The Silver Pear (20 page)

K
ayla realized
Rane was in pain when he stepped away from William and hunched his back, gasping.

So it
was
Eric. The spell he’d started to work into Rane’s back burnt as if it were on fire when Eric was near. She’d broken the part of it that compelled Rane toward him, had tried to lessen the pain, but not enough. Not nearly enough.

She went from mildly horrified at the petty betrayals William had committed for absolutely no gain, to searing, all-encompassing fury.

Wild magic left its hiding places in her bag, under her skirts, and flared and coalesced into a ball above her head.

She touched Rane briefly, a quick caress, and then walked to the window, opened it rather than use up any of her power by smashing it down, and jumped into the courtyard.

Behind her she heard a strange noise and looked back briefly to see if Rane was all right, only to find it was William, his eyes wide in his face, a hand over his mouth to stop any more noise escaping.

She dismissed him and turned to see what was happening up ahead.

Eric had obliterated the front of the stronghold. He stood just within the gate, legs braced apart.

“Come out, Wolfsblood. Come out and we’ll settle this, you thieving bastard.”

Everyone who could, had run. Three men lay still under rubble.

Kayla wondered if Eric had used his own power or a wild magic object to cause the destruction to the stronghold wall and gate.

She would have thought he’d have kept as much as possible back, if he was here to confront Andrei. She had to assume he was still strong.

He became aware of her approaching by degrees.

She was slight, and a woman, and he must have thought her a servant by her modest dress, but the wild magic, hovering over her head like a balloon, was hard to miss. She saw the moment when he realized who was coming toward him.

“What are you doing here?” He watched her for a long moment, then his gaze slid past her and she turned.

Rane had followed her out of the window, and he was walking toward her with no stoop, or any sign of his pain. His steps were slower than they would usually be, but Eric wouldn’t know that, and it gave Rane an unhurried, almost dismissive air.

“You’re making a deal with Wolfsblood.” Eric drew in a breath. “You think he’ll break me and get your father out from under my thumb.”

It would have made sense, Kayla supposed, if Andrei Wolfsblood could have been trusted.

“Andrei Wolfsblood is dead.” Rane’s voice was a little deeper than usual, but steady.

She turned again to look at him, and she wanted to kill Eric. She didn’t feel any guilt at the thought.

When she faced forward again, Eric had taken a step back in shock.

“Are you saying
you
killed him?” He clearly didn’t believe it.

“We thought you had.” Kayla decided making him believe she had done it would only heighten his defenses, not lower them. “You or Nuen of Harness.”

“Nuen.” Eric frowned. “He’s out of this. He’s been injured.”

Rane gave a laugh as he reached her side. “Not since he got hold of my golden apple.”

“
My
golden apple,” Eric hissed. “Nuen has it?”

“It was his price for the release of my brother.”

Eric reared back at that. “Your brother is almost as much trouble as you. I should have killed him.”

The way he spoke made it sound as if he’d seen Soren recently.

Rane must have picked that up, too. “Been bothering you, has he?” His face was pale but the smile growing on it was quite real.

Eric jerked his head. “Only because he had Gerald of Halakan’s daughter’s skirts to hide behind. Otherwise he would be dead.”

While he was focused on Rane, Kayla struck, slamming Eric to the ground, and pinning him there. He fought back, battering at the hold she’d gained.

There was a sense from the wild magic . . . it made her shiver with the malevolence it seemed to feel for him, and it was using itself up faster than she liked.

She tried to rein it back, to give herself and Rane an escape hatch if she needed to get them out quickly, and it responded to her, easing back a little.

Eric took advantage, fighting himself up to a sitting position, throwing spells at her that she managed to dissipate, although they managed to get closer and closer to her and Rane before winking out with every new one he threw.

Rane half-stumbled past her, knife out. She caught only a brief glimpse of his face, but there was death written on it. Pain and rage gave him a hard mask that made him someone she hardly recognized.

Eric was trying to stand. He’d dragged himself up onto his hands and knees, but Rane was there, slashing at him with his knife, absolutely intent on killing him.

He lunged down, but Eric saw him and threw himself back.

The cut that would have slit Eric’s throat caught him instead across the shoulder. The blade slid through satchel strap, clothes, down to bone, and Eric roared with pain, found enough power to slap Rane back a step.

He shoved at her, too, finding enough concentrated power to challenge her just as the last of her wild magic winked out.

He was sobbing as he grabbed his staff and flicked it, his arm useless and crimson with blood at his side.

As Rane lunged at him again, he disappeared into thin air.

The satchel lay, bloodstained, at her feet but Kayla ignored it, stepped over it and touched her fingers to Rane’s cheek.

“Are you all right?”

He shuddered, nodded as he bent down and put his hands on his knees.

There were others around, men coming back out from their hiding places, and what she felt was too private to share. She put a hand on his back, bent and kissed the back of his neck.

Then, to distract herself, she picked up the satchel, flicked open the flap and pulled out a silver pear.

“That’s Miri’s.”

William was standing a little distance away from her, his eyes still wild.

Kayla thought through the implications of that. Eric had said he’d seen Soren recently and that he was with Mirabelle. Whatever the confrontation had been, neither was dead, but Eric had managed to take something precious from them.

“What does it do?”

William shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe nothing.”

He was wrong there. She could feel a friendly hum coming from the pear, the same sensation she always felt around wild magic.

She studied William. “I don’t trust you to return it to her. If I don’t find her first, and she returns here, please tell her Kayla of Gaynor has her silver pear.”

William staggered back a step. “Kayla?”

“Your men need help, William.” Kayla looked pointedly at the men lying beneath the rubble. “Perhaps the best thing you can do for your own reputation is to help them.”

Rane had straightened, and he took the satchel from her. “We still don’t know where Soren is,” he said, voice pitched low.

“But we know where Eric has to go, injured as he is.”

“He’ll need the golden apple.” Rane gave a slow nod.

“And Harness is close enough to the Great Forest I can pull wild magic through the thin cracks in the border. If I have to take them on anywhere, that’s the best place to do it.”

They turned toward the gate together, started walking.

“Princess Kayla.”

She stopped, saw William bent over one of the men, carefully lifting a stone off his legs.

“Won’t you stay? There’s a place for a sorcerer like yourself at Halakan.”

Kayla stared at him until he fidgeted and looked down at the ground.

Rane took her hand and they walked out the gates.

They had to get to Harness, and if they were lucky, Eric would stumble straight into them.

And this time, Kayla would have all the power she needed.

R
ane watched
the tree tops flash beneath them on the ball of wild magic they rode and clenched his hands into fists on his thighs.

He could still feel the skin across his back. It didn’t hurt any more, but the thin strip tingled uncomfortably.

It fueled his anger, and he had to force it down.

Hot temper would not do.

He would need cold, deliberate strategy.

A bird swooped down from above them to tease Sooty, who was sitting between Kayla and himself on the ball of wild magic they rode, but she only flicked an ear at it.

She knew it was Ylana.

The witch had refused to fly on wild magic to Harness. Rane didn’t blame her.

No matter how Kayla embraced it, wild magic still made him uncomfortable. If he could have turned himself into a bird and flown beside them instead, he would have done it, too.

They were almost in sight of Harness now, and Rane touched Kayla’s shoulder and pointed to a good place to land where they could set down unseen.

Nuen had a view into the forest from his tower, and the sight of the hundreds of balls of wild magic following behind them would put him on alert, if nothing else.

She nodded, and he lifted his hand and pushed back a tendril of her hair that had escaped its tie.

Eric wanted to possess her. To use her.

Even if the sorcerer hadn’t tried to enslave Rane with pain, he’d want him dead for that alone.

And the sooner they struck, while Eric was hurt and weak, the better.

They swooped smoothly down, and Rane enjoyed the feel of the soft, springy ground beneath his feet.

The clearing he’d chosen was one he knew well. This place was part of his old life, as a knight for Jasper, and as a woodsman with his father and Soren.

The quiet sound of birds, the movement of branches in a light breeze, all helped drain away the last of his reaction to Eric.

He drew in a deep breath and let it out.

Ylana fluffed out her feathers, and then was suddenly herself again, and Sooty stretched and went to sniff the new surroundings.

“Which way to Jasper’s stronghold?” Ylana asked, and as he opened his mouth to answer her there was a flash of blue light through the trees to their left, and then the sound of someone stumbling through the undergrowth.

They all turned, and Ylana simply moved the trees and bushes blocking their view out of the way, so a narrow path opened up.

A woman holding a staff and pulling a scarf off her head turned and looked at them in alarm, and Rane saw more blue light sparkle on her hands.

Out of the ground, vines snaked and grabbed, twining around her wrists and ankles to hold her in place, and when he turned his head to look at Ylana, he saw her face was hard and bitter.

The woman struggled against the bonds, and the sky magic she drew loosened some, but she must have expended herself very recently, because eventually she stopped trying to get free, and tried to catch her breath.

Kayla started toward her and Sooty bounded beside her.

“Back,” Ylana hissed. “She’s a sorcerer.”

“I think I know who she is.” Kayla kept moving forward, a touch of her hand on Sooty’s head holding her back when she would have leaped ahead. “I think she can tell us where Soren is, as well.”

Mirabelle of Halakan.

Rane caught up with Kayla.

From the direction of Harness, they all heard a scream of rage.

“What was that?” Ylana asked into the silence that followed.

“That was Nuen of Harness, realizing someone really has taken his golden apple,” the woman said.

Kayla smiled and the vines that held the woman dissolved into a purple mist. “Mirabelle of Halakan?”

The woman frowned, rubbing her wrists, and then looked beyond Kayla, and gasped.

She stumbled back a step, and Rane turned to see what could have frightened her so, saw the forest full of wild magic, and realized he’d become almost immune to the sight of it.

“Kayla of Gaynor?” Mirabelle put out a hand and steadied herself on the trunk of a tree. “I see Soren didn’t exaggerate at all.”

“Do you speak true? You’ve taken the golden apple from Nuen?” Ylana asked.

Mirabelle drew back, wary of the witch after what she’d done, and gave a quick nod. “Between Soren and I, we have.”

“Where is it?” Ylana couldn’t hide the gloating in her voice.

“Soren has it.” Mirabelle turned to him for the first time. “You look very like him. You must be Rane.”

“If Soren has it, where is he?” Rane tried to marry everything he knew about sorcerers with the petite woman before him, with her mass of blonde hair and her friendly green eyes.

She looked through the trees toward Harness. “He’s still inside there.”

“Inside?” Rane felt as if a stone had lodged in his throat.

“He has a moonstone, which I believe belongs to you, and so he’s invisible. He’ll get out when he can, when they open the gates to let someone in or out.”

Rane rubbed a hand over his heart. “That’s . . . good.”

The thought of Soren in Jasper’s hands again had made him almost sick.

“Come.” Mirabelle half-turned deeper into the forest. “I’ll show you where we are hiding while we wait for Eric the Bold to arrive.”

“You’re waiting for Eric? Why?” Ylana’s voice was sharp.

Mirabelle hesitated, her own gaze narrowing a little as it touched on the witch, but when she looked across to Kayla she blew out a breath. “Eric has to come to Nuen some time. He killed my father, and when Soren and I confronted him a few days ago, we told him Andrei Wolfsblood had taken my father’s place in Halakan. We hoped he’d go there first to give ourselves time to steal back the golden apple, because we were sure when he realized Andrei was dead, he’d come here to eliminate Nuen as his last remaining threat.”

“What is your place in all this?” Ylana was still suspicious.

Mirabelle looked delicate and beautiful, but so did Kayla, although their coloring was like night and day, so Rane wasn’t surprised when she turned to face the witch with her back straight and her chin raised.

“My place? My father was murdered by Eric. I was betrayed by my liege lord, and while I live, I will never be safe from Eric, Nuen and whoever else thinks they are powerful enough to rule the whole of Middleland. My lover was held by Nuen and Jasper and tortured, and Eric has tried to kill us both, and has stolen something very precious from me. So my place is I am sworn to bring an end to this power struggle any way I can.”

Absolute silence descended. It was as if even the wind and the birds and animals had frozen at the anger and power they sensed had been stirred to life.

Rane heard it all, but the word that stuck in his head was ’lover’. Because she must surely be talking about Soren.

“Are you giving Mirabelle a hard time?” A voice spoke directly into his ear, and Rane lashed out hard, punching where he thought his brother’s stomach must be.

He heard a satisfying ’oomph’, and Soren appeared, bent over at the waist.

“Ouch.” He looked sideways at Rane and grinned, and then Rane hauled him in for a quick, rib-bruising hug.

“Soren.” Mirabelle’s voice quavered a little, and Rane realized despite the calm way she’d spoken about Soren staying behind, she’d been afraid for him.

Soren slapped Rane on the shoulder and then walked to his little sorcerer, gently running his hands over her abdomen in a way Rane thought was less affection, and more worry.

“What happened?” Kayla reached over and lifted the satchel they’d stolen from Eric from his shoulder.

“To steal the golden apple back, Mirabelle let Nuen break all her ribs with a spell.” Soren knelt in front of her, and touched her ribs with gentle fingers. His voice shook, and Rane heard what it had cost him to watch that happen.

“Do you have the golden apple, then?” Ylana crossed her arms over her chest, seemingly unmoved by the moment.

Soren dug into the front of his shirt, brought the apple out.

“I have something I think Mirabelle will be happy to see again.” Kayla pulled the silver pear from the satchel, and held it out.

“Where did you get it?” Mirabelle gripped Soren’s shoulders, stepped around him, hands outstretched.

“We were at Halakan looking for Soren when Eric arrived.” Kayla placed it in her hands, and the sorcerer’s fingers closed around it in a tight grip.

“You kill the bastard?” Soren got to his feet.

Rane shook his head. “Nearly. Almost cut off his arm.”

“We told him Nuen has the golden apple, so we think . . .” Kayla stopped as blue flared over the stronghold.

“Eric will have no choice but to seek it out if he’s that badly injured.” Ylana spoke with deep, pure satisfaction.

“And here he is.” Rane knew his smile must mirror the earth witch’s, even though the skin on his back flared with burning, violent pain.

For once, the two of them were in perfect accord.