From Darkness Won - Jill Williamson [78]
Gren squealed. “Thank you, Harnu. Thank you both.”
“Why do you and Lady Averella need to go to Armonguard?” Noam asked.
Averella waited for Gren’s answer, for she could not imagine why she would travel alone with a peasant woman, especially such a great distance.
“Our reasons are our own,” Gren said. “Lady Averella’s things are out here.” She ducked out the door, but her voice carried into the bedroom. “How will we get the horses?”
“I’ll take them out to exercise them,” Noam said, following her. “No one will question that.”
“Until Oster realizes they’re gone,” Gren said.
“I’ll tell him the guests departed,” Noam said.
Averella drifted back into the main room.
Gren wrung her hands together. “So much is left to chance.”
“It’s left to Cetheria,” Harnu said, stepping out of the bedroom. “She’s noble and just. She’ll protect us.”
Averella wrinkled her nose. Cetheria?
A bird cawed, drawing Averella’s attention away from the discussion. The eerily familiar sound plucked a string in her heart. She stuck her head through the wall of the cottage and glanced around for the source.
A black bird perched on the edge of the cart that Harnu had carried Averella’s body in. It cawed again, revealing rows of sharp teeth in a bat-like head. A gowzal. Averella could only stare, knowing she had never seen such a creature outside of paintings and tapestries.
Yet certain she had.
13
Achan squeezed his hands into fists, overwhelmed with frustration. All day he had tried and failed to contact Sparrow. He looked to Sir Eagan, who sat across from him, the only other occupant of the wagon beside Matthias, who lay sleeping in a pile of blankets at Achan’s feet.
“How can Sparrow close her mind?” Achan asked, unable to mask the tinge of desperation in his voice. “If she lost her memory, how can she bloodvoice at all?”
Sir Eagan’s pensive eyes met Achan’s. “She would not lose her abilities and has likely closed her mind instinctively. I suspect something frightened her.”
The whole situation frightened Achan. But he needed to be strong to bring Sparrow back from the Veil.
Then back into his life.
The wagon traveled over a bump on the road, and he put a hand down to steady himself. This wagon was as fine as any room in Granton Castle. The interior was walled in colorful tapestries. Two couches upholstered in red silk filled the front and back walls. A narrow table stretched down the long wall facing the door, which was covered in a thick linen drape tied shut to keep out dust from the road.
The impending battles nagged at the back of Achan’s mind, but he pushed those thoughts aside to focus on Sparrow. “Why can’t I see through her eyes?”
“You cannot see through her eyes, because her eyes are in her body.” Sir Eagan’s calm bled into Achan.
Achan wanted to tell Sir Eagan what to do with his calming tricks, but gave himself over to it. He took a deep breath and released it slowly, clinging to Sir Eagan’s peace. When he spoke again, his voice sounded normal. “But isn’t her mind in her body?”
“Her brain is in her body, but what you refer to as her mind is really her essence, her spirit and soul. That is in the Veil. And the Veil is where Vrell truly is. She has been pushed from her body before her time.”
This was almost too much to fathom. That sweet Sparrow, who had so wanted to end her adventuring, had been forced into another. “If Lord Levy cannot bloodvoice, who could have stormed her?”
“I cannot say.”
“How much farther to Sitna?”
Sir Eagan studied his hands. “Tomorrow evening.”
“I don’t suppose Sir Caleb would approve of my being included in the rescue party.”
“I think not, Your Highness. Nor would I.”
Achan gritted his teeth. “How did you survive in Ice Island after losing the duchess? I tried to forget Sparrow, but she shadows me like an old wound. And now this.”
“You may try and convince yourself of all the reasons you should forget her, but forgetting is not the answer. You care for her. She matters to you. And it is painful to lose her. But pain, in time, brings strength