AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With a jerk that vibrated against my clammy palms, the thunder of hooves turned more hollow. Gravity ceased to exist for long moments. Suspended in the air, I was ripped sideways.
I hit the ground a moment later, my shoulder clashing with the massive root of a tree before I skittered over dirt. Pain exploded inside the joint and the skin along my arm burned as splintered bone chips cut into it. My eyes shot to the horse.
It kept running.
Without me.
Chapter20
Ada
Isnapped for air, pulling the autumn chill down my throat and into my dread-filled chest. What was I supposed to do now? The horse was gone. What remained were several dozen corpses who stared at me none the wiser.
As long as they kept standing, though, they hadn’t overwhelmed Enosh. Still, I couldn’t just sit here and wait for him. Soldiers might come for my head next. Devil be damned, where was I?
A loud rumble answered, along with the salt of the sea that seasoned my tongue each time I groaned in pain. I forced myself onto shaky legs, taking a quick assessment of my state. My cheek burned something awful. Cuts painted one of my arms crimson while the other hung limp and somewhat displaced from my battered shoulder.Dislocated.
I walked toward the deafening boom until my feet met the edge of the cliff. Below, violent waves threw themselves against ungiving rock. Seagulls drifted over the water where something bobbed on the surface…
A man.
A corpse, to be precise. Everyone knew a merchant ship had succumbed to a storm a winter ago, clashing with the rock before the current ripped the sailors asunder. Trapped them there to wiggle on each full moon.
Enosh must have called them to his aid.
My heart clenched and my legs threatened to snap underneath me. Calm. I had to stay calm and think. Panic would get me nowhere but onto a pyre, and Enosh couldn’t die.
But he could suffer.
No, I couldn’t think of that now.
Breathe. Breathe!
I knew where I was.
We called this place Beggar’s Bay, and that name lifted some of the pain. Hemdale wasn’t far from here, easily found if I followed along the cliffs before I cut inland toward the east. Ugh, the pain returned twofold. Hemdale was no safer than any other place out here, perhaps less so. Shouldn’t I return to the Pale Court? But how?
The Blighted Fields lay… what? Half a day’s ride away? Walking there would take me three full ones. I lifted the heavy bone train of my dress and cringed at the blooming bruises.
Make that four days.
I glanced over the quiet fields from which I’d escaped, spotting neither my husband nor a soldier. Still, who could tell what I would run into if I went back there? Enosh had sent me away for a reason.
Bile soured my tongue.
I was just as hunted.
Between the threat of running into soldiers—likelier having my throat cut by vagabonds before even setting eyes on the Pale Court—and a few hours to potential safety with Pa, the choice was simple.
After a quick glimpse at where the sun reflected from behind dreary clouds to make certain I would follow the cliff in the right direction, I looked down at my dress. Aside from the fact that bonemail would earn me suspicion, it was too damn heavy. Beneath it, the lined leather dress remained intact.
I ripped one of the splintered bone scales away from the sleeve, then cut through the strings of leather that held the rows of chips in place so I might slip out of it.
Turning toward the corpses, I gave a few shooing waves at them. “Go away. Or… I don’t know. If you follow, just don’t make it so obvious.”
They followed.
And groaned…
