Chapter Twenty

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On the ride back to Madrezza, Elena was quiet. They rode in single file through the forest on a narrow path. Two guards took the lead, followed by Elena and Liran. Another two guards followed in the rear. Liran too, said little.

Their visit with Ergin left them with much to think about. Elena had never met anyone quite like this man. Ergamin Lotreah had a way of turning your thinking inside out.

What did she want? Elena could list a few things, beginning with finding her mother. She needed an explanation of why she had been abandoned and about the remarkable abilities she seemed to have inherited. She also wanted a place where she fit in; where she belonged. Castillon felt like it might be that place.

And love? Well, Elena had made a grand mess of that before. Would she ever get it right? She still wanted companionship. Ergin had seen that right away. The longing hadn't disappeared, but it had gone dormant while she lived in Kalad. Now that she was back among her own people, she wondered if she might meet someone new.

At some point, the issue of her age would start to be a challenge. She might not find a young man of twenty or thirty years particularly interesting when she was seventy or eighty, and a seventy or eighty year old man would be just too old. What would she do if she lived even longer than that? The Hilliri lived much longer, but Trillas and a Hilliri never intermarried, save for that one time, and she knew how badly that had gone. Lorenzo and Liriel had stopped one war with their union, but another conflict had started because of it. No wonder Liran received such abusive treatment when he visited Kalad. He was a reminder of the strife his parents had caused.

The forest was more mixed in these parts than by the water's edge where only tall scraggly pines grew. The undergrowth was heavier. The path, at times, grew close and narrow. Elena was concerned that overgrown branches might catch in her tack or scratch her horse's sides. The weather was grey and the sky so overcast that it created deep shadows in the forest around them. The air was filled with damp, signalling a shower was overdue.

The path was twisted; deep curves making blind turns. They had to keep alert, guiding their mounts carefully through the narrow twisted places so as not to veer too far to the side of the trail where the brush was thick and often prickly. After several hours, they began to look for a place to break. Both the horses and their riders would need to be fed and watered soon.

A fox ran across her path, nearly getting trampled under her horse. He spooked for a moment, rearing and dancing. Elena was used to his temper. She tried to talk him down, patting his lathered neck and humming to him. He tossed his head, stomping back and forth, but he refused to move forward. The gap between her and forward guards was growing wider.

Behind, she heard the Prince talking his own mount down too. Such tension had a way of travelling from one horse to another.

A breeze and a whistling sound passed by her ear. Elena's focus narrowed as she processed the experience. It was an arrow. Her eyes darted from tree to bush, trying to locate its source. It came from further up the path. She glanced up ahead, searching, trying to spot the archer, just in time to watch on of the forward guards and his horse topple from a hail of arrows. The Prince needed protection. She turned to look behind her.

"My Lord, turn back!"

She was relieved when his horse whirled around and headed back the way they had come. She urged her own horse about and kicked him hard. It would only take a moment to return to the last bend in their route where a thicket of trees would block them from view. It would give her time to figure out how to deal with their attackers.

On the other side of the curve, flying arrows no longer a threat, Elena spotted a large tree with a wide trunk. At its base there was a cluster of thick branches of a bush. From here they could hide and surprise their attackers as they came back to capture their prey. Hopefully the guards posted behind them would also come to their aid.

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