SWNOVELS The Spymaster’s Prize: Chapter 17
Elia found three more trip ropes before the sun fell, blessedly without tripping over any of them. Cass found several of his own. Each time, he insisted on taking a moment to search the area, sometimes changing course based on what he found.
No matter how she watched, she couldn’t decipher what he was looking for or what he discovered that informed his choices. It wasn’t until he concluded a search around her third discovery and drew his knife to cut the rope that she decided to ask.
“Which direction do we go now?” She rubbed her hands together, wishing she’d brought gloves and wondering how the servants had forgotten to provide them.
“West.” He sawed through the rope with more effort than before. The peak of midday had brought warm enough sunshine that some of the snow had melted, but the temperature had begun to drop.
“And how do you know we should be headed west?”
He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, then beckoned her close and swept his hands through the snow. His fingers were bright red against the white. “It snowed before they came through here. Wherever they stepped, snow compacted. It’s covered by more now, thanks to those storms, but their tracks are still there.” It took a moment for him to uncover one. Sure enough, a hard piece of snow in the shape of a footprint waited beneath the loose powder.
Elia crouched beside it. “This is what you’ve been following?”
He nodded. “Up in the highest parts of the mountains, where the wind’s brisk and snow stays a long time, you’ll find tracks raised above the rest of the snow instead of crushed under it. The tracks are hard. The loose snow blows away and leaves them behind.”
“And if the snow starts to melt, the compacted prints will be the last part to melt.” She pursed her lips. “If only it had gotten a bit warmer today.”
“Better that it stays cold so evidence of their passing stays put.” He stood and wiped the snow from his blade. “We should find somewhere to set up camp.”
She scanned the nearby trees. The light had begun to fade, turning everything a soft gray-blue. “Won’t the snow keep it bright enough for us to keep moving?”
“Light isn’t the concern. It’s the cold. There are heavy bed rolls in what they packed for us, but they don’t do us any good if we get in them half frozen.” He searched the ground with his boot, then oriented himself to the direction of the footprints he found under the loose snow.
Elia hadn’t considered the temperature. She’d never slept outdoors. “Where do we find a suitable camp?”
He took the lead. “We’ll need a thick stand of trees to keep the wind off us. Underbrush would help insulate. Don’t think we’ll find pines here. They’d be good, but I think your country hates pines.”
“I’ll let you decide what will work as a good substitute, then.” She trudged after him, watching her feet and wondering how much farther they might have gone if it had been safe to take the horses. Then again, if they’d been on horseback, Cass wouldn’t have found the trail they now followed. The situation had come together so smoothly, she kept waiting for everything to fall apart.
They walked for another thirty minutes before Cass stopped in the middle of a thicket where brambles curved around half of the trees. “Brush is on the right side,” he murmured, “so long as the wind doesn’t change.”
“It’s been howling from the same direction for days. I’d think more snow would be the bigger risk.” She didn’t hesitate to shed her heavy bags. They thumped into the snow, more shallow here than other places. It banked high on the other side of the brambles.
Cass grunted something she thought was agreement. “I’ll build a fire.”
While he rummaged in the undergrowth, she unfastened the buckles on one bag and searched for their rations. There had been plenty packed, but it was spread through the bags in a way that had made no sense to her. Cass had explained it was so if anything happened to one bag, they wouldn’t lose all their provisions. It made sense, but that she would have put all her food in one place was a stark reminder of how poorly she was cut out for this job.
Instead of food, she found a large piece of canvas. She pulled it out of the bag and frowned when the fabric kept coming, until it draped over her shoulder and made a heap in her lap. “What in the world is this?”
Cass scraped a hollow in the snow with his boot and dropped an armful of wood, then stepped forward to pick up the cloth by one edge. “A tent.”
“Oh!” She brightened. “So we’ll be able to sleep in shelter?”
“Not unless they figured out how to fold up some tent poles in there.” He brushed his hands against his thighs, leaving muddy streaks behind.
Her shoulders sagged. “Oh.”
“And me without an axe,” he grumbled as he retrieved a small box from one of his bags. Inside were a handful of strange packets, alongside flint and steel.
Elia watched as he held one of the packets against the stone and struck sparks until it caught. “What’s that?”
“A firestarter.”
She could have guessed that much from how easily it caught and burned. “What’s inside it?”
“Don’t know.” He dropped it into the pile of thick branches he’d collected and crouched close by, his hands extended. The firestarter must have been imbued with some sort of magic, for it did not go out against the damp ground, and its flames soon licked up the pile without regard for the dampness of the wood.
The growing warmth was a relief. Elia let the tent slide to the ground and inched close enough to hold her hands out to the fire, too. She’d found a pair of gloves in her things eventually. While they had helped, they didn’t keep her fingers from going numb. The heat from the fire was a luxury she already sorely missed. “They’re artisan made, right?”
“Probably.”
“Could you make something like that? With your…” She stopped short, silenced by the way his face hardened. Was his capability as a mage a sore spot? She hadn’t meant to provoke him.
Instead of reprimanding her, he remained silent.
She tried again with a different question. “Why didn’t you tell me you were an artisan mage?”
His shoulders rose in the stiffest of shrugs. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?” She made herself laugh. “You’re talking to someone with the remarkable ability to bake food that cures bad moods. That’s the extent of my ability. Happy cakes.”
The noise he made this time was closer to amusement. “I’m sure you’re popular with the mothers of small children.”
“With politicians, mostly. Bring out one of my cakes during a difficult debate, serve it around the table…” She waved a hand, then moved closer to the fire. It had grown large enough to warm her effectively, and she meant to make the most of it.
Cass fed more branches to the flames. “Everything political is about manipulation, isn’t it? Never liked it.”
“Then how did you become a spy for the Nylmerian crown, instead of just taking advantage of your gift and being a carpenter?” It was a bolder question than she should have asked and she regretted it the moment his eyes darkened, hints of the shield he kept around his thoughts returning in the set of his mouth.
Instead of walling himself off, though, he sighed. “Alessia.”
Elia tilted her head. “Your sister?”
“She made life choices I didn’t agree with. Choices that put her at risk. She’s a grown woman, and older than me, but…” He shut his eyes and frustration creased his brow. “I needed the power to make up for the decisions she made. Authority and skills, so I could keep her safe. I wanted to settle in the foothills, build a cabin on our family’s land. But want and need are different things.”
A sense of sympathy tugged at her heart. “I think that’s the first time you’ve been vulnerable with me, Cass,” she said softly.
He scoffed. “I am not vulnerable.”
“Honest, then. You share so little. Speak so little. Though with a job like yours, I suppose I can understand why.” She sat back on the melting snow and moved her booted feet toward the flames to thaw them, too.
“Maybe you should consider why you speak so much,” he replied with the dryness she’d come to recognize as his sense of humor.
“Do you want me to stop?” When she smiled, he seemed surprised.
His mouth worked a moment before he caught himself and lowered his eyes. “No.”
She hadn’t thought so. A pins and needles sensation returned to her feet, her skin itching beneath her thick woolen socks. She couldn’t scratch, so she wriggled her toes and tried to rub different parts of her feet against the inside of her boots. “I hope you know I’m not making light of you. I know what it’s like to be in that situation. To feel like the needs of someone else always come first, ahead of the things you want. That’s… well, that’s always been my life. My job is making other people happy. Fixing their problems. It’s what everyone expects of me. I hardly know what else to do.”
“Is that what you’re doing now?” His voice lowered, taking a gruff edge. “Making the king happy?”
That stung in a way she hadn’t expected. Somehow, she didn’t think he’d meant it to hurt. “No. But it is me fixing things. I feel like I have to, especially in this. Am I not partially responsible for what’s happened to my friend?”
“Don’t see how you could be.” He dragged his bags closer and dug out a small packet of dried meat.
“Well, I’m responsible for making sure he’s found now. I saw it happen, so I have to see it fixed.”
“And maybe fixing things for other people isn’t your job.” He took a piece of meat between his teeth and held out the rest for her to take some.
It wasn’t her job. It wasn’t her responsibility, and it wasn’t what she wanted to do, but she didn’t know how to reply. Somehow, she hadn’t anticipated having the conversation turned around on her like that. Blindly, she reached to take a piece of her own. “What else am I supposed to do?”
His hand snapped closed on her fingers and he pulled so hard, she almost tipped over. She scrambled to stay upright as he reeled her close.
“Maybe,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper beside her ear, “you need to stop thinking it’s your duty to fix every problem you see.”
Elia’s heart leaped so hard, it threatened to choke her. “What about you?”
“What about me? You trying to fix me, too?”
Her gaze swept up to his and a flutter replaced the tightness in her throat. He watched her with such intensity, such challenge, that she almost quailed. Yet his proximity triggered something else within her, something she couldn’t explain. He was so close, his grip so strong and sure. It struck against the stubborn streak she tried so hard to hide and made it buck to the surface. Determination made her straighten her spine and stare back, unafraid. “You don’t need to be fixed.”
The tiniest hint of a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. She caught herself staring, too aware of the way her pulse roared in her ears. She’d looked at him with too much interest already. Now, he leaned closer and the realization he was looking at her lips tore through her like a lance. The sugarmaker’s earlier warning tickled at the back of her mind.
“Are you a wolf, Cassian?” she asked in a whisper.
The way his dark eyes burned into hers could have answered on its own. “Do you want me to be?”
She couldn’t answer, her thoughts so tangled, his mouth so close. Her heart thundered and her eyes fluttered closed, every inch of her tense with anticipation.
A bowstring twanged and Cass spat a curse. He shoved her to the ground and leaped to his feet, drawing his sword at the same time.
Elia grimaced as her shoulder hit the muddy earth. The arrow hadn’t missed by much, lodged into the ground just past where Cass had been. She snatched it from the ground and shoved herself to her feet as a startled yelp split the night.
A short distance away, scarcely illuminated by the firelight, Cass tore the bowman from his hiding spot and slammed the man’s back against a tree. A knife flashed in the dark, but Cass intercepted with his sword and the blade flipped out of the man’s grasp.
Elia darted forward to grab that, too.
“Who sent you?” Cass snarled as he angled his sword against the stranger’s throat.
The man let out a shuddering gasp and clawed at his belt, but there were no more weapons to be found. Instead, he lashed out with a kick. Cass deflected it with a knee, snared the man’s ankle with his foot, and twisted in place to fling the man to the ground.
“Who sent you?” he repeated through clenched teeth as he pinned the stranger to the snow.
“Bloody traitor,” the man spat.
Cass replied with his fist.
Crimson droplets stained the snow. Elia winced and turned away.
“Here I thought you came for her,” Cass grumbled. “Where’s the sugarmaker’s nephew?”
Silence followed, then another smack of a fist against flesh. The stranger groaned.
“Answer.”
More silence. More strikes. The man grunted and the sword rasped against snow.
“Stop,” Elia gasped.
Cass froze with the blade poised against the bloodied man’s neck, his other hand twisted up in the man’s collar.
The sight made her hands shake, but she balled them to fists by her sides and willed her voice not to quaver. “By the Light, stop beating him.”
The man’s head sagged back and he released a long, wheezing breath. “They sent me for her,” he choked out. “You’re in the way.”
A chill rolled down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold. Elia tossed the arrow aside and tucked the blade into the back of her belt, underneath her heavy coat. “The men who kidnapped Peretor? My friend?”
At first, he didn’t answer, just shut his eyes and grimaced. His lip and one eyebrow were split and already swollen, and blood on his cheeks promised contusions. Cass stared at her, his breath hard but steady. Elia crept forward and rested a gentle hand on his wrist. His grip on the man’s collar eased.
Cass searched her face and she tried to look as calm as she could. Calm was anything but how she felt. They’d been attacked. He’d come for her. And Cass… She tried to take the stranger’s words in stride. Cass was there for information. It made sense that he could have established more questionable ties. She could ask further questions about his involvement in the situation later.
“Put him down,” she said softly.
Cass gritted his teeth. “Rope. My bags. Get it.”
She nodded and strode back to the campfire. It took a moment to find the coiled rope in with his things. She allowed herself another moment to find something in her own bags. The medical kit she’d seen packed with her other supplies was small, but perhaps it would be enough. She carried both back to where Cass held the man, now sitting upright and pinned with his back against a tree. A handful of coins and little oddities littered the snow around them. Cass pulled something else from the man’s pockets and cast it aside as she approached. Close by his side, a small assortment of knives lay alongside a quiver of arrows and a small hatchet. The tools of a woodsman, not those of a killer.
“Tie him so he can’t harm me,” Elia said as she held out the rope, as if she were in charge.
She expected resistance. Instead, Cass took the rope from her hand and tied the stranger fast to the tree.
No matter how confidently she tried to hold herself, her fingers still trembled as she opened the medical kit. She tried to tell herself it was just the cold. As she knelt beside the bloodied man, Cass took the hatchet from where he’d placed it on the ground, brushing his thumb over its edge as he inspected its shape. A threat, she thought. He’d fought with an axe the first time she’d seen him. Maybe it would intimidate the stranger before them now.
“Here, now, let me see your face.” There was nothing to clean him with, but there was a little jar of healing salve that she assumed would still help. She removed her glove, scooped some onto a fingertip, and swiped it over his injuries. The man twitched at first, but grew still beneath her ministrations.
Cass loomed between them and the fire, his shadow long across them.
“You are part of the group that took Peretor from Vinson’s sugarbush?” Elia asked conversationally.
The man glanced at Cass twice before he gave a hesitant nod.
“I’m looking for him, you know. Peretor is a friend of mine.”
“We know,” the man said.
Curious. Elia retrieved more of the salve on a second fingertip. “Is he all right? He hasn’t been harmed?”
“He’s alive.”
Relief flowed through her, letting her relax. “Thank goodness for that. Where is he being held?”
He hesitated.
Cass’s shadow moved.
“A c-cabin,” the man croaked.
She didn’t have to look to know Cass was being threatening. Oh well. She would admit it was helpful, even if she would have preferred to coax the information from their captive more gently. “Which direction is it?”
The man squirmed, decided his arms weren’t going to be freed, then simply nodded toward the southwest.
“Is it far?”
“Another day,” he said.
Farther than she’d expected, but at least now she had an idea of how long they’d have to traverse the forest. “Where else does it hurt?”
His jaw flexed and he bowed his head. “Just my pride, ma’am.”
She stopped short and struggled not to laugh.
“Are you done?” Cass asked in a growl, sapping any humor from the situation.
Elia wiped her hand clean on the stranger’s shirt, not wanting to dirty her own coat. Selfish of her, she thought, yet she couldn’t bring herself to care. “Yes. What do we do now?”
“Leave him. Head south.”
“We can’t leave him in this cold,” Elia protested. “He’d freeze to death.”
“Hardly a loss.”
She twisted in place to look up in disbelief. “You can’t mean that.”
Cass shrugged.
“If you let him die out here in the cold, then you’re no better than anyone among them.”
If that bothered him a bit, it did not show.
Elia set her jaw and leaned closer to the stranger. “Abandon whatever it is you’re doing here. Please. For your own sake, if you want to survive.”
The man lifted his head, questioning.
“Go to Samara,” she murmured. “Find a medic, find somewhere to hide. Anywhere that gets you out of this cold and keeps you out of his way.”
“He’s not going anywhere,” Cass said firmly.
She shot him a defiant glare, snatched a knife from the snow, and stabbed it through the rope’s coils.
He spat a curse and leaped forward as the rope fell loose and the stranger fought his way free. He stumbled on the snow and Cass snagged the back of his shirt, but Elia shoved herself between them and seized his arm.
“Let him go.” The words ripped free of her like a bark, leaving her throat raw.
The man slipped free and sprinted into the dark.
Cass seized her shoulders as if to shove her aside and she gasped. He stopped, staring into the night like a hound eager for a chase, but his hands tightened on her until she ached beneath his grasp. At last, he tore his hands from her and his face crumpled into a snarl. “How could you do that?” he demanded. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“You can’t just kill him,” she fired back. “You can’t leave him here to die. What would that make you? You’d be no better than any of them!”
“And you can’t possibly think he’ll do anything but run straight back to the rest of them! You want them to kill your friend? Is that it?”
“If they were going to kill him, they would have already done it. If he’s in captivity, there’s a reason they haven’t harmed him.”
Cass growled and spun on his heel to storm back to the campfire.
She trailed along behind him, her heart threatening to leap out of her chest. “We’ll move. We’ll keep going until we can’t go any farther. If we go now—”
“It doesn’t matter,” he spat back. “Look around. Look at the snow. You think we have any hope of disguising where we went? He’ll go get the rest of them, bring them back here, and we’ll be captured or worse. Worse, Elia. Have you even stopped to consider what they might do to someone like you?”
Of course she had. She’d always been sheltered, hidden away from the mere possibility of cruel intentions. Her family had chased away friends as readily as they’d chased away suitors, her only taste of freedom that she’d obtained while working in her cousin’s shop.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to spend my whole life fearing the worst of people.”
“You can’t go around assuming the best of them, either.” He snatched the unfolded tent canvas from the ground and scanned the trees, weighing the hatchet in his other hand.
She stopped at the edge of the campfire’s light. “Not even you?”
He grew so still that for a moment, she expected him to reconsider and apologize. All he did was shake his head and toss the canvas aside. “Especially not me.” He stepped over the pile of fabric and trudged toward one of the smaller saplings at the edge of the bramble.
Elia swallowed hard. “Then what now?”
“We sleep. Or try to.” He knelt and struck the base of the tree with the hatchet. It didn’t cut deep; it would take longer than it would with the long-handled axe he’d left behind in his rented cabin. “He’ll find the rest of his band and bring them after us, but we have a few hours and we’re good for nothing if we don’t get some rest.”
It was a reasonable response. Level headed, despite the outburst of anger and violence she’d seen only moments before. She sat next to the fire without another word and watched him hack down the spindly young tree and strip away its branches, fashioning something that might turn the mess of canvas on the ground into shelter.
They did not speak again. His frustration with her was palpable, though he channeled it into his work instead of taking it out on her, and as she busied herself with finding some sort of food in their bags, she reached a decision.
He was a wolf, as dangerous as they come, but she was not his prey.