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“The sachem wanted Lily safely surrounded by all his braves as soon as possible,” Tristan said.
Rowan looked pleased, but Lily hesitated. Alaric was eager to have her back, and Lily was pretty sure it wasn’t because he missed her.
There was also a part of her that was insulted. Tristan had called them Alaric’s braves, but nearly all of them were Lily’s claimed. As she thought of them, she could feel them. Her army. They raced to join her, impatient to be near their witch again. She smiled to herself. They didn’t belong to Alaric. They belonged to her.
“Juliet’s excited to see you,” Tristan added. “She wanted to come with Caleb and me, but Alaric thought it would be safer for her to stay with him.”
Lily looked at Tristan sharply. Before the battle with Lillian, Lily had asked Alaric to watch over her sister. He’d kept his word, but for some reason Lily wasn’t grateful that he had. The word “hostage” kept echoing through Lily’s head.
“Lily?” Rowan asked, concerned.
Alaric wasn’t her enemy, but she didn’t want to make the mistake of assuming he would always be her ally. Especially not if she asked him to dismantle the thirteen bombs. Lily looked at Caleb and Tristan. They both wore Alaric’s war paint. Too many of the people she loved were tied to him. She wanted Juliet away from Alaric, just in case.
“I wish she’d come,” was all Lily would say.
“You’ll see her tomorrow,” Rowan said with an indulgent smile. He didn’t even suspect that something else was troubling her. Lily was getting better at hiding her true feelings from Rowan. The thought made her sad.
They rode deep into the forest for the rest of the day, always on the alert for Woven, and Lily was exhausted by the time they made camp. She’d spent the night before in agony with a dislocated shoulder, and then she’d lost a lot of blood that morning to the pale Woven. Rowan wasn’t in good shape, either. The two of them ate quickly and fell asleep together by the fire while the comforting sounds of their friends’ voices lulled them into a dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER
12
The next day they started at the crack of dawn. Lily’s only comfort was that Breakfast looked even more miserable than she did.
“I wasn’t cut out for the cowboy life,” he said, rubbing his sore bottom. “But now I know why John Wayne walked like he was holding a grape between his butt cheeks.”
They all mounted up, some more stiffly than others, and started cutting a quick and quiet trail through the trees. As they moved south, the temperature rose a little. It wasn’t spring yet, but in the area that Lily knew of as Virginia, winter was loosening its grip a little.
Lily kept seeing flashes of an animal with light-colored fur between the thick brush. She couldn’t see it clearly enough to know what it was, but she could sense it out there in the trees—keeping close, but not attacking. Lily got the feeling they were being followed by the pale coyote Woven, but she didn’t bring it up. She didn’t want to get into another argument with Rowan about it. She knew he’d probably say that if Woven were following them, they would have attacked already.
They reached Alaric’s camp just after nightfall. As they rode in, Lily could feel a giant weight lifting off Rowan’s shoulders. He no longer had to be on guard every second, and he dismounted eagerly to greet old friends and fellow braves. Lily got off her horse slowly. She felt the awareness of her presence rippling through her claimed. They stared at her with a reverence that made her uncomfortable. The first to come forward was a young woman, barely out of her teens.
“You saved my husband’s life by making him strong in battle,” she whispered. “Thank you, Lady.”
“And mine,” another woman said. She rubbed her pregnant belly. “And my child’s life.” The woman said something that sounded to Lily like “meegwetch.” Lily didn’t need to be told it was a word of thanks.
She smiled and nodded at the women, and dozens suddenly streamed forward, all of them speaking in Sioux or Iroquois or some blend. Lily even thought she heard some French, and an amalgam of languages that she couldn’t even begin to fathom washed over her. They offered her things—clothes, beads, salt, and herbs. Overwhelmed and speechless, Lily looked around frantically for Rowan, and finally found him in the gathering crowd.
Please tell them it was nothing, and that right now all I want is a nap.
Let them give you their thanks. What you did by claiming them and climbing on that pyre saved all of their lives. No witch has ever fought with them before.
Yeah, well, I don’t deserve to be worshipped for that.
Ah, the price of greatness. Smile and wave, Lily.
Lily wanted to throw something at Rowan’s head. He grinned and abandoned her there with Breakfast, Una, and her Tristan to help her accept gifts. In between polite smiles and gracious nods, she watched Rowan as he made his way to Alaric. They embraced each other like brothers and immediately left with the other Tristan and Caleb to talk privately in Alaric’s carriage. Lily frowned, feeling like she should be the one to talk to Alaric.
“Lily!” Juliet called as she zigzagged her way through the crowd.
Lily gestured for her sister to join her. “Juliet! I’m dying over here.”
Juliet laughed as she hugged Lily. “I’m glad you’re back.” She pulled away and scanned Lily from head to toe. “You look like hell.”
“Save me?”
“Can’t. You have to stay here and take it like a big girl. We’ll talk later,” Juliet said, still grinning from ear to ear. She looked good. Her dress wasn’t fancy, and the turquoise beads around her wrists were a far cry from the sapphires she used to wear, but her cheeks were rosy and her eyes shone. Juliet hugged Lily one last time and then negotiated her way through the crowd toward Alaric’s carriage. Lily noticed that the guards flanking the entrance let Juliet enter without a second thought.
