His Captive Sorceress

Chapter 20: Trust Him

The four of us walk again. Trevus and Marcellus take the lead, and Giddius follows up behind me. I feel his glare on my back. He hasn't spoken since leaving Balin – no arguing about who's the greatest, no crude jokes about sexual exploits, not a single word.

My foot catches in the forest underbrush. I trip. My hands snap forward to break my fall. I land in a combination of bark and dead sticks.

After tugging my boot free from the dry brush, I push myself to sit up. My heart jumps – a face is on top of me. Trevus is on one knee, bringing us eye to eye.

His gaze runs up and down my frame. "Have you sustained an injury?"

It takes a moment to regain my bearings. My arms absorbed the impact, and my hands are a little sore. Twisting my arms around reveals bark and dirt caked into the sleeves. The material protected my skin from nasty scrapes.

"I'm fine. I just need a moment," I say.

Trevus nods and stands again, continuing with the march.

Dry leaves are kicked over my lap, making me flinch. "My sincerest apologies, princess," Giddius says. He stops and offers a hand.

I hesitate, studying his expression. He was barely concealing his rage this morning, yet now he's offering to help me up.

Rejecting his proposal will only provoke him further. I take his hand.

He pulls me up to my feet, but his grip remains tight. We've fallen behind the others, and I can't free my sleeved hand.

"Why not share what you and Trevus discussed this morning," he says at a volume only I can hear.

The corner of my lip tugs up. "Trevus wouldn't want me to."

His grip further tightens, making my hand ache.

"Thanks for the hand," I raise my voice. Trevus and Marcellus look back in our direction.

Giddius releases his hold and continues on the path. My plan is working. He's growing paranoid. Trevus needs me to infiltrate Nepolis. He doesn't need Giddius.

There's a soft buzz in my ear. I follow after the group, but leaves crunching under my boots drown out the buzz.

I still again, listening carefully to pick out the sound. A low, distant rumble is coming from somewhere.

Is it an army of horses? I scan the surrounding forest. There's nothing but tall trees and canopy shadows. Horses couldn't charge through a forest so thick – could they? It's hard to be sure. I'm not like Trevus and the others. I've been thrown into this militaristic world knowing nothing about war or battles.

"Jade?" Trevus grabs my attention. He's stopped now that my distance from them has grown.

"There's a rumbling," I say. "Listen."

"There is." His voice doesn't carry the urgency I'd expect if it was an approaching army. "'Tis expected."

Expected? I catch up with them. The rumbling grows louder as we walk. Trevus and Marcellus stop at the top of a ridge. The noise is deafening now. I follow after them, and the sight at the top makes me take a step back, nearly slipping.

This ridge is the last piece of solid ground. After that, there's a ten-foot drop into a raging flood of water. It's so loud that I can't hear myself think. The gray torrent swirls in every direction, smashing against rocks and ejecting clouds of mist that coat my face.

"The Merk," Trevus says.

This is the Merk river? Did I mishear him? "How could this be a river?" I almost have to shout over the noise. My village was near a river, and it was nothing like this.