of light in the distance and then I tugged Osprey down.
“Get low! Duck!” I dragged him after me toward a fallen tree, trying to shove us both into the cover provided by the clawing roots from where they reached out searching for the land they’d lost.
He hit his head on a low branch and cursed quietly as I helped to stuff him under the shelter of the spreading branches, keeping a hand on his neck and the back of his head to help guide it under and keep him from hitting it again.
We huddled together, our breath gusting out as one while the raven flew over. Bright gold sparks shivered in the air as it swept over us. It circled a second time, lower. I tried to hunch closer, tried to make myself small, prayed in the silence of my mind.
Skies have mercy. Stars have mercy. Keep us safe. Hold us in the hollow of your hand.
The pain in my chest from just hunching so close to Osprey was intense. What was going on with this feather? I clutched my chest against the pain.
It was long minutes as the raven began to circle more broadly, centering out from where we were. My breath was still caught in my throat, aching and terrified.
“When I was a boy,” Osprey whispered, “I got lost in the late afternoon. I’d been with other boys from the keep and we went far down the beach, hunting starfish. And we found a cavern that was usually full of water, but it was low tide, so we went in it together. But the cavern was dark and twisting and after running through it with the others, laughing, I soon realized I was alone – that the only voices I heard were merely echoes of my own.
“It was too dark to see and as I tried to find my way to the cavern mouth, the water rose, washing over my ankles and then my knees. Frantic, I searched for the way out but only grew more lost, more panicked. Eventually, I found a place to scramble far up into a hollow tucked high up in the rock and I waited and waited there until the water was so high that it brushed the soles of my feet and my bottom as I sat hunched as high as I could go. I waited for it to drown me. And I prayed to whatever is beyond the sky to watch over me and see me to the other side.
“It was a very long time to sit shivering and gasping and hoping. And when, eventually, the water receded, I crept down again, and I heard a voice calling my name and a light swelled into the caverns, and there was my mother. She scooped me into her arms and carried me all the way home, half-sobbing and half-telling me how precious I was to her and how she would never lose me again.”