Bound (Bound Trilogy) (24 page)

“It happens. I survived, and he eventually realized that instead of getting rid of a rival, he could use me to strengthen his own power. When our father put him in charge of keeping peace in the outer provinces, making sure that no one who opposed him was able to make trouble, Severn took a more aggressive approach than others had in the past. He got rid of those people. Not personally, but he made sure it was taken care of.”

“Taken care of by people like the gang that attacked my group on the road to Ardare?” I thought I knew where this was going, but I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want a reason to be afraid of him again.

“He uses people like that for big jobs. Out of control crowds, guarding his own safety. A lot of the time, though, Severn relies on subtler methods of getting things done, methods that are actually more frightening for his enemies because they don’t understand what’s happening and can’t prepare for it. He doesn’t want people to be able to prove that he’s responsible for these things that happen to them. He can’t be openly accused of murder. Or massacre. Or—”

“I get it.” I shuddered, remembering the magic hunter my brother told me about. It had been so easy to forget.

Aren crouched in front of me and looked into my eyes. His looked pained. Angry. “I don’t think you do. The rest of us all support Severn. There’s nothing else for us to do. He won’t allow rival sorcerers to live, not if they’re any kind of a threat, not even if they’re family. I hate him, but I do what he wants. Or I did, until I met you. I had no choice. I’ve been well-rewarded for my efforts, though. I had a good life in Luid, and often I didn’t even feel badly about the things that I did, or the things I’m still doing to keep us safe. I think my brothers enjoy it. Wardrel has killed children while their mothers screamed for mercy and laughed while he was doing it.”

My hands gripped hard onto the edge of my chair. “You’re not like that.”

“No, I’m not him. But you have to understand that while what I do is subtler, it can be just as cruel in its own way.”

“The mind-control.”

He nodded. “I’m good at it, too. My methods aren’t perfect, but I’ve incited riots by working on a few key people and using their influence to set off a crowd like an explosion. I’ve turned people against their own brothers, wives, parents. I once made a man kill his best friend, a Sorcerer who had plans to challenge my father. That one drowned himself when he realized what he’d done. I’ve never killed a child as far as I know, but I’ve probably made a few orphans.”

“Probably? You don’t even know?”

He stood again and moved a few paces away. “No. I do my work, and I get out of town before anyone knows I’ve been there. I don’t enjoy what I do as much as Wardrel does, and I don’t mastermind plans like Severn does, though I am one of his close advisers. But I’ve done as much damage as any of my family. Severn made me what I am, and it was his idea that I learn how to do this. As I said, he doesn’t know everything I’m capable of, but—”

I stood and pushed past him on my way back to the window, cutting him off. I managed to keep control of my voice, but I didn’t want him to see the foolish tears blurring my vision. It shouldn’t have mattered. I shouldn’t have cared what he was, as long as he helped me.

I’d known that he killed people, but that had somehow disappeared under everything else that had happened. This was bigger than I’d realized, more horrifying. The lack of emotion in his voice as he spoke about it gave me chills.

“I just don’t want you to see me as something else and be hurt by it,” he added. “I’m not proud of what I am.”

I laughed, and the sharp noise that came out was completely unfamiliar to me. “You’re not sorry, though, are you?”

His reflection appeared in the window next to mine, then grew smaller as he withdrew to the sofa. “For a long time, I wasn’t. It felt good to be appreciated by Severn after years of being ignored by everyone, to have something I was really good at, to be serving my family the way I was brought up to. But I also hated myself for letting Severn use me, though I don’t know what I could have done differently. There was no way out. When Dorset Langley shot me, I thought that perhaps dying wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to me. Then you came, and I had no choice but to live…”

“And what?”

“I don’t know. Your magic reminded me of things I’d tried to forget. Broke me, somehow.”

I leaned my head against the window, then stepped back and closed the curtains in case anyone could see the light from outside. I turned back to him. “And then you left me alone. And when you were surprised to see me on the road that day, you decided to help? I don’t understand.”

“Rowan… No.” He leaned forward and pressed his face into his hands. “Yes, I was surprised to see you. But that’s only because I thought we’d find you at Stone Ridge. We were on our way to take you in. I’d told Severn about you. I had every intention of letting him have you, because that was the best thing for me, because it would help me get ahead.
That’s
who I am.”

It felt like I’d had the wind knocked out of me. I couldn’t speak. “So up until the last minute…”

“Yes. I’m sorry.” There seemed to be genuine remorse in his eyes when he looked up. “It was wrong—”

I didn’t care about his remorse. “You’re damned right it was wrong!”

“—and I realized that as soon as I saw you. You don’t know how difficult it was for me to walk off that ship with you. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and at the time I didn’t even understand why I was doing it.” His voice was growing louder. Agitated. Perhaps angry.

“And now I’m what to you?” I demanded. “A suicide mission? An attempt to make you feel better about yourself, or to find some kind of redemption before your brother kills you?”

“No, it’s not like that.” He looked up, and I turned away.

“I meant what I said earlier,” he said. “I like you. I wish my life was like the past few days have been, maybe minus the being chased by people who want to kill us. It’s been good to get away from what my life was, and better because you’ve given me something else to focus on. But it’s still there. That’s still who I am, and it’s not fair to you for me to pretend that I’m something I’m not.”

That bitter laugh escaped me again. “Nothing about this is fair,” I said, fighting to keep my voice even. My insides churned with anger at his willingness to hurt innocent people, disappointment that he wasn’t who I’d come to think he was, and embarrassment for the fact that I’d been stupid enough to care. “Sleep wherever you want, just leave me alone.”

I didn’t mean to slam the bedroom door. It just happened. And for the first time since the start of the whole adventure, I cried myself to sleep.

#

That night I dreamed that a dragon was chasing me. Not Ruby. This one was much darker than her, and cloaked in shadows. I ran, but its glowing eyes came closer with every step I took. A wooden bridge appeared in front of me, spanning a dark canyon. The boards looked rotten, but the hot breath on the back of my neck forced me forward. The dragon stopped its chase, but the bridge gave out under my weight, and I fell.

And then I was dancing. My dance partner was taller than me, dressed all in black. His hand rested lightly on the waist of my blood-red dress, pulling me close as we moved together. The dance was perfect, but wild, fast and spinning and thrilling. It was nothing like real life, where I had trouble finding the beat of the music and my feet always seemed to get in each other’s way. We moved through a crowd of people, all faceless, none of them important, none of them as real as my dance partner. My heart beat wildly, and every inch of my body seemed more alive than it had ever been. The soft fabric of my dress caressed me with every movement, and my skin tingled where my partner’s body pressed against me.

I pulled back and lifted my face to see Aren looking down at me, his expression as unreadable as I’d ever seen it. The music stopped, and he walked away.

I tried to follow, but those faceless people kept getting in my way, bumping into me and turning me around. Someone grabbed my arm. It was Callum, smiling and trying to take me back to the dance floor. I knew I was supposed to be relieved to see him again, that I should want to dance with him again, but I kept looking over my shoulder hoping that Aren would come back and cut in.

Callum kissed me. It was sweet. It was nice, and it felt safe. But for some reason I wished I was still being chased by that dragon.

#

Sunrise found me wearing an old pair of coveralls and too-large rain boots, cleaning the chicken coop and searching for fresh eggs. I hadn’t slept well after the strange dreams, and I thought that focusing on a simple task might give my mind enough space to sort things out. The conflict in my brain was only making the pain in my head worse. The stink in the coop didn’t help, either, but there was only one thing I could do about that.

Three chickens flapped past me and out the door when they woke, but a brown-feathered hen stayed on her nest, eyeing me warily. She gave a warning squawk when I tried to reach under her. Broody. I left her and went back to work.

“It’s so stupid, isn’t it?” I asked her. “I knew what he was. Is. I saw him control people at the inn. I’ve heard stories about his family.” The hen shifted and fluffed her feathers, but gave me no answer.

I set the rake down and leaned on the handle. “It’s just that in the past few days, I forgot about that. I knew it, but it didn’t seem to fit him anymore. When I used to wish for adventure, when I wanted to learn about magic and see more of the world, I never imagined it happening with someone like him. He’s interesting, sure. And when he has these moments when he seems like a decent person, and like maybe he sees me as more than a problem, or a secret Sorceress. He said he likes me.”

“
Brrrrrrk
?”

“Not like that. I don’t know what that dream was about.” I squeezed my eyes shut to chase away the lingering images. “But I was starting to think of him as a friend, I guess. Or at least someone I could trust. Then he reminds me he’s actually a remorseless killer who forces his way into people’s minds and turns them into monsters, just in case I forgot that. I mean, even in the past few days he’s killed people, and with no more remorse than you’d show for killing a mouse. Oh, and by the way, he was also planning to kidnap me so his brother could do God knows what to me. And this after I saved his life.” I sighed. “I don’t want to stay with someone like that. Staying is a bad decision. Isn’t it?”

He’d help me if I wanted to leave. He’d draw me a map to the nearest town, or maybe help me find the Wanderers again. He’d probably take me there, even knowing how dangerous it would be.

“And that’s the problem, isn’t it?” I said, and got back to work turning over dirty bedding. “I still don’t think he
is
a monster. Or if he is, he’s changing. He helped me get away from Severn and whatever was supposed to happen to me in Luid. He gave up everything. I don’t know. I believe him when he says he’s not a good guy. He’s definitely not prince charming. Not that I’d want him to be, mind you.”

The hen let out a flurry of clucking noises and stretched her neck toward the window.

“Oh, what do you know? You’re a chicken.” I set down a fresh layer of straw over the old. The mess below it still didn’t smell appetizing, but it would keep the chickens warm. I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Yes, he’s very attractive, and sometimes I get this feeling like there’s something between us. He can be so charming when he wants to be, but I can’t trust that, can I? That’s what he does. He manipulates people.”

I forced myself to think rationally and tried to forget about those gorgeous brown eyes. “It doesn’t matter what he looks like, or that being around him makes me feel good, at least when I’m not mad at him. He’s going to help me get this binding thing taken care of, he’ll have done what he promised, and then we’ll go our separate ways. Nothing else makes sense.”

The chicken just watched me with those dark, beady eyes, showing no sign that she cared either way. I sighed. “I miss Aquila. He was a better listener.” I didn’t feel any better for having talked things out, but I thought I was closer to making a decision. There was one thing I needed to know, that would decide whether I could stay with Aren. I stripped off the coveralls, washed up in the freezing water from the outdoor pump, found a few eggs that were fresh enough to eat, and went back inside.

Aren was still asleep when I passed through the sitting room. I’d been pleased earlier to see that he’d taken my advice and slept as a human after all. He didn’t look comfortable sprawled on the sofa with a light blanket pulled over him, but at least he was getting some rest. It was a good thing no one had sneaked up on us during the night. He didn’t even seem to hear the door open.

The smell of eggs frying and bread toasting soon woke him, though. He stood and stretched, and the cracking noise from his spine made me wince.
Definitely needs a proper bed tonight,
I thought.

The main room had grown warm overnight with the wood stove and the fireplace burning. Aren wore soft sleep pants, but no shirt. I tried not to stare at the lines of his bare chest and stomach when he stood and folded the blanket onto the sofa.
Not like that, remember?
  He pulled a shirt on before he turned to go down the back hallway, and I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. I couldn’t remember ever having so many confused feelings about one person.

Breakfast was ready when he came back and sat at the table. His hair was a mess, there was a faint line across his cheek from the folded blanket he’d used as a pillow… and he looked way too good. I turned away and went back to get the food.

Who cares what he looks like?

He smiled tentatively when I brought his plate over. “Thanks.”

“Yeah. I mean, you’re welcome.” I sat across from him. “I’m going to ask you something, and you need to answer me honestly, even if you think it’s not what I want to hear. No tricks, no side-stepping, no vague responses that I can interpret as I choose. Can you do that?”