A Kiss of Fire (A Kiss of Magic #2)(12)

“Mariah, I’m sorry but I think we’ve been kidnapped.”

“I know,” she said as the women were jounced yet again.

“I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t be any part of this. It’s me they want.”

“I know that too. But they asked me if I wanted to come with you, and I said yes.”

Ariana looked at her maid with bald shock.

“You volunteered to come?”

“Yes my lady,” she said softly. “Was that wrong of me? Should I have stayed behind so they could ask me about what had happened?” she asked, her accent, common among the lower classes, grew thicker with the words of anxiety.

“You should have stayed behind because you don’t deserve to be taken from your home like this! Bad enough it is happening to me!”

“Ah no! I couldn’t let you be taken by these barbarians with not a friend in the world by your side!”

Ariana felt grateful tears burn at her eyes as she reached across and grasped Mariah’s hands with hers.

“You’re a good friend Mariah.”

“Do you know who has us? Where we are going?”

“I’m not certain, but I suspect almost positively it is Raja Sin and his men who have done this and that means we are headed for Kilt.”

“Kilt! But that is almost two weeks of travel to the border in a wagon like this!”

“And then who knows how much further in beyond them.”

“And we are to be taken in this…this prison the entire way?”

“So it would seem.” Ariana sighed. “But they have to stop and let us out sometime to tend to our basic human needs. For instance, I could use a bathroom.”

“So could I.”

“Well, let’s see what kind of demands we can make, shall we?”

Ariana stood up and, grasping at the bars of the window she pulled her mouth up to level with it and shouted, “Hey! Hey out there we need to stop this very minute!”

There was no response. The carriage merely lumbered on.

“We need to…” Ariana flushed. She wasn’t used to talking about her bodily functions where everyone could hear her. Especially, no doubt, with what was a group of men. “We need to relieve ourselves!”

After a moment, the carriage came to a halt. Ariana stepped back from the door as it was unlocked—it sounded as though there were heavy chains involved as well—and the door opened. Both women flinched as sunlight came streaming into their dark cubby. After blinking her burning eyes for a moment, she focused on the man she had seen earlier, when she had been taken. The Jadoc shaman. What was his name? She couldn’t remember.

“One at a time,” he said, his tone brusque and deep.

Damn. That meant that if the opportunity arose for her to escape, she would have to leave Mariah behind. But maybe they would let her go once she was gone and they no longer had any use for her.

“Or…” the Jadoc said, “if we have no use for her we can eliminate the trouble entirely.”

Ariana gasped at how easily he read her mind and at the implied threat in his words. She could keep nothing from him. She would never be able to plan an escape if he could merely anticipate it from her thoughts at any given moment.

“Are you coming or not?” he asked.

Ariana stood up and, ignoring his offered hand, she climbed out of the carriage.

She saw they were in the middle of a field and her heart sank. They weren't on the road. They were traveling across country through fields, thus avoiding detection from anyone searching the road for them. That explained the ruts they were continually hitting.

“There are some trees over this way. They should provide you with a modicum of privacy,” her jailor said. He did not smirk or leer. He was cool and…professional. Matter of fact.

Ariana looked around and saw they were a small party. The carriage was the center of the party, with a double team of stout strong horses to pull it, rather than sleek fast ones as was the rage among higher-class Saren males these days. It was wise since they were pulling such a heavy load over such rough country. But all four horses were dappled with grey and white spots and had white manes. She had never seen their like before.

The rest of the party consisted of about six men on horseback and one empty horse, she presumed it was the Jadoc’s horse. She searched the faces of the men, looking for the face she wanted. But she was thwarted by the hoods of their cloaks and the way they turned their heads away. Any one of them could be Sin.

Well, not any one of them. Sin was a large man, boasting extraordinarily broad shoulders and a height rivaling Dendri Adiron, who stood at a good six feet six inches tall. There was no man among these that fit that that build.

So. He had sent others to do his dirty work for him. But at least one of these was a Fyre shaman, the equivalent of what she was—a Torrenic majji. She knew this because someone had thwarted her use of a fireball during her kidnapping in the city. Plus, as powerful as the Jadoc was, he was not fireproof. Sin would not risk her setting all of his men on fire and making her escape that way.

“Good. You see the futility of your situation,” the Jadoc said.

That angered her. “You are going to pay for being a part of this!” she hissed at him.

“I think not. No one knows where you are. No one knows who took you. And if they did happen to figure it out, by the time they catch up to us we’ll be in Kiltian lands.”