Arrows of Promise (Kingmakers Book 2) (15 page)

The story was a sweet one. Riana would have followed it up
with a question but she had arrived at a road that she didn’t know, and the
road they had been walking on ended there. “Right or left?” she prompted them.

Bria and Darisa blinked, as if realizing that they were
supposed to be navigating, and then looked around to gather their bearings.
Then they frowned and looked to each other. Riana could decipher their
expressions well enough and groaned. “Ye both do no’ have a clue.”

“Not one,” Bria admitted frankly, craning her head around to
look again. “Edvard’s convinced so many storeowners to move to the settlement
that the shops all are different now, as other businesses come in to take their
place. This doesn’t look familiar at all. Darisa?”

Putting her hands on her hips, Darisa growled, “Where’s Seth
when I need him? We should have been paying attention while we were walking.”

“It’s my fault,” Bria admitted. “I knew that Riana isn’t
familiar with this section of the city; I was supposed to be guiding her.
Alright, let’s backtrack the way we came. Eventually we’ll be in a place we
know again.”

They reversed and started the way they had come. Riana paid
better attention this time, trying to put this place into memory, so next time
she wouldn’t be so confused.

Estole, fortunately, wasn’t
that
big. They’d work
themselves free of this maze eventually.

Where in the devil was he?

Riana and Ash had come over this morning with the intent of
practicing. Ash was back on his feet again, stronger than before, although not
quite at full strength. They had deemed it a good day to go out try. Staying in
Estole had been promptly vetoed as neither of them could walk the streets
anymore without being bombarded by requests. The settlement was the better
option for this practice.

She had been in and out of these woods on a regular basis
for over a month. Riana knew them well. So why couldn’t she find him anywhere
here, by sight alone if not by feeling? While they were supposed to be
practicing, they had set up a safeguard and marked a certain area to stay in.
She’d been all through it and couldn’t find hair nor hide of him.

The only option was that he was in the settlement somewhere.
Growling in vexation, she turned smartly on her heel and headed that direction.
He’d sworn to her he wouldn’t work on anything while over here, but old habits
did die hard. Was he secretly working or checking up on something? If he was,
she was going to give him quite the earful.

Riana was so aggravated with him that it took a second for
her to realize that she was feeling a spark of something in the back of her
mind. An emotion not her own. It was one of forced patience. Oh? Was she
starting to pick up other emotions from Ash, finally?

That made her a little happy. Almost happy enough to
momentarily forget she was irritated with him. Her steps slowed a mite as the
thought occurred: why would he be feeling forced patience? Surely not because
of her, not when he’d left their area. Had he been dragged into something after
all?

A little worried now, she quickened her step and headed
directly into the settlement, trying to discern where this emotion was coming
from. Where had he gotten off to? The settlement wasn’t that big of a place,
not yet, but it wasn’t the tiny little camp anymore they’d started out with.
Ash had built a great deal before collapsing, the people that intended to live
here had been very busy building, and then Tierone’s wizard, Parlan, had been
pushing day and night to get things built. With all of that concentrated
effort, the settlement had naturally grown by leaps and bounds. It was more
like a town now. It had several paved streets, proper houses were in various stages
of construction along the streets, and of course the framework for a warehouse
for food storage. Even the docks had expanded while she hadn’t been looking and
now could hold up to eight boats without strain.

Riana stopped at the edge of one of the streets, closed her
eyes, and tried to really concentrate. She was starting to pick up more now.
There was the forced patience, sparks of…amusement? But even though she felt
him a little better than before she still had no sense of direction.

Giving up, she went with common sense and started from where
she was, mapping out a search in her mind of what places to try. Eyes peeled,
she went down that street, trying to spy her missing wizard.

As she walked, she picked up other little sparks of
emotions, nothing solid but very fleeting: Minor annoyance, something that
might have been a prick of pain, as if he had poked a finger with something
sharp, and other things of that ilk. None of these were emotions that she felt
from him when he was working magic. So whatever he was doing, odds were, it
wasn’t magic-related. Just what had he been dragged into?

Well, he wasn’t on this street. Switching to the next, she
continued. The emotions were coming somewhat stronger now, or at least she was
getting better at deciphering what they were. It was becoming increasingly
obvious to her that whatever Ash was doing, it wasn’t by his own choice. That
feeling of forced patience was very strong and judging from the random flashes
of irritation, his patience was running thin. Had something gone very wrong
that people needed his help? If so, then why wasn’t he using magic? She was
almost positive he wasn’t, as she wasn’t feeling any change in his magical
core. After two weeks of monitoring him, she was hyper sensitive to that.

Curiouser and curiouser.

It took changing streets three times before she heard his
voice, raised in exasperation. “I do appreciate the sentiment, truly, but I’ve
been here for over an hour now. Riana expects me to be somewhere else.”

“She’s a capable sort, she’ll find you.” A familiar male
voice responded. Was that Emil? “Now pay attention. You’re like to take a hand
off if you don’t.”

Completely baffled now, Riana followed her ears around the
carpenter’s shop and to the back, where the actual workshop sat. There she
finally found Ash, sitting on a bench with a hammer in one hand and a box of
nails at his elbow. He was set to put together a series of wooden crates, or so
it appeared.

Emil looked up at her entrance and greeted her with a smug
grin, or at least she assumed it was under that ginger beard of his. “There,
see? She found you fine.”

Ash gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

Now that she’d found him, and knew he was well, her
irritation eased. Crossing both arms over her chest, she greeted the pair of
them. “Lads. Care to tell me what ye be doing?”

“As to that, Miss Riana, we all talked after Ash was taken
back to Estole.” Emil readily jumped into the explanation. The tone almost made
it sound as if he had rehearsed this in his head, just in case. “It came to us
that perhaps he wouldn’t have collapsed like that if he had done more with his
hands and not relied on magic as much. And then we thought, schooled as he was,
and without a father growing up, that perhaps no one had taught him to work
with his hands.”

She felt it as much as saw it, the moment when realization
hit Ash and he felt the loss of something he should have had but was denied as
a child.

Emil, oblivious to this, kept talking. “So we decided that
when next he came, we’d all take him and teach him the basics of things. We
can’t afford him overworking himself like that again and to my mind it’s not
healthy either, using magic to solve all problems. Good hard work can do the
trick more often than not. So if you don’t mind, Miss Riana, I’d like to borrow
him for another hour until I’m sure he’s got a good grounding in woodworking.”

Ash was giving her a look that begged her to say no, she did
mind, and for her to take him away. But Emil’s argument was a good one and she
saw his point. Ash did rely a little too much on his magic because it was what
he was comfortable using, and also because he didn’t think of doing it with his
own hands instead. Oh, he was aware that people could and did build things with
labor. But for some reason he acted as if doing it that way didn’t apply to
him.

No, the settlers here had the right of it. If nothing else,
it would be good experience for Ash. So she smiled at Emil and said cheerfully,
“No, I do no’ mind. It be a good thought, Master Emil. By all means, teach
him.”

Her wizard gave her the most betrayed look that ever graced
the face of a man. She smiled at him, using it like a shield, and parked
herself on the bench next to his.

Watching this exchange, Emil cleared his throat. “Miss
Riana, by chance, do you know how to build crates?”

“As it happens, I do,” she admitted. And quite a few other
things, to boot.

Ash pointed a hammer at her. “Prove it.”

Taking the hammer from his hand, she picked up three nails
and a board. Then placing it on the frame, she gave the nail a quick tap to set
it before hitting it hard, driving it completely home with a single blow.
Picking up another board, she set it the same way, and within a minute had one
side in place.

“How’d you do that?” Ash demanded, astonished. “It takes me
at least four blows to get a nail in! And most of the time it goes crooked
halfway in!”

“Practice,” she purred at him, beyond amused at his
response.

His competitive spirit sparked. She felt it thrum along
their bond and Ash promptly took the hammer back from her, grabbed nail and
board, and set himself to try and copy what she had done. Emil gave a cough
that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. With his hand covering his lower face
like that, he well could have been hiding a smile. Riana sent him a wink on the
sly. Nothing like a little competition to focus an unwilling student.

Ash did not magically learn how to get a nail in with just
two blows after watching her, and he had her demonstrate several times how to
do it. His hammering skills did improve, though, so that he no longer bent the
nails. Or was forced to take out nails because the board slid on him. It took
the full hour, but he eventually got the crate together and was as proud of it
as if he had given birth to a child.

“Good!” Emil approved. He lifted it in his hands and looked
at it from every angle. “Yes, good. It’s sturdily built.”

Ash beamed at him.

Emil clapped his hands together. “Now. Next thing.”

Freezing in place, Ash gave him an unnerved look. “This
wasn’t the only thing?”

“Of course not,” Emil chided. He had a very parental look on
his face, the one that said a child had just asked a silly question. “We
noticed Miss Riana always does the cooking for breakfast. So next you’ll go to the
inn so Mistress Violet can teach you a few recipes.”

Riana was all for this as she thought it only fair that Ash
cook at least some of the time. So she grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him
off the bench. “Come along, Ash.”

Pointing an accusing finger at her, he grumped, “You’re
enjoying this.”

Aye, as a matter of fact, she was.  

It didn’t end at making a crate and a learning how to fry
flat bread. No, of course not. Although seeing Ash try and fail to make the
simplest version of bread four times in a row was vastly entertaining, the
people here had a full list of things for him to learn, and didn’t let him
dwell on any one thing for more than an hour or so. Riana followed him from one
thing to another, internally snickering although she didn’t dare let it slip
out onto her face. Ash would have strangled her.

He went from cooking to sewing—nothing more than a simple
seam and buttons—and from there to leatherworking. Leatherworking, at least, he
seemed to know something about. Riana had a notion this was similar to
apprentice work he had done long ago and so it was not so foreign to him.

After that he went to the fields and helped with planting
some of the potatoes that were gathered. Riana’s group of child-helpers had not
been idle in her absence and had been racking in money by finding potatoes on
their own. They had almost a full field planted now. It warmed Riana’s heart to
see it, as this could feed a lot of people through most of the winter months.
The strain of the uncertain future eased.

It was there that Ashlynn and Broden found them, elbow deep
in soil and potato sprouts, with children and adults swarming about them.
Ashlynn put her hands on hips, arms akimbo, and surveyed the scene. “Ash, I
know that I said you shouldn’t use magic at all for this whole week, but
planting by hand?”

Ash straightened and gave his twin a sour look. “The people
here have gotten it in their heads that I collapsed because I overused my
magic—”

“You did,” she pointed out.

Glaring, he continued as if she hadn’t interrupted, “—and
that I overused my magic because I don’t know how to do anything by hand.
Hence, I have been run all over this place learning how to cook, sew, do
leatherworking, carpentry, masonry, and now planting.”

Ashlynn’s eyes went wide, a smile turning up the corners of
her mouth. “Really. Have they really? Oh, that’s marvelous. And hilarious!
You’ve become an apprentice settler.”

Helmi, nearby, overhead this. One eye squinted up in a
judicious frown, she grabbed a sack of potatoes from nearby and thrust it at
Ashlynn.

Blinking, Ashlynn looked down at her in confusion. “Yes?”

“You plant too,” Helmi ordered firmly.

Ash slapped a hand against his leg, roaring. “You just got
apprenticed right alongside me, sister dear! Get planting.”

“No, sweets,” Ashlynn responded, trying to reason with the
little girl, “I’m just here to check up on things, I don’t have time to plant
anything—”

Helmi got a stubborn look on her face and pushed the sack
right into Ashlynn’s stomach, forcing her to take them or have a bag dropped on
her toes. The wizard grabbed them out of reflex more than anything else.
Broden, chuckling, put a hand on her shoulder. “Lass, I think we can spare an
hour or three. Planting will no’ kill ye.”

“But, Broden—”

“Green, leafy bit stays on top,” he instructed with a grin.