The Tracker, page 16
“Then let us go around that bend and put you two there,” the duke said. This task was amusing him. They crept around tall rocks until they had a view of a sandy nook. Then two shapes appeared half-in and half-out of the water, Arden’s hand thrown out to the trees and the lower half of Volos’s body bobbing in the small waves. They were face down.
“Arden! Can you hear me?”
There were dragons in the trees, gray-and-blacks and battle golds, and a larger light gray on the ground. Arden called them over. They screeched and shrieked over the quiet river, Volos taking in more scent and nodding that the soldier was following the racket. Arden commanded the dragons to fly around over the bodies and fight, one or another dipping down to nip at the flesh and the others chasing it off to claim the corpses for their own.
“She’s watching,” Volos said, peering through a crack in the boulders. “Her hand is over her mouth in horror.”
FIRE. The light gray dragon reeled back and blasted fire at the battle gold as it dove down. The flames missed it and engulfed the bodies instead. When it lifted, they were nothing but ash on the water.
“What is she doing now?” the duke asked.
“Retreating,” Volos said. “She can only track Briala if she has me, and now she does not. But she still knows you are going to Havanath.”
“But not where in Havanath, she has no immediate means of crossing the brother, and it is only four more days for us to reach Halaima. Since you will not take our money, we will invest the last in a fast horse and carriage when we get to Kado and make it two days. Then Briala will send a letter to the papers in every land announcing our marriage. Her father can do nothing then. No Isle Zayre prince will marry a woman who has given herself to another man.”
He inclined his head to them. “I would suggest you make haste from the forest. Should any other force come along to stop us, this will become a place of illusion once more.”
“We have no wish to linger,” Volos said with barely restrained excitement.
“A day’s journey from here will see you to the town of Amberg, should you need supplies for a longer journey to the Cascades. Just travel along the river and you will not miss it. Good travels to you, freemen.”
“Good travels,” Arden said, and all inclined their heads in farewell.
The duke slipped away to the campsite. Two voices mumbled back and forth, and footsteps rapidly faded to nothing. Arden and Volos looked at one another, and then joy stole over Arden at this unexpected grace. They would not be followed. Neither belonged to anyone. No one would even know that they lived, and everything, everything was possible now.
“Let’s not keep our family waiting, shall we?” Volos asked, taking Arden’s hand. “It’s a long trip.”
“Not so long,” Arden said as they walked into the green. Already he could see them coming to the goddess rocks and going past them to the pearls. To the shouts on the mountains of the tracker returned, his brothers and mother pushing through the floods of people to see this miracle for themselves. Smiles and cries, laughter and open arms, and Volos bringing Arden into the embrace. The celebration would go on and on long into the night.
And then the stars would light them home.
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Also by Jordan Reece:
The Seer
Reece, Jordan, The Tracker
