The Bound (Ascension #2)(43)

“We’re almost to the city…”

Cyrene rolled her eyes. Men! Creator, I miss Byern.

Well, she had been raised on Ceffy and Astral and her father’s unbroken stallions. She twisted in her seat, judged the distance and speed they were going, and then hopped effortlessly off the saddle.

“What are you doing?” he called as she turned and walked away. He galloped after her. “That was a clever trick. Where did you learn to ride like that?”

“My father. Now, please, leave me be.”

“I was forward. I apologize again, but I cannot simply let you walk away.”

“The answer is no. Now, leave me.” She kept her pace hurried as she strode away, but he didn’t seem to care what she had said.

Just then, a figure came sprinting down the center lane and collided with Cyrene.

“What are you doing?” Avoca yelled, pulling back and grasping her shoulders. “You could have died! How was I to know where you had gone or what you were doing?”

“Ava, I’m sorry,” Cyrene said.

She hadn’t even thought about the fact that Avoca would be able to feel that she had grasped her magic. Avoca had probably panicked when it happened, just like Cyrene would have done if Avoca had tugged on hers.

“You nearly knocked the wind out of me. I had to leave Ceis’f at the docks—”

“Ava!” she snapped.

They were supposed to be in disguise. No one should know their real names.

“Don’t Ava me!”

“We have a guest,” Cyrene said, pointing up at Dean. “He helped me out of the woods.”

“What were you doing in the woods in the first place?” she asked through gritted teeth.

“Communing with nature.”

Avoca put her fingers on the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes, and breathed out heavily. When she opened her eyes again, she managed a smile for the man. “Thank you for looking after her for me. We have to go now though. I think I have a silver trinket here somewhere,” she said, fumbling in her gown for some money.

Dean laughed lightly at the gesture and shook his head. “No need. But please allow me to walk you two ladies back to your inn. Two unescorted women are not always safe in Aurum.”

“We can manage,” Avoca said testily. “Let’s go.”

Dean trotted after them and called out to Cyrene, “Please, I don’t even know your name.”

“What’s in a name?”

“Everything,” Dean answered. He vaulted off his horse and grasped her hand. “Please, just your name.”

“Then, will you leave?” she asked.

“Yes.”

His face was so open to her in that moment that she felt almost compelled to give him her real name. She didn’t want him to know her as Haenah. She was not some fairy-tale princess, long forgotten, who was only remembered in the slow steps of the Haenah de’Lorlah dance, the one she had waltzed with Prince Kael during what felt like a lifetime ago. She wanted to be herself…the person Dean was obviously falling for.

“Haenah,” Avoca said. “Her name is Haenah.”

Cyrene swallowed with a sigh and then nodded in confirmation.

“Haenah,” he said with a smile. “Perhaps you are a princess then.”

She laughed. “Hardly.”

Dean let her be dragged away by Avoca then. He put his foot in the stirrup and easily hoisted himself up into the saddle once more. Then, he called out to Cyrene, “I will find you again, Haenah de’Lorlah.”





“What in the Creator’s name were you thinking?” Avoca asked as she pulled Cyrene away from Dean and back toward The Lively Dagger. “You could have been captured or killed or worse! We are bound, Cyrene. I’ve traveled very far from my homeland, from my family, to fulfill a debt to you, but how can I protect you if you will not let me? Does that mean anything to you?”

“You said yourself that you couldn’t feel a pulse in the city. How did you expect me to?” Cyrene countered.

“That wasn’t an open invitation to leave the city, alone, with no means to protect yourself. I said that we would work harder once we were out of the city. You shouldn’t have left.”

“I couldn’t stay inside any longer, and I didn’t think that I would actually find a pulse anyway!”

“But you did! Or at least you touched your magic. Since the only way you’d done that was when you were in life-or-death situations, I had to assume the worst.”

Avoca dodged a man who looked like he wanted to say something about them walking alone. She gave him a venomous glare, which actually was pretty fearsome, and he kept walking.

“I know. I didn’t think about that.”

“Obviously! Sometimes, I wonder if Ceis’f is right about humans. You’re so selfish.”

“And he isn’t selfish?” Cyrene demanded.

Avoca’s lips thinned, and she picked up her pace. “Fine. Yes, he is. But you scared me, Cyrene. I am glad to find you all in one piece. Imagine if you were not! What you did was careless and inconsiderate. We have all been working to get out of here, and then you disappear.” She shook her head, like she couldn’t even form the words for her frustration. “Not to mention, I found you with a strange man. Who was he?”