The Banished of Muirwood (Covenant of Muirwood, #1)(60)

Maia thought she heard a bird chirping. How she heard it past the wild hammering of her heart, she did not know. She rose from the chair, feeling her legs strengthen beneath her.

Collier sheathed his blade and turned, brushing his hands. “I told you I would protect you, Maia. I do not think they will be fool enough to defy me.” He gave her a charming smile. “I am going to summon my armies to invade Comoros. It is time to depose your father. Shall we?” He offered her his hand.

“You wear my kystrel,” Maia said hollowly.

“You gave it to me,” he said with a laugh.

“I am sorry.” She swallowed.

“For what?”

Sleep, she commanded in her mind, shoving her thought at him.

He collapsed in a heap on the ground.

Maia knelt carefully by his crumpled form. He breathed deeply, his chest rising and falling. So easy it would be. So easy to kill him. A small kiss on his cheek was all it would take. The thought in her mind horrified her, and she realized with a jolt that it was not her own.

Maia reached for the chain of the kystrel around Collier’s neck. As her fingers drew near, she felt her left shoulder begin to smolder with pain. Her muscles seized up and locked. She could not stretch her arm any farther, try as she might. Pain and nausea swept through her.

She felt . . . disapproval.

Maia huddled next to him and stared down into his sleeping face. The face of her husband. This was not the royal wedding she had dreamed of as a child. There had been no pageantry. No Aldermastons with gray cassocks and wise airs. It had not been a maston wedding, performed in an abbey by irrevocare sigil.

She was grateful for that much.

She pulled her arm back and found that she could move it again. The being trapped inside her—the Myriad One whose name she did not know—would not allow her certain actions against its interests. She breathed deeply, trying to steel her heart. She reached down and squeezed her husband’s rough hand.

“I am truly sorry, Feint Collier,” she whispered. “But I cannot let you use me to destroy my father.” She gave the hand another squeeze. “Do not try to find me, for I will run from you for the rest of my life.”

She rose and looked down at him one last time. There was her pack near the mouth of the tent. She grabbed it. Spying one of his cloaks rumpled on a chest, she swung it over her shoulders, raised the cowl, and slipped out the back of the tent into the dawn air.





There was once a wise Aldermaston who said, “Gold tests with fire, woman with gold, man with woman.”


—Lia Demont, Aldermaston of Muirwood Abbey





CHAPTER TWENTY




Peliyey Mountains

The morning sky was hazy with camp smoke as the soldiers awoke and began stirring the ashes from the previous night. Some bent low and breathed on the cakes of ash, coaxing them to life again. Others carried piles of sticks, ready to feed the flames. Maia passed them as a shadow, swathed in Collier’s big coat.

“We could use more wine in our rations,” a big man muttered as she passed. “My head is aching.”

“Because you drank too much wine last night.”

Maia walked past them with a firm stride, wanting to hurry without appearing to do so.

She heard the crunch of boots behind her, coming on her left, so she switched directions, going around another campfire. The sounds of pursuit persisted. A lump of fear settled into her stomach. She did not want to use the kystrel’s magic to flee, but she wondered if she would even have a choice. Though it no longer hung around her neck, its power was as accessible to her as ever—more so.

“Keep walking,” the kishion said at her elbow as he passed her. “Follow me.”

She startled as he walked past her. He wore a tunic with the king’s colors, the fabric stained and blotchy. There was a slit in the back, peeking just above his belt, and it was dark red from blood. He marched on ahead of her and she kept pace, the two of them weaving through camp like wraiths. One man had pierced a hunk of bread with his dagger, she saw, and was ripping pieces from it with his teeth.

The first streamers of sunlight bit her eyes. The light coming into the smoke came like fingers through silk. It was dawn, a new day. A terrible day. She felt as if she had tripped and tumbled down a steep hill, bouncing off rocks and colliding with trees on the way down. She could hardly tell which way was up.

She stared at the kishion’s back, wondering if he was just as confused as she was or whether he was involved in her mission in a way she did not yet understand.

There was much she did not know, but she did know something. She could not continue with her quest until she visited an abbey. She needed to find an Aldermaston who could rid her of the Myriad One who was nesting inside her—the one who emerged at night, forcing her to dream. Maia was grateful it was dawn. She could not allow herself to fall asleep again, not before she rid herself of the evil being inside her. She would push herself to stay awake, to walk for days if need be. There were abbeys under construction throughout all the kingdoms. Which one was nearest?

The kishion stepped into a grove of trees and Maia followed him, slipping through slender branches that caught at her cloak and tried to snare her. The bark was smooth and glossy. They meandered their way through the copse, which became thicker the farther they went. Twigs and brush snapped as they made their noisy way, but the sounds of the camp fell farther behind.