Shadow's Edge - Brent Weeks [131]
“That son of a bitch,” Ariel said. “Don’t let anyone heal this, do you understand? He’s—wow—look at that. If anyone touches this with magic, there are weaves of fire that will be unleashed around all of the major blood vessels in your brain. And that looks suspiciously like… have you lost control of your body at any time you can remember?”
“What do you mean, like pissed myself?”
“You’d know what I mean if it had happened. I’m going to have to see if Sister Drissa Nile will come back. She’s the only one I’d let touch this.”
“Who’s that?” Uly asked.
“She’s a healer. The best with tiny weaves that I know. Has some little shop in Cenaria, last I heard.”
“You’re not going to tell me anything else about this weave that’s supposed to kill me?” Vi said.
“Not unless you tell me who set it.”
“You can go—”
“If you curse me one more time, you’ll regret it,” Sister Ariel said.
The last punishment had been bad enough and the satisfaction for cursing small enough that Vi choked back her words.
They had entered the copse of trees when Vi spotted something partly hidden under leaves off the side of the path, something like dark hair glowing in the dying sunlight.
Uly followed her gaze. “What’s that?”
“I think it’s a body,” Vi said. And then, as they left the path to take a closer look, her heart soared. It was indeed a body—a death that meant life for her. It was freedom and a new start. The dead man was Kylar.
45
Elene’s whole body was in pain. She’d been riding as hard as she could bear for six days, and she still hadn’t made it to Torras Bend. Her knees hurt, her back hurt, her thighs were in agony, and she still wasn’t gaining any time on Uly and Uly’s kidnapper. She knew that because she asked everyone she passed on the road if they’d seen a woman and child riding hard to the north. Most of them hadn’t, but those who had remembered. If anything, Elene had been falling behind. And it was all up to Elene now.
The guards of the city watch had passed her yesterday, going back to Caernarvon. They’d assured her that a woman, especially a woman encumbered with a child, couldn’t have ridden faster than they had. They had given up and gone home. One look at their faces and she knew she would have no luck convincing them otherwise. They were tired and probably under orders not to cross the Lae’knaught who sometimes wandered this far east. Elene let them go. What mattered more than the city watch was Kylar. He’d come this way, too. At some point, he’d passed the kidnapper and Uly—because he hadn’t been looking for them.
But she was almost to Torras Bend. Tonight she would sleep in a bed. Bathe. Then she would find out if the kidnapper had headed toward Cenaria, as Elene suspected. And have a hot meal. Elene was daydreaming when she saw the Lae’knaught.
They straddled the road in the middle of some of the largest wheat fields south of Torras Bend. If Elene had wanted to go around them, she’d have to go miles to the east and risk crossing into Ezra’s Wood, which was supposed to be haunted. As it was, it was too late. They’d already seen her, and the knights had horses saddled and ready to give chase.
Elene approached them directly, suddenly acutely aware of being a woman traveling alone. There were six men, all armed, and as she neared, all of them stood to intercept her. Over chain hauberks, they wore black tabards emblazoned with a golden sun: the pure light of reason beating back the darkness of superstition. She’d never come across the Lae’knaught, but she knew Kylar didn’t think much of them. They professed not to believe in magic, but hated it at the same time. Kylar said they were nothing more than bullies. If they really hated Khalidorans, he’d said, they would have come to Cenaria’s aid when the Godking invaded. Instead, they’d hovered like vultures, picking up recruits among the fleeing Cenarians and scavenging off Cenarian lands.
One of the standing knights stepped forward. He held his twelve-foot ash lance