Brightly Woven (7 page)

My head snapped back up, the weariness in my limbs and mind suddenly gone. Somewhere in the distance an animal
let out a long wail, but it didn’t mask the sound of breaking twigs or labored breathing.

The moon’s full, creamy face gave off more than enough light, yet I saw nothing but the scattered patches of trees around us, just large enough for a man to hide behind.

“North,” I whispered. When he didn’t respond I tried again, this time with a hard shake. “North!”

His head lolled to the side, and I had to check once more to make sure he was still breathing. The sound I’d heard was most likely an animal, but there was no way for me to shake the image of the scarred man in the tavern or the crisp red uniforms of Saldorra’s elite soldiers. It was impossible, though, wasn’t it? For the man with the powder to have followed us all the way into the wilderness—how could he have begun to track us when we had left no footprints behind in our escape from Dellark?

Something touched my back. It lasted no more than a moment, but even half delirious from lack of sleep, I knew I couldn’t have dreamed it. It was a warm pulse through the thin fabric of my dress, there and gone. Then again, and again, and again…like a slow heartbeat.

“North!” I said through gritted teeth, while searching the trees around me.
“North!”

There was nowhere for us to hide. I couldn’t lift him into the trees; I could barely climb up into them myself. But we weren’t safe, not when whoever—or whatever—was out here and could hide itself under the cover of leaves.

I was proud of the way my hands didn’t shake or tremble as they slipped under the wizard’s arms. A warm flush seemed to wash through my body, and I was dragging North’s prone form out into the open field, toward the small, trickling creek. I kept my eyes on the trees and my back to the water, but all I could see were the shadows the trees cast, skimming the ground, weaving in and out of one another as if in a game.

I left our bags behind. The rock in my hand would be useless against sword or magic, but it was the only weapon I had. The wind kicked my curls up around my face, but not even its slight push at my back could hide that second pulse against my shoulder.

I dropped the rock onto the soft ground and threw my hands behind me, then turned to see an enormous beetle. It hovered near North’s prone form for a moment, its wings letting off a loud buzz. Its color was the strangest thing about it, a purple so deep I nearly mistook it for black.

“Get off!
Go!”
I said, waving the beetle off the wizard. It launched itself back up, caught a strong breeze, and disappeared into the night. I laughed then, shaking my head at the thought of being so worked up over such a small thing.

“I’ve completely lost it,” I said, pressing my hands to my face.

I sat beside the wizard until morning, the gray rock still nearby. My dress was uncomfortably damp with the dew, and the morning was cooler than I expected and far quieter. When the sun was finally above us, when the shadows faded into something far less sinister, I was finally brave enough to stand again. North slept on, untouched by the relief I felt when I made out the familiar form of our bags. Everything, even the contents of North’s bag, which had scattered the night before, was in the exact place I had left it. If the intruder had been an animal or a man, he hadn’t been interested in a loom or glass bottles.

I looked around for what else might have fallen from North’s bag, finding a small, nearly empty bottle and a worn-out, leather-bound notebook stuffed with loose sheets of paper and rumpled maps. I took one of the maps in hand as I walked back over to the wizard. The cold wind that whistled through the trees and tall grass tore the frail paper into two neat pieces, and I had to grab them before the wind blew them away completely.

I collapsed in a heap by North’s side, pressing both fists against my eyelids. The exhaustion was back now, worse than before. Every bone in my body screamed for sleep, but my mind was still restless, turning itself in endless circles.

I turned my face toward North, hoping for some sign that he would eventually wake.

“North?” I asked, my voice thick. The muscles in his arms had relaxed, and his face was slack with sleep. He looked as though he was actually resting and would be for some time.

My body seemed to stand again of its own accord. I washed my face in the frigid water of the creek and filled our flasks. It was strange to see water running freely, winding through the countryside with perfect ease.

It was enough to remind me of my morning prayers. I was halfway through the ancient words when I felt something soft brush against my hands. The wind had carried North’s loose blue cloak over to me.

I gathered the rest of the cloaks, separating them to get a better look. There were five in all, including the red one still wrapped tightly around his shoulders, and most were ripped and tattered. I had repaired only the yellow one in Cliffton.

Maybe, I thought, it wouldn’t be so bad to have a few more minutes of quiet.

Some hours later, when the sun was almost directly above us and I was on my third cloak, North sat up suddenly.

“Syd!” he said, on his feet in a moment.

I glanced up from the green cloak. I had liked him much better asleep, tucked away in his silent dreams.

“My name is
Sydelle,”
I said, snipping off an excess bit of thread. His lips parted slightly, as if surprised to find me sitting nearby. “Syd reminds me of some fat, lazy old man—I knew a Sid, and all he ever did was sit on his mother’s porch and complain about the heat!”

“Was that the one who tried to give me his chicken?” North asked. “Had a perpetually dazed look about him? Too much time in the sun, maybe?”

I gave him a pointed look, which he returned with an annoying grin. Finished with the green cloak, I folded it neatly beside me.

“You—” he began, looking down. His hand came up and touched the red cloak, still hanging around his shoulders. “What are you doing?”

“I think it’s fairly obvious,” I said. “If you’re done sleeping away the day, I was hoping we could move on before nightfall. If we take Wickerby Road, we should be able to find Prima, the road that will take us directly to Provincia.”

The road that was one day supposed to take me into a new life far from home. Henry had said it would take me less than a day to find the road from Dellark, and if I stayed on its straight path, it would take only a month to arrive in Provincia, Palmarta’s capital city.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” North asked, dropping down next to me. “And wait—why are we over here?”

I thrust the yellow, black, and green cloaks at him. “I heard something last night, and I thought we’d be safer where I could see someone approach.”

“And you didn’t think to wake me?” he asked, suddenly angry. “What if it had been a wizard? What would you have done
then?”

“A wizard like the one that attacked us last night?” I asked. The blue cloak in my hand was icy to the touch. “You knew him—not Genet, the other one.”

North rubbed the back of his neck. “His name is Reuel
Dorwan. He’s been tracking me for a while now—if I had noticed him earlier, I would have tried to find a way to end it once and for all.”

For the first time in years, I pricked my finger on the needle.

“You want to kill him?” I asked slowly.

North turned his face away and took the blue cloak from me.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he said.

“Of course not,” I said in a low voice. “I’m just a stupid little girl who’s incapable of understanding anything.”

North bristled. “There isn’t much to say about him except that he’s the vilest rot ever to have walked this world. That trick he did was pure dark magic, magic that’s forbidden by wizarding society. Not that he cares, of course. He never did.”

“His trick—was that what caused you to act like that last night?” I asked. “I tried everything to wake you up, and you still slept like the dead.”

North shook his head and turned away from me. I drew in a sharp, angry breath at the silence that followed. He would have walked away if my voice had not caught him and held him there.

“I hope you realize that nothing will ever be right between us until you tell me—until you just tell me why you took me,” I said, frustrated. “You keep everything to yourself, and I’m just supposed to accept the fact that you can create a gust of wind and stop the world from shaking and that you’re surprised I can fix your rotting cloaks—”

“It’s because most humans can’t,” he cut in, turning back to me. “What would you like me to say, Syd? It takes some degree of magic inside a person to repair a talisman and not have it lose its ability.
That
is why I was surprised.”

He reattached the rest of his cloaks in a whirl of color.

“Are…you saying I have magical ability?” I asked carefully.

“Magic is inherited through families,” he said. “You may have had a wizard in your family, but it was a long time ago. What power you have in you is weak and useless.”

“Not useless,” I said, giving him a hard look. “Not entirely.”

“No,” North agreed with a small smile, and for the first time I thought I finally had an answer to one of the hundreds of questions that poured through my mind. I bent to pick up my loom.

“Are you positive you didn’t see anything last night?” North asked after a moment. “It’s not like him to just…give up….”

“I thought there might have been something out there, but it was only a beetle,” I said, watching a strange look come over his face.

“A beetle?” he repeated.

“Well, it was rather large,” I said defensively. “It was practically the size of a small animal!”

“And purple?”

I whirled around. “How did you know?”

“Please,
please
tell me you killed it. Tell me you took your boot and smashed it,” North said, passing a hand over his face. He didn’t wait for my response; he already knew the answer. The wizard moved quickly, throwing his bag over his shoulder and scanning the wide expanse around us.

“Stop moving!” I said. “Tell me what’s happening.”

“It was a rover beetle,” he said, his mouth set in a firm line. “Time to leave, Syd.”

He reached for my arm, but I pulled it away.

North blew out a frustrated sigh, but he knew what I wanted. “It’s a beetle that can sense magic. They’re trained to track wizards, usually by the Wizard Guard, but in this case, by our dear friend. And it means he probably knows by now where we are, unfortunately.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Next time I won’t make the same mistake.”

North let out a humorless laugh.

“There won’t be a next time. There are a number of ways to find a wizard, and he won’t use the same trick twice.” He motioned for me to follow him. “We need to leave now. He’ll be right behind us.”

“What are we going to do?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the path his boots made in the mud.

“We have to stay off the main roads,” he said, still a number of steps ahead of me. “He’ll have a greater opportunity to find us if we stay out in the open for too long.”

“But Wickerby is the fastest way to Provincia—”

“And if he finds us on it, he’ll know exactly where we’re going,” North said. “I need your help, Syd. We have to find a different way.”

“All right,” I said. I reached for his black cloak, forcing him to stop. “If that’s true, then I need to look at the map. If we’re where I think we are, I can find us a route that stays close to Prima Road, but not on it. Are you sure we can lose the time, though?”

“We won’t be losing it if it keeps us alive,” he said. I pulled out the map I had accidentally torn, and we both looked it over.

“I still don’t understand why Dorwan would be tracking us,” I muttered. “I don’t like feeling like a pawn in someone else’s game.”

“He wants to stop us from telling the Sorceress Imperial that he was the one behind the poisoning, not Auster,” North said, tying something around my neck. I glanced down at the black cloak around my shoulders.

“It’ll mask any remnant of the locating spell still on you,” he said, answering my unspoken question. “I think. At least I hope.”

“You
hope?”

“It’s the best I can do for now,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

And he was.