Inked, p.13
Inked, page 13
I fluttered my eyes open and looked up into a brilliant blue sky. I gasped, the winter air crisp and frigid.
It had been a dream.
I exhaled, relieved. I moved to sit up, and discovered that I couldn’t. I swayed back and forth, my hands tied tightly around my back, my feet bound. We were moving. I craned my neck to the side and caught a glimpse of the thick wooden beams beneath me, held together with brass bars. Bits of stray light came through them, revealing a dirt road underneath. I turned my head and spotted Dreya, peering at me with her bright amber eyes, sitting up and leaning against the edge of the wagon.
“What happened?” I asked. Dreya winced and looked around, motioning for me to be quiet. She nodded her head toward the front, where I could make out several horses, and spotted the outline of a large man seated at the head of the wagon, cloaked in burgundy and gold. The colors sent my heart racing.
Beyond Dreya, toward the back of the wagon, Kenzi sat slumped against the edge, asleep, his face lightly bandaged. And further off, I could see a handful of men following us on horses.
“What happened?” I repeated softly.
Dreya frowned. “Caenum, it’s the Citadel Guard,” her eyes started to glisten, “they showed up a few hours after Vikash knocked you out,” she stammered. “They wouldn’t listen to me. And they won’t tell me where they are taking us.”
“We’ll be okay,” I said, wiggling back and forth, “is there anything that can get us out of these ropes?” I asked, squirming.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve tried. And you guys aren’t tied up in normal ropes—you’re in those brass wire things.” She nodded over at Kenzi, and I saw them, dangling off his wrists. The pulsing brass orbs. Magic Dampeners. I arched my back and shook my arms and wrists, the brass balls banging against the wood platform.
“Both of us?” I asked, confused. “Why?”
Dreya looked shocked. “Do you really not remember? The vines? The plants?”
“Come on, that wasn’t me,” I scoffed, pretending the idea was absurd. “That was Kenzi. Maybe he cast some spells in his sleep . . .”
“Caenum,” Dreya said softly, “I saw your eyes.”
I stopped talking.
“They were glowing white, the same that Kenzi gets when he uses his . . . his energy or whatever it is.” She looked at me, her face awash in disappointment. “When were you going to tell me? You’re . . . my . . .”
I wanted to reach out and hold her, grasp her hand, anything to be close to her, to let her know it was going to be okay. I wrestled into a sitting position, my wrists and forearms fighting angrily against the wooden planks below me.
“I didn’t know!” I said, protesting, my arms stinging. “My grandmother—before she died she said something might happen, something might awaken. I didn’t know what she meant.” Dreya looked away, glancing at Kenzi and then over the side of the wagon, at the rolling hills that we rocked and shook passed in the rickety wagon. “You have to believe me,” I said, pleading. “When Vikash threatened you, something just, I don’t know, something broke inside of me. I wish I had the words to explain.” I said, my eyes pleading.
“I felt it happen once before, I think, when we found my grandmother,” I admitted, softly. “There was all this anger, this crushing guilt. I started screaming and there was this cyclone of dirt, these sprigs growing out of my palms. I didn’t really think about it. I just figured it was . . . I don’t know, the grief, the weather or something. And then in the fields I could feel the pain of the plants as they burned and broke and—” I stopped, my mind racing back to that day.
To the greenhouse.
To the shattered glass.
To my splintered hands and Dreya’s searing hot touch, her hands glimmering, golden . . . I gasped and looked at her.
“You can do it too!” I exclaimed, accusingly.
“What?” she asked, startled. “You, you don’t know what you are talking about!”
“Ha!” I snorted. “When Kenzi burned down our homes we held hands, and your hands, they burned, lighting up like your eyes.” I grinned.
Dreya smiled softly and looked away.
“Come on,” I said, soothingly. “I don’t care. I don’t care if you had some crazy power to transform into a dragon, or if every time someone looked at you, your gaze turned them into stone.”
She laughed and looked at the landscape rolling by. “Don’t be stupid,” she said, “then you’d never be able to look at me.”
“Hey,” I said, trying to get her attention. She turned to stare at me with her piercing yellow eyes.
“It’d be worth it.”
I awoke with a jolt, as the wagon hit a rock and tilted. Dreya woke up startled as well. I shifted uncomfortably, trying to get a glimpse over the side of the wagon. The man leading the horses was cloaked in deep burgundy, a purple and gold C with a sword through it on the back. He stomped over to the broken wheel, grumbling a series of swears under his breath, and knelt down out of sight.
“Psst!”
I turned to find Kenzi, now wide-awake, squirming his way toward us, not unlike an inchworm making its way across a leaf. The movement would have surely been comical, had the situation not been so overtly dramatic.
“You guys are awake. Good,” he said, leaning up against the opposite side of the wagon.
“You are too,” I said, sizing him up. “Earlier, you were out cold.”
“Getting your ass kicked will do that to you,” he said, grumbling. “I appreciate you trying to help me out though. That Vikash guy . . .” I nodded my head, agreeing sadly. “Anything over here that could break Dreya’s ropes? Then she could get these things off and we could . . .” he stopped midsentence as Dreya and I shook our heads sadly. He frowned.
“Hey!” he shouted suddenly, yelling at the man fussing over the wheel. “Care to maybe answer a few questions?”
The guard looked up at us and simply shook his head, returning to his repairs. He didn’t appear overly threatening for a man that was supposed to be terrifying. Medium build, a clean-shaven and almost good-looking face with hardened features, as if he’d been in one-too-many fights.
“You know, maybe like where we’re going? Who are you? Simple stuff?” Kenzi arched his head over the side of the wagon, trying to catch a better look at the guard. He glanced at him again and shook his head, focused on whatever work he was doing down by the broken wheel. “Maybe tell us why you guys wear those girlie looking capes?”
I gaped at Kenzi and Dreya gasped. “Shut up,” I whispered, “don’t push him.”
“Or what?” Kenzi asked sarcastically. “Look at me. What’s the worst that could possibly—”
He was cut off by the guard, who was now standing right near us, outside the wagon, his hands over the edge. “Best keep quiet, Conduit,” he said, “members of the Citadel Guard are not to be trifled with.”
I found myself trying to stifle a laugh.
This man was not at all what I expected, these legendary powerhouses of men, their brutality and mercilessness renowned through the Realm. This was certainly not the sort of man who would have sacked Frosthaven.
“You don’t look so intimidating,” I said, my eyes still sizing him up. Dreya bumped into me and flashed me a What do you think you’re doing? look.
“I mean, you don’t look like a Citadel Guard,” I said, trying to be somewhat respectful.
“Shut up, the three of you.” He peeked over the edge of the wagon, his eyes wandering to our bonds, and nodded curtly. “Just sit here and mind your damn business. Not another word.” He shuffled over to the back of the wagon, grumbling to himself, and began tinkering with the wheel again.
“Caenum!” Kenzi whispered, inching himself closer to me, his eyes wide and full of mischief. “I have an idea. Watch this,” he said, and started jostling himself about. The wagon squeaked and groaned, swaying from side to side.
“Hey!” barked the Citadel Guard, his head peeking up over the wagon.
“Sorry!” Kenzi yelled at him, insincerely. He looked at Dreya and I and grinned mischievously. He lowered his head and whispered. “With that wheel down and the wagon tilted, I bet if we all hurled ourselves at the side of the wagon while that guy is fixing the wheel, it would flip over, and we could run off.”
I grimaced, “I don’t know Kenzi; it might crush him.”
Kenzi’s brow furrowed and he scoffed, “So what? He’s one of them.”
I squirmed uneasily, “I don’t know, he just doesn’t seem like the typical Guard we’ve heard about. Look at him.” We glanced over just in time to catch the Guard hammering at something and let out a loud shriek. He whipped his hand back and forth and stuck a finger in his mouth for a moment, before realizing we were watching. He cleared his throat and returned to work. “Does that look like a killer?”
“That’s not the point, we—”
“Do we look like killers?” I asked him, feeling melodramatic. “Come on, I didn’t even know how to load the crossbow . . . ah, damn it. Our bags and supplies!” If my hands were free, I would have slapped my forehead. “What do you think they did with all of that?”
Kenzi shrugged and Dreya pursed her lips, looking sad. We’d kept the last few memories from our homes. Were they really all gone?
“Maybe it’s here with us,” Kenzi mused. “I saw a trunk underneath the wagon when they were tossing us in here.” Dreya nodded softly, agreeing. “Whatever,” he continued, gesturing dismissively, “we flip this damn thing, and get everything out of the trunk. Then we run for it.”
“And where’s the nearest village?” I asked, sarcastically. “We don’t even know where we are. And in case you forgot,” I banged the brass bonds against the side of the wagon, which thunked loudly, “we’re kind of tied up here.”
“Dreya can untie them! We’ll get those ropes off her, using the first sharp object we see. Maybe when the wagon flips, we find some nails or something, some broken pieces of wood, I don’t know. Something!”
I looked at Dreya and shook my head softly. Kenzi grew heated and snarled.
“Well if you two aren’t going to do something, I am!” he said, pressing himself hard against the side of the wagon and attempting to get to his feet. The wagon jerked back and forth as he wiggled about, pressing his back hard against the wood and digging his feet into the floor to push himself up.
“Kenzi, stop it!” I said loudly, my eyes darting back and forth from him to the Citadel Guard. “He’s going to—”
The Citadel Guard jumped up. “Hey!” he shouted, and as Kenzi glanced over him, Kenzi toppled off the edge of the cart, flipping over and crashing nearly headfirst on the dirt road. Somehow Kenzi struggled to his feet and made a mad attempt at making his way off the road and into the fields beyond, hopping off quickly, his ankles still bound.
The Guard abandoned his project and ran after Kenzi, who was hurtling himself wildly through the fields, hopping madly, looking absolutely absurd. I caught him glance back at Dreya and I as he ran, an expectant look in his eyes. Did he want us to make a run for it too?
As the shouts of the Guard and Kenzi’s frantic jumping grew softer and farther away, Dreya suddenly perked up. She pressed herself against the side of the wagon and wiggled her way up until she was standing. Moving around, she looked over the edge of the wagon and winced, as though bracing herself.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Caenum look!” Dreya nodded her head at the broken wheel toward the back of the wagon, bits of brass and wood jutting out here and there from where it had cracked. “If we get down there, we can get the ropes off. Then we can make a real run for it.”
“Oh,” I said, nodding. “Okay, okay, let’s do this.” I squirmed to my feet as well and faced the edge of the wagon. It wasn’t a long fall by any means, but without the use of my hands and arms, the possibility of it hurting something fierce was unfortunately high.
“One . . . ,” Dreya said.
“Wait a second Dreya, we should—”
“Two . . .,” she continued, swaying back and forth.
“It looks really far I don’t think we—”
“Three!” she exclaimed, and spotting my hesitation, nudged me over the edge with her shoulder. I fell to the ground with a hard thud, landing squarely on my back. She followed suit, landing on her side with a soft gasp.
I wiggled into a sitting position against one of the front wheels, the wooden spokes looking old and archaic, as the pain in my back faded quickly.
“Hey Dreya, did you notice that—” I looked at the ground to spot her missing—“Dreya?”
“Over here!” she shouted, already struggling to get to her feet by the broken wooden wheel.
“What should I do?” I asked, looking at her tied-up wrists and the shards of broken wood sticking out of the wheel.
“Just keep a lookout,” she said, already working one of the jagged spikes of splintered wood up and down her ties, the thick ropes starting to fray.
I hopped my way for a couple of feet before stumbling and crashing to the ground, dirt and rock pressing angrily into my check, arms, and neck. I heard Dreya chuckle and I flashed her a look, squirming my way toward the edge of the road, which curved up a slight hill toward the open plains. My eyes widened as I looked over the hill.
“Dreya!” I yelled. “Hurry up!”
The Citadel Guard was walking back toward the wagon, Kenzi slung over his shoulder, kicking and wiggling about wildly, screaming a fine array of curses. I squinted, focusing on the two forms. Flashes of light were erupting from the brass spheres that hung by the ropes holding Kenzi’s wrists and legs together with each of his furious kicks. Were they blocking the angry Magic that was about to spill out?
“Ah!” Dreya shouted. I turned around to spot her flexing her open hands in front of her, wiggling her fingers. “That’s better.” She took the frayed rope and tossed it into the wagon, then bent down to untie the ropes around her ankles.
I looked back at the guard, growing closer with each passing second.
“Dreya!” I shouted. “Come on, we’ve got to get back inside. They’re almost here.”
She picked up the other piece of rope, grabbed the side of the wagon, and pulled herself back up, the wagon creaking and groaning as it jostled. I hopped over to the side of the wagon and frowned. How was I supposed to get back up there?
Dreya lowered her now-free hands over the edge toward me. I frowned at her.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, grimacing at her hands. She moved to hop back off the cart.
I glanced over my back and spotted the Guard and Kenzi just a few feet away, beginning to crest over the hill.
“No time! Hide your hands!” I yelled, and hurled myself toward the ground. I heard the wagon squeak as she repositioned herself back inside. The wagon had barely finished swaying back and forth when the Citadel Guard crested over the hill, an exhausted-looking Kenzi over his shoulder. The Guard was clearly struggling under the weight of Kenzi, and looked forlorn when he first caught sight of me on the ground next to the wagon.
“Oh for the Gods’ sake,” he said, tossing Kenzi over the top of the wagon, his body hitting the wood floor with a crash. “You too?”
The Guard bent over and lifted me up over his shoulder, not without some difficulty. He groaned and strained, and I struggled just enough to make it seem like I wanted to get away. I almost, for a split second, felt bad for the guy, out here on the road alone with us three, clearly not strong enough to handle the trouble we were causing. He tossed me onto the wagon and I slammed against the floor with a grunt.
“At least one of you knows how to behave,” he said, nodding at Dreya. She turned away. “Now you two stay put; don’t make me break those ankles or something.” Again, I found myself wanting to laugh, his threats sounded so unbelievably insincere. He ambled back over to the broken wheel with a sigh and got back to work.
“So?” asked Kenzi, squirming his way over to us. “Any luck?”
Dreya looked over the edge of the wagon, the Citadel Guard back to being hard at work and focused on the wheel. She pulled her hands out from behind her back and wiggled her fingers.
“Yes!” Kenzi mouthed, nodding his head excitably.
“When we get underway again,” Dreya said, nodding at both of us, and then with a whisper, “I’ll untie you guys and we’ll make a run for it. With the horses trotting and the wheels crunching over this rough road, he won’t be able to hear us.”
Kenzi and I nodded a silent agreement, as the Citadel Guard grunted and groaned over the broken wheel.
After an hour or so, we were back on our way.
The Guard checked on us inside the wagon and nodded sharply at us. He hopped back into his seat, pressing the horses to continue on down the dirt road.
We waited a few minutes before silently nodding to one another. The cart bumped along, jostling us to and fro, making an incredible racket. Kenzi furrowed his brow and arched his head, leaning toward the Citadel Guard, as if he was listening to something. Just as I was about to ask him what he was doing, I heard it too.
Music.
The Citadel Guard was singing something to himself, barely audible over the clatter of the wheels and the clumping of the horses’ footsteps, but it was just the little bit of extra distraction we needed. Kenzi glanced at me, grinned, and swung his legs over to Dreya.
The pulsing brass orbs were shockingly heavy despite how small they were, and Dreya had a hard time untwisting the thick brass ropes, the spheres pulling them together tightly. When he was free, the Dampeners hit the floorboards with a satisfying bang, and the two of them helped untie me.
“Okay, are we ready to jump?” I asked, squatting near the edge of the wagon.
Dreya and Kenzi looked at one another. Something unspoken traveled between the two of them, a lingering pause floated through the air. Dreya looked down into her lap and Kenzi shot me a piercing look.
“We’re not jumping,” he said, shortly. “We’re tipping the wagon.”
“What?!” I protested. “But didn’t we . . .”
“Our supplies are underneath the wagon Caenum,” Dreya said, looking up at me, ashamed. “We need what’s in that trunk, or we aren’t going to get anywhere.”
