Inker and Crown

Chapter 21

21

Adrial

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go for you?” Taddy’s forehead wrinkled as he frowned. “I don’t mind riding out of the city, and I’m good on a horse.”

“I’m a fine rider too, Taddy.” Adrial pulled on the fastenings of the saddle, more to prove his point than because he thought the stable hands hadn’t done their work properly.

“But Master Gareth will be furious if he finds out you’ve left.” Taddy dug his nails into his pudgy cheeks. “And what if something happens to you? What if―”

“Taddy.” Adrial cut off the boy’s list of worries. “We made an agreement. I bring you to live at the library to help me get to and from the shop every day so you don’t have to live in the same building as Travers.”

Taddy shivered at the mention of Travers’s name.

“In exchange,” Adrial continued, “you tell everyone I’ve locked myself in my quarters to focus on the vellum for a few days.”

“They’ll know you’re gone.” Taddy shook his head, his eyes wide.

“You’ll accept all the food that’s brought to me and send out the letters I’ve written to Natalia and Travers explaining my absence. You’ll stay in my quarters, studying until I return.”

Taddy hadn’t stopped shaking his head.

“Do you understand, Taddy?”

“No,” Taddy squeaked. “I mean, yes, I know what I’m to do, but no, I don’t understand why you’re leaving the city before dawn.”

“I’m going to collect things for the vellum.” The words were true enough, Adrial felt no regret in saying them. “I’ll be perfectly safe, I promise you.”

“I know Ena can take care of you, sir.” Taddy wrinkled his nose. “But if the city isn’t safe, then how will the woods be safer?”

“Because, Taddy”―Adrial took the boy by the shoulders―“it’s not the wild the soldiers are protecting us from. It’s bad people. The forests don’t have those sorts of people. Just be a good lad and stay in my room. Do as I’ve told you, and no one will ever need to know.”

“But what if they find out?” Taddy asked, his tone near a whimper.

“Then tell them I’m the one who ordered you to say I was in my room.” Adrial grabbed the saddle and dragged himself painfully onto the seat. “They can’t blame you for doing as I ordered. I am the head scribe. You had no choice but to obey.”

“All right, sir.” Taddy handed Adrial the reins of the second horse. “But do be careful, sir. It’s been quiet living in the library away from Travers, and I would hate to have to go back to living with him if you die.”

“I’ll be fine, Taddy.” Not bothering to hide his smile, Adrial guided the horses to the stable door.

The scribes’ guard outside paid no attention to Adrial as he rode out onto the dark street.

Crisp morning air greeted him, filling his lungs with reckless joy. How long had it been since he’d ridden out of the city?

Years.

The stables let out on the backside of the library, away from the merchant’s street. With no shops in sight, his path was abandoned.

The clopping of the horses’ hooves echoed off the stone buildings. But no one ran out to gape at the Guilded Cripple. Even if someone peeked out a window, they wouldn’t recognize him in the dark coat and pants Taddy had scavenged for him.

Adrial pushed the horses to a trot, relishing the wind on his face. The breeze lifted his hair, sending a chill tumbling down his spine.

And Ena would be waiting for him.

He guided the horses past bakeries, taverns, and inns. The scents of a hundred different breakfasts baking wafted around him. Adrial took a deep breath, drawing the delicious aroma into his lungs.

As he neared the northern gate, people appeared on the streets. All with the same dull look of early morning, as though the orange kissing the horizon held no t****l.

Adrial sat up as straight as he could, keeping his eyes front as he approached the gate.

Twelve guards flanked the exit of the city, their gazes searching each of the early morning travelers that passed.

“What’s in the cart?” a guard stepped in front of a handcart entering the city.

The man pushing it sounded more resigned and fatigued than afraid. “Food to sell. Same as yesterday and the day before that.”

The soldiers began pulling everything out of the man’s cart, tossing it none too delicately onto the ground. The man kept silent as the soldiers ruined a full third of his goods.

Stop them. Call out, tell them who you are, and stop them.

But then they would know the head scribe was attempting to ride unchecked through their gate. They’d stop Adrial just as soon as they’d stopped the farmer. Though they’d be less rough about it.

Adrial kept his eyes down until he’d passed through the arch in the stone wall and reached the outside of the city.

A hint of terror trembled in his chest. He’d done it. He’d left Ilara.

You’re not a child stealing sweets, Adrial Ayres.

He dragged his gaze away from the back of his horse’s neck.

The houses of those who hadn’t been lucky enough to build within the protection of the city walls were packed in on either side of him, as though the homes were huddling together for safety.

“You actually came.” Ena’s voice drifted out of the shadows.

Adrial didn’t bother searching the ground. He looked up to the low rooftops of the houses surrounding him.

Ena leaned against a chimney, wrapped in a deep red shawl. It was the most muted color he’d ever seen her wear.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” Adrial said as Ena climbed off the roof and onto the second horse.

“I did wonder a bit.” Ena clicked to her horse to move. “They’ve got that library so wrapped up in guards, I didn’t know if you’d be daring enough to slip away, let alone find two such fine horses.”

“Truth be told, I made Taddy help me.”

“The poor boy, he must be terrified.” Ena tipped her face to the sky.

Pink overtook the gray of the morning as Ena led him north, beyond the last of the houses. To the west, the new rays of light sparkled off the Arion Sea.

Adrial watched the waves gleam red until the path took them inland and trees hid the water from view.

Neither of them spoke as they traveled. A hundred questions tore through Adrial’s mind, but the gentle calls of the birds and Ena’s quiet humming as she rode in front of him were too blissfully perfect. To speak would be to shatter the moment.

An hour’s ride north of the city, Ena guided her horse off the road and into the trees to the east.

“Ena,” Adrial said, even as he let his horse follow her, “where are you going?”

“I thought you trusted me, scribe.”

“I do.” Adrial ducked beneath the low hanging branches. “There’s just not a road here.”

“When you’ve seen where I’m taking you, you’ll be glad there’s no road leading to it.”

Ena steered her horse without stopping or hesitating as they skirted around stands of trees too thick for their mounts to pass through.

“If there’s not a road or path leading to where we’re going, then how did you find it?” Adrial asked as they reached a stream. He let his reins go slack so his horse could drink. The clear water bubbled over the rocks. Adrial wanted to touch it. To feel the chill on his skin.

“The truth, or the fairy story?” Ena asked.

“The truth.”

Ena took a shuddering breath. “When I came north, I wasn’t ready to live in Ilara. I knew a trade but had no supplies, no coin. A girl on her own is an easy mark, and I was too tired to defend myself against every man who fancied himself my savior. So, I walked north and lived in the woods for a bit. I found a lot of places I don’t think even your map makers have seen.”

“You were all alone in the woods?”

“For a few months. But the snows came, and I had enough flowers stored to begin mixing inks. So, I went back to the city, found a place to live, and started working.” Ena nudged her horse to walk. “I do miss it out here. So much quieter. You know which animals to eat and which will eat you, and the rest is just surviving. If it weren’t for the snow, I’d have been tempted to stay.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” Blood rushed to Adrial’s cheeks. For a moment, he thought the sloshing of the horse’s hooves had masked his words, but before his heart could find a normal rhythm, Ena twisted to look at him.

“Your vellum wouldn’t be half so pretty.”

She stared into Adrial’s eyes as her horse cut through the trees. The intensity of her gaze burned like a dare.

Adrial took a steadying breath. “I would have made do and wouldn’t have known the difference. But I would be awfully sorry not to have known you.”

Ena winked. “Too right, scribe.” She turned to face front as the trees opened up onto a wide, sweeping plain.

Spring wildflowers coated the ground. Pale pinks grew beside bright reds and oranges. Moss-green butterflies flitted through a swatch of deep-blue blooms, wider than the grounds of the library.

In the distance, low mountains covered in emerald trees stretched out over the horizon, with only the white mountains to the north hinting there was anything in the world beyond the forest.

“It’s beautiful,” Adrial said.

A raven swooped overhead, cawing his approval of the wide valley.

“If I had known you were so easy to impress, I wouldn’t have planned on taking you all the way to the mountains. I forget how much of your life you’ve spent locked indoors. But I need the petal, so you’ll just have to ride through the pretty valley with me to get it. Unless you’d like to stay here and play with the butterflies?”

“No, I’ll ride with you.” The beauty of the valley was undeniable. But Ena smiled, and he couldn’t bring himself to look away from her.

If magic or Dudia had somehow granted him the power, he would have stopped the world, freezing time with the sun kissing his skin and Ena’s smile filling his soul.

I’d follow her to the white mountains.

The little voice at the back of Adrial’s mind whispered, She wouldn’t want you to.

“Best keep up then, scribe. We’ll have to ride faster to get there in time.” With a kick, Ena took off through the field, her hair streaming behind her.

“Come on,” Adrial urged his horse onward.

He’d been taught to ride, made to practice by Lord Karron. Though the bouncing of the horse ached in his hip, he had confidence in his seat.

“Come on.” Adrial rode up next to Ena.

Mirth danced in her eyes. “Well done, scribe.”

This is bliss. This is paradise.

The sun pressed away the bite of the spring wind.

Ena laughed as a flock of birds shot up from the ground in terror at their approach.

Let this last forever. Let this ride be how I spend my days.

But the mountains grew ever closer, and before the horses had tired, Ena slowed as they approached the woods. These trees weren’t a flat forest like the one they’d ridden through earlier. Here, the woods scaled the slope, climbing the side of the mountain.

“Best to get down now.” Ena slid easily from her horse and took the reins from Adrial. “The walk’s not long, and the branches get awfully low.”

Adrial looped his good leg over his horse, dropping down so it could take the brunt of his weight.

If Ena noticed him stumble, she had the kindness not to mention it as she handed him back his reins.

“I didn’t think you’d be so comfortable riding.” Ena ducked into the trees.

“It’s nice to go fast.” All fear of sounding childish vanished as he stepped into the woods.

The thick green leaves painted the light from above, giving the air an ethereal glow. A heavy scent of damp earth carried through each breath, but it wasn’t stifling.

If life has a scent, this is it.

“Could you ever run, scribe?” Ena asked.

“Run?”

“When you were little? Or were you born with the bad leg?” Ena stopped by the edge of a gully and, gently shushing her horse, tied his lead to a tree.

“I…” Adrial began after a long moment. “I wasn’t born with a bad leg. I think I remember running, when I was very little.”

Ena didn’t say anything as she tied Adrial’s horse near hers and pulled the bags from both mounts. Ena hadn’t asked him to bring much. Blankets and a bit of food. She handed him one of the bundles before taking his arm.

“I don’t know which would be worse,” Ena said, “remembering what it feels like to run and be free, or to have never known the feeling at all.”

“I wasn’t running to play and be merry. The only time I can remember running was when I was running from someone who wanted to hurt me.”

Ena tensed on his arm.

“It was a long time ago,” Adrial said, “and I’ve done just fine for myself.”

“You have.” Ena kept her arm through his as she led him slowly down the gully, letting him take his time to find his footing on the loose rocks. “Head Scribe. Soon to be the youngest Guild Lord in who knows how long.”

A rumble of water cut through the rustling of the wind in the trees.

“We’re nearly there, scribe.”

A mound of boulders blocked the path ahead.

Before Adrial could find the courage to say he wouldn’t be able to climb them, Ena let go of his arm and slipped through a c***k between the stones.

He twisted sideways, following her path. Though Adrial was far from being a burly man, he had only a few inches of space to spare.

The rumbling of the water grew louder as they slithered between the stones.

Adrial hoped the sound was loud enough to cover the thundering of his heart.

Ena stopped at the narrowest point in their path.

Stone touched Adrial’s ribs as he breathed in. He could see nothing but cramped passage in either direction.

“Does it make you nervous?” Ena grinned. “Like perhaps the rocks will collapse in on you and trap you forever so the Guilds will never find your bones?”

The thought hadn’t occurred to Adrial until she said it, but suddenly the horrible idea of the rocks pitching in on them seemed very real.

If one boulder moves a few inches, we’ll never get out.

“So, just a touch of panic then?” Ena snaked sideways again.

Patches of moss appeared on the rock face as mist touched the air. And in one glorious movement, Ena stepped free of the rocks, pulling Adrial out behind her.

High walls dripping with moss and vines butted up against the boulders, blocking out the rest of the world. A waterfall fifty feet high fed a pool that gleamed in the afternoon light. Trees peered over the cliffs high above, offering shade to the rocky shore. There was no sign of where the water from the pool might go. No stream to break the perfect seclusion of the falls.

“Do you like it, scribe?”

“Of all the words I have known, I have none to describe this place.”

“Good.” Ena took the bundle from his hands and tossed it onto the flattest section of the shore. “I can’t let you tell your map maker friends about this place. Not that you’d be able to find your way back here. But if those map makers you’re so fond of discovered it, they’d destroy it.”

“Destroy it? They only chart places. And I doubt many would travel here, even if it appeared on the maps.”

“There are some things too precious to be shared with the masses, and plenty of treasures the Guilds would destroy if they couldn’t find a way to control.” Ena tossed her burgundy shawl onto the ground and unlaced her boots. “Come on then, scribe. Don’t want to get your fine borrowed things wet.”

“How did you even find this place?”

“I’ve a talent for finding hidden things.” Ena tossed her boots and knife aside. “If you think I’m a fine inker, you should see what other skills I have.” She untied the laces at the top of her bodice.

Before Adrial could think to look away, she shimmied free of her bodice, unbuttoned her skirt, and dropped it to the ground.