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“Fine, he can come. We leave within the hour.”
Petrik tries to offer up apologies while we get ready, but I silence him. “You came through when it mattered. That’s good enough for me. Quick thinking to put the tools in the smithy’s kiln for me.”
“I never betrayed you,” he says. “I hope you know that. I wasn’t in contact with my mother. We’re not close at all. I never gave her any information about you or your sister. I would never do that.”
“I know.”
While he collects food and supplies, the healer offers up the use of her cart. Though I know she believes we can’t save my sister, she takes pity on me.
The cart itself is wood, but the wheels and axle are metal. I magic both to help Temra have a smooth journey on the road. Let the wheels absorb any bumps.
We help ourselves to the smithy’s horses. He doesn’t need them anymore, and we attach two to the head of the cart, lie Temra bundled in blankets in the back.
Then the healer hands me a vial. “This will keep her under while you’re on the road. You have to administer it every day. Give her too much, and you will kill her; not enough and she will wake and be in agony and maybe become injured further.”
She gives me the dosage, and I accept the vial wordlessly.
Kellyn ties Kymora to the other side of the uncovered cart. She’s bound with what looks like no less than a hundred ropes, from her neck to her ankles. A gag keeps her from talking.
When he has her situated, I look away from the woman while we make our way to the edge of town. The three of us sit on the driver’s bench in silence.
Kellyn offers his hand to me, and I don’t accept it.
Kymora may be directly responsible for injuring my sister, but Kellyn could have stopped it.
If he’d just listened. My sister is more important to me than my own life. He knew that. But he came after me instead.
I would feel guilty to accept his hand or any other comfort he tried to offer, knowing that Temra is hurt.
It isn’t long before I can’t stand not to be near my sister. I hate that Kymora is in the back with Temra. If I hadn’t broken the warlord’s knee, she could have walked alongside the horses.
I climb into the bed of the cart and position myself between Kymora and my unconscious sister.
It’s a week to the capital, and that’s exactly how long the healer expected Temra had to live.
We’re cutting it too close, but this is the only option I have.
With the last of my family on one side of me and the woman who murdered my parents on the other, I close my eyes, hoping this journey will be smoother than the last one.
