Night came and we had to stop. Even with a lantern, it was too dangerous to keep going when we weren’t even on the road, and we couldn’t see the wagon tracks at all. It was damned frustrating. I had no idea whether Border would need to stop so soon, or for so long, with an animal to draw his wagon.

  We rose early the next morning and got moving. We kept to the same pace we’d held the day before. We didn’t talk much, and I was glad of it. I was oddly anxious, and I hated knowing that we could be completely wasting our time. Certainly, we could still see the tracks of the wheels, but what if they were the wrong wheels? The temptation to go back to the road was so strong, and it took so much effort not to suggest it.

  I was not made for this kind of work.

  And what did he want with the girl? Why was she so important to him that he’d come all the way to Golden Fields just to get her?

  I supposed that all depended on why he’d taken her in the first place, when she was younger. I had no answers for that, either. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would steal a child, especially when one had no desire to love and raise them properly. All right, Saya had given me a reason for that, for stealing children. But not for keeping them. Children were nothing but work and expense, when you didn’t love them.

  Not that his reason for taking her mattered at all. He clearly hadn’t been treating her properly. She clearly didn’t want to stay with him. And she had a much better life waiting for her at the Source Academy.

  The day passed without our catching up to Border. Or to anyone else. When the light of day began to fail again, my anxiety grew tighter and more intense. I worried that the longer it took us to find Aryne, the less likely it would be that we ever would.

  Then again, did it matter? I had no idea where else to look for the Empress’s relatives, and I didn’t like the idea of going back home without finding them. A part of me thought we might as well spend the rest of our lives wandering this damned island looking for Aryne.

  And then, it started raining.

  And Karish started swearing.

  I always enjoyed listening to Karish swear. He was so good at it.

  We kept going. We had to go as far as we could, before the rain washed the wheel ruts away. And then, once that happened, I didn’t know what the hell we were going to do. Keep going in the same direction, and hope that Border didn’t change his?

  Night came. Karish didn’t suggest we stop. Instead, he lit the lantern, and we pressed on. Maybe he could see the tracks better than I could. Maybe he had an instinct or a hunch, and if he did, I wasn’t going to interfere. I followed him.

  Our first hint that we’d found our quarry was the beautiful lilt of Aryne loudly swearing.

  Followed by the sharp crack of someone being slapped. Aryne was silenced.

  I wanted to rush forward with a roar of anger. How uncharacteristic of me.

  In a few more steps, we could see the faint outline of a tent, glowing from within. Taro blew out the lantern. He and I quietly divested ourselves of our packs, leaving them on the ground. I kept the money with me, though, just in case we found ourselves in circumstances where we had to leave everything behind.

  We crept up quietly, the glow of the tent the only source of light. Because we were moving so slowly, it didn’t hurt at all when I walked right into the wagon. The steer, still hitched to the wagon, didn’t stir. It was asleep, I imagined.

  I wondered how fast a steer could travel. Not nearly as fast as a horse, I supposed. Thank Zaire the islanders didn’t seem to use horses. We would have been completely out of luck if Border had had a horse.

  “Not being drugged again,” I heard Aryne mutter.

  “Don’t need to drug you again, do I?” Border’s hateful booming voice chortled. “Just need to keep you tied right and tight until you remember your place. But if you’re not going to eat it’s not my nevermind. More for me, and you’ve gotten fat.”

  We stepped up closer to the tent. It wasn’t a big tent, though it seemed constructed on the same lines as every other tent I’d seen on Flatwell. Tall enough to stand in. From their voices, though, both of the occupants were low to the ground.

  “Leavy and Taro have loads more money than you,” Aryne said, and it seemed an attempt to taunt him. Why would she do that? “They always had lots of food.”

  “Probably why they left you behind. You ate too much.”

  “Didn’t leave me behind. And they’ll come find me, too.”

  For some reason, it pleased me that she thought so.

  Border laughed. “You’re so stupid,” he said. “Why would anyone but me give two nuts about a useless, stringless little wench like you?”

  “’Cause I’m a Source. They think I have to go to one of their schools.”

  “Sure, when you fall into their laps. But they’re not going to go out of their way to find you. There are millions of Sources up there, properly raised. Who aren’t thieves. Believe me, they’re relieved to be rid of you. And even if they weren’t, even if they weren’t like every other lazy, overindulged Pair in existence, they would have no idea how to find you.”

  “Sure they would. They’re smart.”

  Border laughed again. “They’re smart,” he echoed mockingly. “It’s a Pair. None of them know anything.”

  “Like you would know,” Aryne said.

  “Kai, I would know. I’m from up there. I lived in the coldest city you could ever imagine, and her right whorish Majesty just loved Sources. We had a new Pair every other year, every single one of them as stupid as pigs. All they know how to do is channel. And that Pair must be dumber than most, to be sent to a place like this. So give up your ridiculous little dreams of rescue, bitch. It ain’t gonna happen. And don’t try running away again, neither. I’ll take you up north when I’m ready.”

  Border was a Northerner? But he’d looked like every other islander I’d ever met. And he planned to take her north? Had she known that when she’d come to us?

  “I’m not going to whore for you, Border.”

  “Damn well better not. I see any man sniffing around you and I’ll kill him and break every bone in your face. You’ll be untouched when I take you north or there’ll be hell to pay. By you.”

  I was relieved to hear that Border never used Aryne as a prostitute, and never planned to, but really, what was his game?

  There was no more conversation from inside the tent. That seemed to be all that we were going to learn for the moment.

  Karish ducked and reached into the tent. I heard a yip from Aryne and when Karish reappeared he was dragging Aryne with him. It was a hard job. Her hands and ankles were bound.

  Border, predictably, objected to that with a slew of vitriol. Karish literally dumped Aryne into my arms, and I dragged her away as Border came charging out of the tent and barreling into Karish, bearing him down to the ground with a painful sounding thud.

  “Stop wiggling!” I snapped at Aryne as I lowered her to the ground. My objective was to untie her, but the ropes were thin and tight and already slick with rain. There was no getting them undone without the use of a knife, which I was currently not carrying.

  I couldn’t imagine why, when I left my packs on the ground, I didn’t think a knife might come in handy.

  Border got his knees up under him and started punching Karish in the face and upper torso. Having learned a little something from when we were in a similar situation, I left Aryne and jumped up behind Border, clawing my hands and sinking them into his face.

  Border’s hands rose up to mine and I pulled hard, trying not to think about what parts of the man’s face my fingers might be sticking into. He fell backward and Karish scrambled away. Border twisted and suddenly I felt a huge mass shoved into my stomach, forcing all the air out of me. The pain was incredible.

  The next strike went to my face, landing over my mouth and nose. My head snapped back and my vision blacked out. I landed on the ground hard, the impact stinging along my side.

  I have no idea what happened next. I tried to pull myself away while curling in at the same time, trying to protect a stomach that was burning with pain. I still couldn’t breathe, but no further blows fell on me. That was good, right?

  I couldn’t hear anything. My ears were ringing.

  I probably would have shrieked when I felt a hand grip my wrist, if I’d had the air to do it. An instant later, the pain faded almost to nothing, and I relaxed. Taro.

  His shields dropped. With no warning, damn him. He had to stop doing that. I hastily erected mine around him, and felt him channel.

  Only the channeling wasn’t the natural sort. It didn’t feel like the forces of the world rushing through him and threatening to burst him open like an overripe fruit. Instead, it was like he was pulling the forces to him, luring them in and redirecting them. That meant he wasn’t actually channeling a natural disaster. He was doing something else.

  I didn’t know what. It was all I could do to keep breathing and guard Taro. I wasn’t being struck, and it seemed like Taro wasn’t being struck. That was about all I could hope for at the moment.

  I didn’t really become aware of the vibrations and the rumblings until they abruptly stopped. It took me a while, though, to really hear what was going on.

  Namely, Border swearing and yelling to be released, panic threaded through his voice. A few moments later, I blinked rain out of my eyes and saw what had happened.

  Border was upright, sort of, but he was buried up to his waist, sunk right into the ground. And I realized what the channeling had been about.

  Karish had involuntarily spent time with an insane Source who could do much more than channel forces. He could create natural disasters, and manipulate earth to such a degree that he could actually control how and where it moved. Karish had had ample opportunity to observe him and figure out how to do it himself.

  This was the first time I’d seen him do something so precise. It seemed that he was getting better at this skill as time went on. Which made sense. The more he did it, the better he got.

  Except the first time was supposed to have been the only time.

  “What the hell was that?” Aryne demanded.

  Taro released my wrist. Pain flooded back to my stomach and my face, but it wasn’t as intense as it had been before. I climbed to my feet, a little unsteadily, and felt my way back to the bags Karish and I had left behind. I needed a knife to cut Aryne loose.

  “Get me out of this or I’ll kill you!” Border shouted.

  I rolled my eyes. Knife in hand, I went back to Aryne and started sawing on the rope.

  “Get me out!” Border ordered. “Right now!”

  Karish went into the tent.

  “I was ordered here by the Empress,” Border declared, and suddenly his islander accent was almost gone. “I am part of her personal guard. If you interfere with my mission, you’ll both be hanged.”

  That made me stare at him. He was sent by the Empress?

  Oh. Suddenly, things made a lot more sense.

  I looked at Aryne. “It’s really important that you tell me the truth right now,” I said. “How long have you lived with this man?”

  “All my life,” she said, and the absence of any kind of slang in her words or derision in her tone made me think she was telling the truth.

  Hell. She was the heir. Or Border thought she was. And if he’d seen her as a baby, he would have seen her with the mark.

  “We were sent to find her, too,” I told him. “Because she’s a Source. She needs to go to the Source Academy. And we won’t take ten years to bring her back.”

  “I’m on a mission from the Empress!”

  I sniffed, hoping the sound would denote disbelief.

  Taro came out of the tent holding a rag and, I could see as he got closer, several small jars. He knelt beside Aryne. “Tell me which one smells like what he used on you, Aryne.” He quickly opened the jars and waved them under her nose.

  At the third jar she gagged and jerked her head back. “That’s the one.”

  Taro dumped a bunch of the contents on the rag.

  “Are you stupid?” the medicine man demanded. “I’m here under orders of the Empress.”

  I had a feeling he really was. But so were we. And I suspected he was the reason we’d been sent and gone through all sorts of hell, because he’d felt like playing games and kept the child for years.

  I found it interesting that with all his shouting, Border didn’t mention why he had been sent to find Aryne. He clearly didn’t want her to know.

  Well, neither did we.

  Border shook his head in an attempt to avoid the rag Taro held. Taro grabbed a fist of the man’s hair, keeping Border’s head still while mashing the cloth over his face. Border grabbed at his hands, and when he couldn’t move them began striking out at random. He landed a few good shots to Karish’s torso, but Karish held on grimly, and it wasn’t long before Border’s movements became slower and weaker. And when all movement stopped, Karish held the cloth over his face a little longer.

  “You’ll kill him if you give him too much,” Aryne warned him. “’Course, that might be what you’re after.”

  “No, we don’t want him dead. We just don’t want him able to follow us for a while.”

  Having freed Aryne’s hands, I went to work on her ankles. The ropes were tough, and the knife I had wasn’t designed for such work. “What did he mean about being sent by the Empress to find me?” she demanded.

  “I’m not sure,” I lied. “I have to think about it.”

  “What does someone like that want with me?”

  “Quiet. Let me do this and let me think.”

  Karish was emptying the tent of everything he thought useful. He did the same with the wagon. I relit our lantern and took a good look at Aryne. She had a swollen lip and a blackened eye. Her wrists and ankles had been ripped bloody by the ropes. “See if you can find something soothing for broken skin,” I called out to Taro.

  “You don’t look so good, either,” Aryne said. “Your face is bleeding.”

  I carefully touched my mouth. My fingers came away colored with blood that was quickly washed away by the rain.

  “You’ll look a treat tomorrow,” said Aryne.

  Great.

  I packed whatever Taro was stealing into bags, which he slung over the steer. He unhitched the steer from the wagon. I guessed that meant we were taking it with us. I felt not the slightest prick of remorse about stealing from that man. He deserved it.

  Taro stuck a spade in the ground, close enough to Border that he could reach it if he stretched. He plunked Aryne on the steer and we headed off blindly, in the rain and in the dark, just to get a little bit of distance between us and Border.

  We didn’t go far. We just couldn’t. Aryne was falling asleep on the steer and almost slipped off a few times. We weren’t on a road, so we were in danger of walking into a crevice or something. I hated the idea of stopping so close to Border, but it was too dangerous to go on. We propped up a tent and tried to weigh the steer down by burying its reins in the ground and dumping everything we’d stolen from Border on top of them. After a brief argument, it was agreed that Taro would stay awake for a few hours to act as sentry, and then he’d wake me and sleep while I stood watch.

  The argument of who would stand watch first was merely for form’s sake on my part. I was exhausted. All the new ideas attempting to penetrate my brain were no match for the heavy fog already in residence. As soon as my head was on the hard islander pillow, I was asleep.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  I was roused far too early for my liking, and it was still dark. Taro shoved a mug of cold tea into my hands and muttered something to the effect that everything was quiet before crawling into my blankets on my mat and collapsing. I then had to yank myself out of the blankets without spilling anything. Quite the accomplishment.

  I sat out in front of the tent. I felt useless and stupid. The night was completely black, and we didn’t dare alert any unfriendlies of our presence by lighting a lantern. It was raining and not silent enough. I had no weapon and no skill to use one. If I was anything more than useless out there, it wasn’t by much.

  I really hoped Border wasn’t awake yet. If he came after us right then I could easily be overcome without even getting a word out. But then, he didn’t just have to wake up. He had to dig himself out, a dangerous task at night. And then he’d have to decide whether to leave the wagon behind or try dragging it with him. And if he did look for us at night, he would need a lantern, and I would see him long before he saw us. So, all right, I could provide a useful warning.

  And hey, it had stopped raining.

  I was hungry, but my stomach still felt a little tender from the scuffle with Border.

  Really, all the brawls I was sucked into were just shocking. Shields weren’t supposed to fight. My professors would be appalled. So would my mother.

  All right, Border claimed to have been sent by the Empress to look for Aryne. I had taken him for an islander, but once he dropped the accent he had sounded pretty much like any other Northerner I’d ever heard. And why in the world would he claim to be a member of her personal guard on a mission if it weren’t true? There were so many other things he could have said that would have made so much more sense.

  If he spoke the truth, if he had truly been one of the Empress’s trusted personal guards, sent on this mission and never returning, it might be some explanation as to why she had been so unorthodox in her next choice. But then, why didn’t he go home, if he’d found the heir?

  Unless Aryne wasn’t the heir. Perhaps his luck had been as bad as ours, and he’d feared returning in failure. Maybe he preferred Flatwell to his life up north. I would imagine being in the military involved a lot of hard work and a lot of stupid rules. He’d have a lot more leisure as a traveling medicine man on Flatwell.

  But no, he’d spoken of taking Aryne up north when he was ready. Why would he do that if she weren’t the heir? But if she were the heir, why would he go to the effort of taking care of her himself instead of sending her back home? Either way, it didn’t make sense.