Difficult Girl, page 8
I nod, sinking into his warmth against my better judgment. I shouldn’t attach myself to this man I adore. So many things have gone wrong in my life, and Jonathan’s path has only been limited by being close to me. I don’t want to ruin yet another strong soul, but that seems to be how it goes when I allow myself to breathe.
But here I go, breathing once more, no matter how bad an idea it might be.
13
MOAT MONSTERS
Porting to a site unseen is tricky, but I don’t fully appreciate the learning curve until we vanish from Pavma’s yard and land smack in the shallow end of a moat.
My expression pulls as I try to stand without causing too many waves. “Seriously? Our stuff is soaked now!”
Bodhi’s hand goes over my mouth as we struggle to find our footing. Fortunately, the water only goes up to my chest, so at least I’m not in danger of drowning just yet. “Quiet, Zara darling. We’re soaked but we’re alive—a condition the guards would very much like to remedy if they know we’re here. Moats are meant to discourage drop-ins.”
I nod, closing my mouth tight so not a sound leaks out. Instead of speaking aloud, I make the effort to communicate telepathically. I ensure Bodhi’s hand folds around mine and stays there, no matter how much I itch to run from the permanent nature of our friendship. In this moment, Bodhi is my armor, and I am his.
Maybe I don’t want to run away from our friendship.
Though, of course, we don’t actually have any armor, and I have no idea what I’m doing or how to get buttloads of medicine out of an undisclosed location in the castle without a spare truck to haul it all in.
No matter. We’ll figure it out. If I can learn how to raise a little girl with zero prior training, I can wrap my head around a plan for this.
Probably.
Most likely.
“Definitely,” Bodhi assures us both. I sometimes forget that he can read my thoughts, so I work to tuck them behind a wall in my mind, so they don’t flow out all willy-nilly. He motions to the castle doors that are barred with the necessary iron. “That’s the way in. We can try our hand at porting to the other side and take our chances on what’s waiting for us, whether or not we can pop in undetected. Or we can wait for the gate to open and sneak in manually.”
“Manually,” I rule. “That’ll give us a chance to stop dripping all over the place. We can’t leave a wet trail for the guards to follow if they catch on that the castle’s been breached.”
Bodhi nods and leads the way across the moat, which goes well above our heads in parts. It’s difficult to swim while holding hands and remain silent, disturbing the water as little as possible, but thankfully, there aren’t any guards watching the water. The only one I’ve seen in the area has his eyes on the landscape in the distance, not on the moat. He walks with a lengthy spear, his face frozen in a frown that could practically be made of granite for all its immovability.
I really don’t want to have a run-in with him, so I keep myself as silent as possible, even when the water laps up my nose and nearly forces a cough out of me. My heart thumps erratically in my chest as we swim haphazardly toward the mossy path along the perimeter of the castle. I’m sure it’s not all that wide an expanse, but it feels like a mile, and I cannot for the life of me remember the last time I went swimming.
Do I even own a bathing suit that still fits? I’m pretty sure I had one in college.
That was a lifetime ago. I remember wearing it—a hot pink number with tropical blue flowers over the butt. I remember laughing on the beach with friends, but that didn’t last long. Now it’s a distant memory, and I’m sure my post-collegiate body couldn’t fit into that stringy thing if I tried.
“We’ll get you back to your days on the beach when this is all over, poppet,” Bodhi assures me.
How he can be cognizant of my errant thoughts while swimming one-handed with a soggy backpack strapped to him is beyond me.
“What do women wear to go swimming in your world?”
Bodhi flashes me a mental picture of a woman in a brown dress that goes down to her ankles, the sleeves tight to her wrists.
“So, basically a dress?”
“That’s right. What do women wear in your world to go swimming?”
It takes a fair amount of focus, but I manage to flash him my mental image of me in my bikini.
Bodhi loses his rhythm and flails, gulping in a lungful of water that thankfully the guard doesn’t seem to hear. “So, basically underwear?”
“That’s right, but it’s stretchier.”
“Your world seems like a lot more fun.”
“I’m sure it can be. I’m not the best judge on fun. I’m the ‘do your homework’ mom. Not the ‘let’s go to the beach’ mom.”
“You’re a scandal, is what you are. I won’t accept an explanation other than that. I’ve known you long enough to make my decision firm. Plus, I’ve now seen you in your underwear. Scandal, indeed.”
I snort a laugh, managing to keep my head up as my feet struggle beneath the surface to keep me going at a reasonable pace. “Don’t make me laugh! I’m trying not to drown.”
“Well, trying is the most important thing. If you fail, do let me know.”
“Shut up! Don’t be clever.”
“Darling, I can only tamp down the charm so much. This way.” He gently tugs me to the right, nearer the gate and away from the rock that seems strategically placed to be a pain in the butt for intruders.
I follow his lead, but then muffle my lips through a quiet shriek when something slithers against my leg. “What was that?”
“What?
“Something touched my leg! Is there a shark in this moat?”
“Not a shark. Careful. Don’t kick your legs too noticeably. You don’t want to wake them.”
“Are you freaking kidding me, Bodhi? Something is in here!” I fight to keep my panic silent, but it’s a full-time job, and I’m already putting my heart and soul into not drowning.
Again, the sea creature slides across my thigh. It’s bulky but flexible, like a fat eel or something. I squeeze Bodhi’s hand so tight; he winces and loses his stroke, making us both temporarily flail. “Keep quiet! Whatever you do, don’t draw attention to us.”
“Get us out of here!” I scream in his mind when the eel wraps itself around my ankle. “It’s squeezing my leg! Help!”
The snake starts to pull me under the surface. No matter how hard I struggle, the snake is stronger, and finally, the water closes over my head.
I don’t have a plan but fortunately Bodhi is a quick thinker. He ports us out of the water and onto the shore in front of the gate (which, really, I can’t think why he didn’t do that in the first place).
The eel ports with us, since we were all connected, giving me a glimpse of the massive snake as it coils around my ankle. “It’s a water snake!” Bodhi informs me, as if that should mean something while my ankle is in danger of being squeezed clean off. My mouth opens and a silent scream makes my back arch as the moss squelches beneath us.
I grip Bodhi’s hand as his free one reaches down to his side, flashing a dagger I rarely see him wielding. The light glints on the thing as it plunges down into the snake’s skin.
The thing is massive—easily six feet long and fat as a basketball as it writhes and uncurls from my ankle with a hiss that has a tinny, shrieking quality to it.
Guess the beast didn’t get the memo that we’re trying to be quiet, so we’re not found out.
The guard catches the sound and rushes toward us, glimpsing the snake as it slinks back into the water, leaving a trail of purple blood on the grass near us.
I don’t know if the guard saw the snake appear out of nowhere, or if he’s going to write it off as an oddity of nature that a moat snake would flop onto dry land and bleed all over, only to slink back into the water to lick its wounds. I can’t think all that far beyond the agony that rings through my ankle and up my leg.
Bodhi’s hand goes over my mouth as the guard approaches. We can’t scurry away, because surely the smallest noise would be easily heard from this close. The guard’s spear is menacing, as is the stalwart expression on his stony face that seems to have never heard the word “mercy”.
I close my eyes and see the world through Bodhi’s view instead. It’s surreal because I can see my two French braids in his periphery. I can see the guard with his towering physique that would most likely make actual skill in fighting unnecessary. I can feel my heartbeat and Bodhi’s banging loudly, the rhythm thrumming in sync with the guard’s menacing footsteps as he approaches.
He sniffs the air and then turns his head left and right. So quick, I nearly scream, the guard launches his spear into the water, and a few seconds later, the injured serpent’s tail surfaces, and then the rest of the dead or dying body. The man bends down when the serpent’s body bobs his way, snatching up his weapon before he moseys back to the outer edge of the perimeter, across the stretch of land that connects the castle to the outside world.
I dare not exhale. I still won’t budge an inch from where I sit with Bodhi’s body propping mine up from behind.
“That was too close,” Bodhi says to me inside my mind. When he sees I’m still freaking out, he distracts me with a history lesson. “They’re ancient, those serpents. They served the king and the king’s father, and his father before that for generations. Sometimes he sets them loose in the ocean to attack the people if there’s been an uprising or talk of one. This is where he keeps them when the people are sufficiently quieted.”
“You could have warned me!”
Bodhi grimaces. “Oops.”
I cast him a glimpse of a glower, but I can’t hold onto the indignation because my ankle is quite unhappy. “It hurts, Bodhi,” I admit only to him. It’s a true sign that I trust Bodhi. Otherwise, I would never dare to admit the weakness. But I sense that powering through in this circumstance would be a bad idea and might set us back further if I don’t fess up before I try to put weight on it.
“I know, poppet. You’re lucky it didn’t bite you. Their bite is deadly.” His eyes stay on the guard, measuring the gap between us and the soldier’s deadly spear before he judges us safe to make a minimal amount of noise by attempting to stand. Bodhi rises first, his hand in mine as he circles me and attempts to pull me up slowly.
I bite my lower lip through a bleat of pain that thankfully, the gently lapping waves drown out. “My ankle’s no good, Bodhi. I can’t put any weight on it. Ah!”
“Back to the mountain, then,” Bodhi rules. “We can’t very well keep going like this.”
Stubbornness rises in me, my jaw setting against bowing out. “Oh, yes, we can! Just give me a minute.”
Bodhi fixes me with a look of sheer pity as I stand on my good leg only. His compassion only riles me up more. “Darling, I’m calling it. Let’s go back to Garlan’s home while we’re still in two beautiful pieces.”
“I’m not going back without the medicine,” I tell him, anger fueling my fire and narrowing my gaze. “I’ll not bring Connery to the place where he was mentally tortured, his will stripped away from him. Not a chance. He doesn’t even know how to ask for food when he’s hungry! If we go back now, Connery is going to insist he comes to the palace. You know that would be bad for him. It’s bad enough that I have to take you here. If there were any other way, I wouldn’t let you inside the castle either.”
Bodhi purses his lips as I lean on his arm to keep myself upright, ignoring the sounds of soldiers shouting from inside the gate. “You can’t make it five feet! You’re going to get us caught if you make noise while you’re limping along. And how do you expect you’ll be able to carry more things on your back? And it hasn’t escaped my notice that we have no way to move the medicine from here to the mountain.”
I squeeze his hand. “We’ll port it out. You and me both. We don’t have to walk it out of here. We can zap it out, two armloads at a time. And since Garlan is dead, we can zap it to his house on the mountain, and keep moving back and forth like that, until the load is depleted from the castle. Once you have the location, you can port there more easily, right?”
Bodhi’s reply comes slowly. “I suppose that’s true. And if we can find the medicine and port some of it back, I can leave you at the house and take Felix and Fritz with me to grab the rest while you sit down and give your ankle a break.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I’ll not leave a job half-done. And there’s no way you’ll be able to port Fritz and Felix over and over without tapping into my magic. We do this together, or not at all.”
Bodhi sighs, and again I hear commotion from inside the castle gate. “Fine.” But I can feel his hesitance and wonder if it’s going to rise up and bite me later. I make a mental note to keep him close, which isn’t hard, since we have to stay physically attached for the vanishing charm to work on me. Then Bodhi straightens. “I’m worried about porting us inside because I don’t want to accidentally land on a soldier. We need to wait for the gate to open.”
I nod, exhaling that I might have a solid hour or so to rest my ankle.
I don’t expect the iron bars on the gate to slide outward so soon. I’d thought we’d be waiting here for a good portion of the evening, but when the clanking sound bangs behind us, Bodhi’s eyes widen and he lets me use his arm to hobble to the side, in case any horses come flinging out at us with riders astride them.
Thankfully, nothing more urgent than a changing of the guard takes place, which gives us the perfect opportunity to slip inside the gate unnoticed.
The glimpse of nature waves goodbye as the iron doors close behind us, trapping us in the palace courtyard that is all stone and doom.
We made it inside, but now that we’re here, it is clear that we are unprepared for the scene unfolding before us. “Hang him!” comes the voice of a guard who is standing beside none other than a bound and beaten Pavma.
14
PAVMA’S DEATH
Once again, Bodhi’s hand covers my mouth to keep me from shouting about the injustice unfolding before my very eyes. There he is—our friend who hid us, believed in us, took a chance on us, and is now going to pay dearly for that crime. Terror and heartbreak shoot through me, knowing that Pavma is in this precarious position because of us.
Actually, it’s because King Artifice is insecure and requires unswerving loyalty, even when his ideals are terrible.
We’re in the courtyard of the castle—the space between the iron gate and the towering building made of stone that’s covered in discolored moss. There’s a hanging post smack in the center, as if killing civilians is what they all do for funsies.
Pavma has been badly beaten about the face. He stands favoring his left side, which makes me think his ribs have been bruised as well. His countenance is downcast, not speaking in his defense or begging for clemency.
I take a step forward, but Bodhi holds me back, his hand still over my mouth. “There is nothing we can do for him now,” Bodhi says over and over in my mind as he moves us to the side. Though we are invisible, he keeps us tight to the shadows, so we have an extra layer of coverage from the two dozen soldiers who have congregated for the killing of one of their own.
Indignation flares inside me. “Are you kidding me with this? He’s in this mess because he helped us! They know he harbored Connery and you!”
Bodhi swallows a lump in his throat. “Yes, and he’s about to die for it. If there was a way we could save him, we would, but there isn’t. Trying to do so will only get us all killed, and his sacrifice will have been for nothing.”
That painful stubbornness that keeps me up at night races through my spine again as my mind pushes the boundaries of reality to make way for any possible solution to this problem. “The answer isn’t that Pavma dies. That’s not how this ends for him!”
Bodhi keeps his hand over my mouth in case I decide to go rogue and randomly shout my grievances about the sorry state of this monarchy. “It’s how it will end for all of us who dare stand against the king or help those who do. Pavma knew what he was getting himself into when he helped us.”
“No! No, this isn’t… Just let me think. I will figure this out.”
Bodhi shakes his head. “You have until that noose loops round his neck and pulls.”
Tears prick my eyes, clouding my ability to think critically. All I can see is Pavma drawing his last stuttering breath while he closes his eyes, taking his sentence without begging for mercy or common sense to win out, which he has every right to do.
But we both know mercy isn’t coming for him, and these soldiers lost their hold on common sense the second they started locking up their kin.
The soldier holding Pavma in place spits on my friend.
And just like that, my anxiety solidifies into action.
I squeeze Bodhi’s hand. “Leave me here.”
Bodhi stiffens. “Daft girl. What are you muttering about?”
“Leave me here for just a second. Port invisibly to Pavma, port him out of here to the mountain, and then port back to me. I don’t care if it makes me sick. Do it now. It’s the only way.”
Bodhi all but shouts in my mind. “Are you insane? I’m not leaving you exposed for even a second! If you’re found out, it’s all over. You get that, don’t you? My power to do all this is linked to your lifeforce. You carry inside of you the missing magic of many that would die along with you if you were found out.”
The rope is tossed over a high beam on the hanging post in the courtyard, and I know we’re nearly out of time.
“Now! Bodhi, do it now! So quick; they won’t see us. Grab Pavma without letting your invisibility down. Take him to the mountain and then come back for me! Go! It’s the only way!”
“They’ll find you,” Bodhi worries, turning me to face him. “They’ll find you and it’ll all be over. Not just for me, but for the entirety of the people. I need your lifeforce to be able to get the medicine out of the castle!”
