Chapter 140: Unwilling Goodbyes

Then red eyes. Wolves. A gap in the trees and the long, sick pounding of its own heart as it ran.

Emeric let go and sat back on his heels. His hands shook.

"They’re alive," he said.

Corin stared at him. "What?"

"The team. They’re in a clearing, and they can’t move. A mage with bone totems paralyzed them. He left beasts to watch."

The ring of stable hands had gone silent. Pip’s mouth hung open.

"Get Gaius," Emeric said. "Now."

Gaius arrived in under two minutes, buckling his sword belt with one hand. He listened without interrupting, and when Emeric finished, he nodded once.

"I’ll have fifty knights mounted in an hour."

"No."

"My lord?"

"Eight. Including us." Emeric was already crossing the yard toward the stables. "A mage who froze eight trained men with one word is not afraid of a column of fifty. If we bring an army, we give him an army to freeze."

"Eight is nothing."

"Eight is better, trust me. He’s expecting someone to come, and he’s expecting more." Emeric pulled a saddle from its peg and threw it over a horse. "I want to be at that clearing by midday."

Gaius caught his arm. His voice was low and hard.

"Baron. You are not going."

"Yes, I am."

"A baron does not charge into a forest after a mage. You have a wife, an estate, and a Guild that is waiting for a reason. You send me. You send the knights. That is the whole purpose of having them."

"A baron who sends other men to die so he can stay in a warm house is exactly what the last one was." Emeric pulled the girth tight. "I’m the only one who has seen what’s in that clearing. I’m the only one with a chance of breaking it."

Gaius held his gaze. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

"Then I’m coming."

"I was going to ask you to stay."

"You were going to order me to stay and guard the house. And I’m telling you no." Gaius turned and bellowed across the yard. "Six men! Light kit, fast horses, move!"

Emeric watched him go. Something in his chest eased, a small, stubborn thing, and he didn’t examine it.

Within the hour; Isolde was awake.

She sat by the bedroom window in her chair, a lamp burning on the sill beside her, her shawl pulled tight around her shoulders. She was dressed, her hair pinned up. She had not been sleeping. She hadn’t been pretending to.

She looked at him when he came in. She looked at the blood on his sleeve. She said nothing.

"You heard," Emeric said.

"The whole house heard."

He crossed to the wardrobe. His hands knew the work.Gloves. The water flask. A coil of rope. He pulled Bjorn’s sword from its corner, unwrapped the cloth, and checked the edge. The blade gave a faint pulse of light, and he rewrapped it quickly.

"Where?"

"The Marrowood. West. Two days’ ride, maybe less."

"How many?"

"Eight. Gaius and six knights, and me."

"Eight." She said it quietly. "Against whatever did this."

"Against a mage, probably. He’s using totems. Paralysis." He stopped with his hand on the strap. "I can break it. I think I can."

"You think."

He turned.

Her face was very still. Her hands were gripped together in her lap so tightly that the knuckles had gone pale.

"Isolde."

"I’m not asking you to stay." Her voice shook once, then steadied. "I know you can’t. I knew it when I heard Pip at the door. I knew you’d go."

"Then—"

"I’m asking you how long." She looked up at him. "And don’t tell me for two days. That’s how long it takes to ride there."

He opened his mouth. He found he didn’t have an answer.

"Three days," he said finally. "Four. If they’re alive, if I can get to them, if the forest cooperates."

"If."

"Yes."

She nodded, slowly. She turned her head toward the window, where the lamp threw a gold circle on the glass.

"You came back from the marsh bleeding," she said. "You came back from the herd with your arm torn. You came back from the locusts half-dead, and I held you, and you told me it was nothing." She swallowed. "I counted. Every time you came through that door, I counted whether you walked or were carried."

"I’m sorry."

"Don’t apologize. I’m not blaming you." Her voice cracked on the last word, and she pressed her lips together until it passed. "I’m so tired of waiting for you to come through a door."

Emeric crossed the room and knelt in front of her chair. He took her hands. They were cold.

"I’m not leaving to be brave," he said. "I’m leaving because they’re mine. They walked into that forest because I asked. If I stay here and let them die, I couldn’t look at you."

"I know." She squeezed his fingers. "That’s why I’m not stopping you. That’s what makes it so unbearable."

A long silence followed. The lamp hissed. Somewhere below, a horse stamped against the cobblestones, and a knight laughed, short and nervous.

"If you don’t come back," she said, very low, "I will never forgive you. And I will have to live in this house, alone, knowing that."

"I’m coming back."

She laughed, a wet, broken sound. A tear slipped down her cheek, and she dashed it away with the heel of her hand.

"I’m sorry," she said. "I’m being ridiculous. I’ve been crying at everything lately. Tatia says it’s the stress, and she’s probably right, but this morning I cried over a bowl of porridge."

Her free hand had drifted down while she spoke. It rested low on her stomach, lightly, the way you rest a hand over something you are afraid of waking. She didn’t seem to know it was there.

Emeric noticed. He put it down to nerves, the way a person’s hand drifts to a sore place when they’re scared.