Chapter 15

46.2K 3.3K 211
                                    

We travel the twelve miles to the Prince's tavern in less than an hour. Riding a horse feels nothing like my father's memories. The power and rhythm of the beast makes my heart soar and fly above the ground. It is like being swept up by the wind and once I find my balance and confidence, the whoosh of exhilaration is unlike anything I've ever experienced.

By the time we arrive at the tavern, I am windswept, breathless and my shoulder burns. The strain of holding the reins has ripped the old arrow wound, and it bleeds again.

"Are you staying up there all night?" Tug asks, as a stable boy appears to tend to the horses. My hands feel locked on the reins, my aching muscles clench around the beast's belly. I lift my leg awkwardly over one side and fall. Tug catches me. I let out a yelp as one of his hands presses against my arm. Without a word, he stands me on my feet and leaves me to stagger behind him and Brin to the backdoor.

I follow them into a room lit by a large fire and lanterns on every table. The Prince sits by the hearth with a book. The blind man snoozes in an adjacent chair. As we enter, Prince Jakut rises, shoulders relaxed, expression satisfied, but I notice the tight grip on his closed book.

"Brin, Ule," Tug says introducing the men. The Prince nods but Brin only stares, behaving one hundred percent like the loutish thug he is.

"I am pleased you have accepted my offer," the Prince says. He searches me out beyond my captors. I let our eyes meet, allowing him to think I am relieved and grateful and enchanted—after all I have been at the whim of two brutal mercenaries and now a Prince has saved me! Then I hastily drop my gaze as though remembering my place.

He sets his book on the mantlepiece and crosses the empty dining room. I attempt a curtsey, though with one hand down my parka to staunch my reopened wound, it is clumsy.

"What's wrong with your arm?" he asks.

"It's nothing," I say, still short of breath and buoyed up from the ride. "Just a scratch."

"May I?"

He reaches out, guiding my outer parka over my head. Days of sweat, grime and smoke cling to my skin but he doesn't flinch at the stink. I try to hide the way my muscles tighten. He is so conceited he believes he can help me undress! If my memories were a forest of devastation, and I relied on an old, blind man to tell me who I was, I would not be so arrogant.

Beneath my furs, my shirt and hand are bloody. The cloth around my neck is also stained with blood.

"This is an arrow wound?" the Prince asks.

Tug moves to join us. "It is from when we caught her," he says.

"And what is this?" he asks, touching the rag at my neck.

"A warning," Tug says.

"We will be riding through the night. Deadran will tend to both wounds immediately."

I frown while the blind man rouses and the Prince calls the innkeeper. Prince Jakut, or Ule as we are all supposed to call him, seems irritated over Tug's neglect of my person. Obviously he's concerned arrow-wounds and knife-wounds could lead to questions about my true identity. But some tiny part of me wonders if he finds violence towards a vulnerable girl distasteful. Even if the girl is an outlawed shadow weaver.

Maybe I have overplayed the weak feminine angle. Though it is not like I have fainted or cried. Still, I do not want him to think I am so delicate he is worrying about my health, and having me watched all the time.

The innkeeper leads the old man and me to a cellar room with one narrow bed and a washbasin. The innkeeper's wife hurries in with a pot of hot water, and a basket filled with ointment bottles, cotton gauze and wraps.

Shadow Weaver (Back on Wattpad 2020!)Where stories live. Discover now