The Great Spice Road continued around the Mountains of the Moon, a narrow and winding path through the thick forests hemming in the range. A chill clung to the air as we traveled deeper into the woods, and when I looked up, I saw snow on some of the mountaintops.
I took out the shoes, humming to myself as Opal trotted toward the mountains, and I checked my work from the night before. Only after a while did I realize I was humming the little tune Edan often whistled.
Of course, his enchanter’s ears had heard me. Chuckling, he brought his horse closer to mine so that we rode side by side. “It’s a good song. Quite catchy, if I may say so.”
I wasn’t ready to talk to him. Ever since he’d almost kissed me, the air between us was heavy. Different.
I gave Opal a kick so she’d break from Rook’s side and ride ahead.
“Don’t ride in the sun,” Edan called after me. “Your freckles are multiplying.”
I glared at him, shouting, “You know exactly what a girl wants to hear!”
But I did guide Opal into the shade, cursing Edan under my breath—and my hammering heart. How his teasing got under my skin! How it made my heart pound and set my cheeks aflame. My brothers’ jokes had never done that to me.
Edan caught up with me, looking more solemn than before. “Are you upset with me, Maia?” He managed a little grin. “I was joking about your freckles. I like them very much. Every one of them.”
His eyes were too blue. I looked away from them and groped for the right words. “Why do you enjoy tormenting me?”
He paused for an agonizing second; then, curse him, he simply blinked, looking confused. “Tormenting?”
Demon’s breath! How dense could he be?
A tight reel of words had been weighing on my tongue all day, and now I could not stop it from unspooling. “All this teasing, and pretending to care about me.” My hands wheeled in wild circles, as if mimicking the way Edan’s moved when he talked might help him understand. “And the other night when you tried to kiss me, I thought—I thought you might—”
I stopped, a hot burst of embarrassment flaring across my cheeks. Suddenly I wished the earth would open and swallow me up.
Gods, what had I just done? What had I just said?
I jumped off my horse, but Edan caught my arm before I could go. “You thought I might what?” he asked. All humor had fled his voice, and I couldn’t bear the intensity of his gaze.
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
“Maia—Maia. Look at me.”
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
Edan wouldn’t let me go. His voice turned soft. “You thought I might care for you?”
I pinched my eyes shut, mustered a scowl. “I said it was nothing.”
“It wasn’t to me,” he said, still quiet. “I wasn’t pretending. I do care.”
Now I looked at him, half sure I’d find a grin on his lips and a mischievous twinkle in his eye, but there was none.
“I do care,” he repeated. “But when you’re an enchanter, there isn’t much time for romancing. No girl has ever caused me to question this.” His voice became even softer, if that was possible. “Then again, none of the girls were you.”
My knees wobbled then, and my scowl fell out of place. “Me?”
“You’re quite oblivious at times, my xitara.”
“Stop teasing me,” I said, my lower lip quivering. “It isn’t funny.”
Edan’s broad shoulders tensed, but his eyes—his deep, sapphire eyes—were clear. “I tried to tell you, but I thought—” He inhaled. The Edan I knew was never at a loss for words.
“Thought what?”
He took a step closer to me. “I thought you found me disagreeable.”
Another step. “I do,” I said, my breath catching in my throat. Edan’s gaze burned through me, and despite what I was saying, my body did not rebel against his coming closer. “Highly disagreeable. And impossible.”
“And arrogant,” Edan murmured. Our noses touched. “Let’s not forget arrogant.”
“How could I?” I said breathlessly.
He drew me close, practically lifting me off my feet, and kissed me.
His lips pressed against mine. Gently at first, then with increasing urgency as I started to respond with my own need.
His hand was tight on my waist, holding my wobbly knees steady. His other hand slid up my back, finding the end of my braid and undoing it. Then his fingers raked through my hair, loosening it into waves off my shoulders.
He let me go then, as if he remembered I needed to breathe.
Edan took a step back. His jaw was tight, his shoulders squared.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“No,” he said, raising his hand to keep distance between us. He sucked in a breath. “This is wrong. It was a moment of weakness.”
A twinge of hurt sharpened in my chest. “Oh, I see.” My face was hot, and I turned away before my humiliation could become too much to bear.
“Wait, Maia.” Edan reached for my arm. My sleeve slipped through his fingers. “Don’t—”
“Don’t what?” My voice came out wounded when I’d meant for it to sound harsh. “Make up your mind, enchanter.”
“I told you the other day…that you…you make me wish things were different.” Edan opened and closed his fists. He let out an uneven breath. “I don’t want to give you false hope. And I don’t wish to be selfish. You deserve someone who can be with you. That someone isn’t me.”
“Then you are being selfish,” I said. “Don’t kiss me, then tell me I should be with someone else. Don’t—” Don’t make me fall in love with you. My tongue stopped, unable to say it. “Just don’t.”
I ran for my horse, bounding onto the saddle and kicking her to a gallop. The rush of wind did little to help my heart stop pounding in my ears, but it was good to be alone. I needed to be alone.
My emotions were tangled, and I didn’t know how to sort them. What did I feel about Edan? Did it even matter? He was a servant to his oath, unless Emperor Khanujin freed him.
He would spend a thousand years as a slave to magic—while I would sew a few dresses for the new empress, then be lost in the vast sea of time and history.
How was there any hope for us?
“Maia,” he called. “Maia, please. Wait.”
I wouldn’t look at him.
Opal and I sped for the Mountains of the Moon. This time, Edan didn’t try to catch up.
Opal reared back and snorted as soon as we entered Moonwatcher’s Basin. A shower of haze and mist greeted us from the pass ahead, and I looked up at Rainmaker’s Peak, so tall it pierced the clouds. A shiver came over me.
“Let’s not go this way,” Edan said. They were the first words he’d said to me all day.
My back was to him, and I sucked in my cheeks.
“Why not?” My voice came out thick with irritation, my tongue heavy from lack of use. “I studied the map. If we don’t go this way, we lose two days. Time isn’t on our side, as you often point out.”
“I’d rather avoid danger than take a shortcut to save time,” Edan replied.
I pressed my lips into a tight line. I wouldn’t look at him.
I patted Opal firmly. “Come on, love. It’s fine.”
Obediently, she trotted forward. The land sloped downward like a shallow bowl. But my breath caught when I saw a sword staked in the ground. Beyond were arrows, many with crimson plumes, some erect and others slanted, as if a careless tailor had punctured the earth with his pins and needles.
Then Opal balked. She wouldn’t go any farther, so I dismounted.
The scene before me turned my stomach. Broken drums, slashed war banners, mounds of bones—human bones. And bodies.
“Soldiers,” I whispered with a shudder. I’d never seen a battlefield. Never even seen a dead person.
Over time, rain had washed the grass clean of blood, but the soldiers’ uniforms were still stained. Some of the men had frozen to death. I could tell from their ashen faces, tightly drawn blue lips, and curved-in shoulders—the snow had buried them and preserved them until the thaw. Others weren’t so lucky: vultures and other scavengers had long since eaten their flesh. Only a few still had their eyes—which stared ahead blankly as I approached.
“Maia!” Edan called from behind. “Maia, don’t.”
But I’d already crouched beside the nearest corpse. The smell made me want to retch, but I kept it in me. What was left of the boy’s face was moist from recent rainfall. He’d been struck three times—arrows in his knee, his abdomen, his heart.
He couldn’t have been older than Keton.
I hugged my arms to my chest, holding back a sob. Finlei and Sendo had died this way—alone, yet not alone. Hacked by a sword or impaled by an arrow. Sendo…Sendo had died in these very mountains. His body was somewhere among the thousands strewn around me, rotting under a coat of earth and snow. I wouldn’t even recognize him if I saw him. Just thinking about it made me want to weep.
“Are you all right?” Edan said quietly when he caught up with me.
“Were you—” My voice choked. “Were you…here?”
“No.”
Of course not. If Edan had been here, more of the emperor’s soldiers might have survived. We’d heard of Khanujin’s miraculous victories. I’d always thought they were because he was a fighter equal to none, like his father. But now I knew…it was Edan. Edan whose magic was worth a thousand soldiers. Edan who had enchanted the emperor into a ruler, a warrior, a man A’landi loved and esteemed.
It had always been Edan.
“But you were a part of the war,” I said, clenching my fists. “How could you…”
Edan didn’t reply. He simply wrapped his arms around me. I could feel his steady heartbeat, and it soothed me. It felt too soon when he let go.
I didn’t venture deeper into the pass. Nor did I complain when Edan led me back the way we’d come.
We were almost to the horses when the wind began to bluster. Something was wrong—I could tell by the way Edan stiffened.
“Mercenaries,” he said, pulling me behind a rock and pushing my head down.
My pulse spiked, and I peeked out.
Balardans. I recognized Orksan’s brother among them. Vachir.
My muscles tensed, and I reached for the dagger. I counted at least a dozen, no, two dozen men. We wouldn’t stand a chance against them.
Edan crept back to my side. He’d gone to the horses for a bow that I’d never seen before. It was almost as long as I was tall. “When I tell you to run,” he said, “take Opal and make for Rainmaker’s Peak.”
“I’m not leaving here without you.”
“I’m a decent marksman,” he said sternly, “but you’re not. Together, we’re not going to cut down thirty men.”
I swallowed. “I thought they wanted to capture you.”
“That would be preferable,” Edan said tightly. “But the shansen isn’t a picky man. They’ll settle for killing me if I prove too difficult.”
As if Edan had summoned them from their hiding places, men rustled among the bushes on the hills. Arrows glinted in the sun. Archers.
My world began to reel, and all of me went numb. If we fled to the valley, the archers would kill us.
But if we stayed where we were, the foot soldiers would kill us.
I couldn’t move. My feet had rooted themselves into the earth. All I could do was watch the men run toward us, shaking their weapons and shouting battle cries that were lost in the wind.
Vachir led them, the string of coins and teeth around his neck jumping as he ran. He wore the same faded tunic I’d seen at dinner with Orksan and Korin—the tunic whose frayed sleeves I had mended for him.
“Surrender!” he boomed, loud and deep. “Surrender now, enchanter.”
Edan lifted his bow, pulling the string wide across his torso as he aimed. He fired three arrows in quick succession. Vachir eluded each shot, but the men behind him weren’t as lucky. Two fell. Vachir let out a shout, and his mercenaries stopped running. They reached behind their backs for their bows to return Edan’s favor.
Edan grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me behind a wide oak, pressing my back against its trunk. Arrows zoomed straight for us. Three, four, five arrows plunked into the oak’s bark, grazing Edan’s thigh and missing me by only a hair’s-breadth.
“Go!” Edan barked, pointing at the mountains up ahead.
I didn’t budge. “I’m not leaving you.” I held Edan’s dagger in my left hand, and with my right, I brandished my magic scissors.
“Happy as I am that you’re using your scissors,” he said dryly, “I’m not sure if this is the appropriate time to sew something.”
I ignored him and began cutting at the bush in front of me. As the scissors snipped, all I could think of was something to shield us from the furious onslaught of arrows. A minute later, I had crafted a brambly, densely woven thicket around us.
A round of arrows arced into the air. “Get down,” I cried.
Edan and I fell to our stomachs. “I must commend the creative use of your scissors,” he said between breaths.
The arrows pierced my barrier with strident plunks, and I choked back a cry. The thicket was dense enough to trap the arrows within its branches, but it wouldn’t hold for long. “Will you stop talking and get us out of here?”
Edan threw his cloak over me. His pupils dilated, his eyes yellowed. “Stay very still.”
Birds exploded from the trees. Swallows, falcons, hawks—there had to be thousands of them, so many that their wings raised a powerful wind, blowing apart my wall. I covered my face with my hands as the birds flew over us toward our attackers. Wings beat, shrieks echoed, and talons glinted as the birds dove and clawed at the mercenaries. Vachir yelled at his men, who had stopped shooting at us and instead pointed their weapons at the sky. “Push forward! Fire at the enchanter! The enchanter!”
Few listened to him. Dead birds fell, thumping to the ground, and all around them men screamed, clawing at their faces to try to get the birds off. But it was as if Edan had instilled in them some wild, violent spirit. The creatures were mad and bloodthirsty. They moved like a turbulent black haze, following the men who tried to run away. I almost pitied them. Almost.
Edan’s eyes blazed yellow now, and his face had gone very pale.
Then the clouds darkened. Rain pounded from the sky, and lightning struck the trees, making them topple down upon our attackers.
Beside me, Edan crouched, his arms folding over his legs as he began his transformation. Feathers sprouted over his skin and spine. A pair of wings erupted from his shoulders and fanned down across his arms. And with a flash, that familiar golden cuff anchored itself to his left talon.
Go.
He flapped his great black wings and soared up to join the birds, a shadowy fold against the dark sky.
I picked up Edan’s bow and ran toward Opal and Rook. “Come on!” I shouted at them. I vaulted onto Opal, grabbing her by the mane. “To the peak!”
The horses didn’t need a second warning. They galloped at full speed through the storm. I glanced over my shoulder once to see the birds descend again and again upon the men. Their screams grew distant, fading as I left them behind.
I didn’t look back again.