Priestess

Chapter 40

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Chapter 40

With Talhan’s help, they found a game trail leading through the thick forest. Tenan had the foresight to pair a weak person with a strong one.

They forced them to push on all day and through the night. In the hours before dawn, a cry of warning spread through the former slaves, “Kanovians!” Instantly, the people broke into a run.

Dumping the baby she’d been carrying back into his mother’s arms, Ara drew her bow and raced beside Tenan to the back of the entourage. Taking a risk, she Fragmented. She encountered stone and spring—Miners and Lodan.

“They’re alive,” she murmured as relief unclenching her gut. “It’s all right,” she soothed the people. “It’s just the other Miners.”

“No Priestess! I saw a Kanovian!” a man cried.

Alarm tightened her gut back up. She shot her Fragment out. Zacar. She didn’t think she’d ever see him again. And yet, only a few hours later, here he was. “He won’t hurt anyone,” she reassured him. She ignored the look of disbelief on his face.

She waited impatiently while they galloped towards her. Lodan quickly outpaced the Miners, who led three or four horses each. He stopped in front of her and tickled the side of her face with his soft muzzle. “I will not let you out of my sight again.”

Ara scratched playfully behind his ears.

“Oh to have my own hands for that!” He trembled under her touch.

Bomin dismounted from his back. He really was getting much better with horses.

She froze at the tears streaming down his face. Her heart fell. “What happened?”

To her relief, he managed a smile. “We destroyed it, Missy. We destroyed Torqu.”

Ara closed her eyes and sighed in relief. “And the Kanovians?” she asked Zacar as he rode in.

Zacar swung effortlessly from the saddle. “I barely managed to get out in time.”

“Torzac?”

Zacar shook his head. “Don’t count on it. It’d take much more than drowning to kill him.” He cross his arms and leaned against his palomino stallion, his gaze fixed on her. “So all this time, you planned on killing me?”

“I didn’t know if I could trust you,” she said carefully.

His nostrils flared. “There were good people in that mountain, Ara. Good men. They were my friends.”

She pressed her lips together. “I warned you.”

“Because you needed me to save Lodan?”

She winced. I won’t lie to him. “Partly.”

Hurt registered on his face, but he covered quickly. He shrugged indifferently. “Eventually, they’ll realize who you were, and that I helped you. They’ll send Assassin’s for me.”

She watched him carefully. “Then you’re safer with us.”

He wouldn’t look at her, and she knew the conversation was over.