Wicked is the Curse.

11 | Camp

Chapter Eleven | Camp

They spent two more days traversing the forest paths.

The soldier Lakron had trudged behind, barely keeping back a sob as he walked on that shattered ankle. The salted scar on his cheek bloomed red and purple. Behind that pain, Aire saw his rage growing. An injured animal was a dangerous one. 

 When he fell back once again, the Bloodbound ordered two soldiers to carry him for the day. They had grumbled at Lakron, but when the evening fell, Brice was called open to heal his ankle.

She didn't say anything. No one did, but Aire wondered why they would rely on magic if they hated it so much.

No more flowers bloomed at Aire's feet. Paranoia gripped her and she stared hard at the dark forest floor was any sudden blooms of colour. Flowers. It must have been madness. She talked with spirits and mapped paths in her mind.

Death and life did not twine together.

Perhaps the flowers had been there before.

"Do you hear that?" Anluan whispered.

"No." Nyeth winced as she walked, her breathing sharp. "I can only hear the blood thundering in my ears."

"Hmmm," Anluan's voice was a breath. His hands twitched in their chains, his gait awkward and unbalanced. "Voices. Men and women."

"We are not diverting course," Aire commented.

"Why should they divert us?" Nyeth asked. "They are Crimson soldiers, accompanied by a personal soldier of the Emperor. No one would dare attack them."

"We are valuable cargo." Aire tried to look through the closely packed trees, but the forest gave nothing away to her.

They continued for a while before they heard what Anluan had. Voices, cloying together and disrupting the flow of the forest. A Crimson muttered a word of relief.

Aire gritted her teeth. The poor dear. She could have wept for him. How difficult it must have been; travelling on horse-back, sleeping on bed-rolls and getting adequate food every night?

"I do not know. Wielders are worth money to body-snatchers." Nyeth commented.

"I have heard that." Aire replied, grudgingly thinking how Junhyn had toyed with the idea of capturing the Wielders only to sell them off to the snatchers who liked to pull Wielders apart to see how they worked. "The Bloodbound hid your presence in Irial. I do not think it would risk allowing us to be spotted by a large party."

"You!"

It was the same Crimson who had tried to kill Siseal. He stepped up beside her, knotting a hand in her crusted hair. He gave her head a violent shake. "Stop your chatter."

"Careful now, coward." Nyeth spat. "Make sure your Bloodbound isn't around to witness your violence, or he will surely snap your chicken neck."

"I will laugh when you die, witch." Lakron spat back at her.

"Witch?" Nyeth bristled. "I am no witch."

"How sad," Aire cooed, halting Lakron's advance on Nyeth. "For your life's joy to be reduced to something so grim."

The Crimson's face darkened, and he stepped away from them. Aire eyed the humiliation on his face. He could not retaliate how he wished with the Bloodbound's threat hanging over his head, but Aire knew a humiliated man was a dangerous one. He marched on and Aire shot a caustic look after him, adding her to her sprawling stories of revenge. He would die inconsequentially – at least in her mind.