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Because there was no pathway to or from the spring, no opportunity for this man to carry me off.
A spark of hope.
I focused on breathing through my nose, no matter how my brain clouded with each tiny intake of air. Malyr would look for me; Sebian would hear me if I screamed loudly enough. Until then, I wouldn’t let this one take—
“Shift!” The shout came with the chill of metal pressing against my cheek. A burn followed, searing along my skin as a blade cut a pathway of pain through my skin. “I told you to… Yes, there we go.”
We emerged from a burst of pain, flapping our wings in panic. Flee. We had to flee. We had to fly. Away. Away!
But our wings soon turned heavy. Our heads drooped to the cold stone to the twitching scratches of talons over rock. Then we stilled, our beady eyes blinking the man in front of us in and out of focus. Handsome. Black hair. Trimmed short.
Lord Aros.
He shoved us into sacks.
* * *
Ocean.
It was my first thought as traces of salt and algae climbed into my nostrils, a caress of familiarity that, for just a moment, cradled me in a sense of safety—wasn’t it for that burn on my cheek, the pain second only to that jarring tug in my chest. Where was I?
With my cheek pressed to the damp wood on which I lay, I blinked my heavy eyelids, my surroundings cast into a veil of fog. Actual fog, its swathes blurring the shadowed figure sitting in front of me to the splash of oars coming up from the water.
Muscles burning from the weight of the net that kept me trapped, I turned my head toward Aros under its tight constraint. “Where are you taking me?”
“As far away from Malyr as possible,” Aros said, his attention drifting over the water. “It hurts terribly, you know, being physically separated from your bondmate. I’d say Ammarett should do.”
Straight to the enemy.
Dread struck my chest. “You’re taking me to Ammarett? On a boat?”
“There’s a ship waiting for you farther out to sea. The king himself is expecting you.”
A whole-body shiver worked its way into my flesh, but it was the wintery chill out here that drove it into the marrow of my bones. “This is why you came to Valtaris so early, isn’t it? To get close enough to me for your visions to work. You saw me going to the spring. Alone.”
“A duck in disguise, isn’t that what your lover called you?” He gave an unhurried turn of the oars. “It’s a strange gift, and the goddess rarely showed me anything helpful. Quite the opposite, really. But this…?Thiswas helpful for once.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Is it not obvious?” Scoffing, he locked the oars, patted down his brown outfit, then brought forth something that sat on the palm of his hand, which he reached through a hole in the net. “Chew on this. It’ll keep you sedated enough, making it impossible for Malyr to tell where your bond calls him.” When I hesitated, he smacked his tongue. “I am no violent man. I’d rather have you just take it like I asked, but make no mistake… I will do what is necessary to make it so.”
I opened my mouth, allowing him to let some of the pieces—bark, from what it looked like up close—tumble onto my tongue. The rest, which was a generous handful, he tossed into his mouth to chew away on it… sedating himself?
“For years, I had to watch how he kissed my mate right in front of me. At night, my visions made me watch how he fucked her. You want to know what was even worse?” He unlocked the oars and kept rowing, slower now, with a slight sway in his upper body. “Watching how he slowly rejected her. I would have tolerated a lifetime of Malyr being with my mate, so long as he made her happy and gave her what she needed. But no, he had to break her heart—that last thing of her that hadn’t already been destroyed in those fucking dungeons.”
My heart fought the effects of whatever I was chewing, wanting to thresh in my chest… only to be forced into a slowing rhythm. “And to avenge her death, you’re handing me over to the very people who have done that to her? How is this fair?”
“Fate’s not fair, Galantia. Besides, it’s not about you… it’s not about you at all,” he said to the sound of the oars lifting from the water before he slowly pulled them in again. “I think we’re here. Anyway, I want Malyr to suffer. I want him to hurt the way he hurt Lorn, and the only way to achieve that is by taking away his bondmate.”
The shadow of a ship fell over me, cooling the air by several degrees to the sound of men shouting commands. “If you do this, you’re hurting your own kind. How can you betray us like that?”
“We have Valtaris now,” he said and carefully rose, balancing the boat toward me. “Even without you by his side, Malyr is strong enough to take Ammarett. It’ll merely take him longer. But then… I’d assume the king will use you as leverage to make sure Malyr stays put. Guess he’ll have to decide what is more important to him: keeping you alive or getting his revenge.”
“He’ll kill you,” I spat. “Malyr will find you and kill you.”
With chuckle, he grabbed another handful of those wooden pieces from his breeches and tossed them into his mouth, swaying on his legs as he grabbed one of the wooden cleats of the ship. “I doubt that.”
Two men climbed down the rigging, the thud of their boots on the boat putting a rocking sway into the small vessel. One of the men, a soldier donning the red colors of King Barat, grabbed the net which held me and slung me over his shoulder.
