“Ready!” she shouted to the remaining members of her team. Lew and Nat pulled back on their mounts, allowing the soldiers to pour forth from Narrowmar, and they charged into the rain-drenched night. With a flick of the reins Briar followed, praying her father wouldn’t curse her as she fled.
She caught up with Lew and Nat just as they rode past Esteban, who had paused in the center of the ravine. He opened his mouth to shout a final spell to hold off their pursuers. It sounded like a good one, full of destruction, but Briar didn’t look back.
They regrouped at the broken statue beyond the ravine. Jemma, covered in dirt. Mae, the rain plastering her curls to her forehead. Esteban, a black shape crumpled in his saddle. Lew, with assorted cuts and bruises and a bloody rip in his vest. Nat, a makeshift sling around his neck. The squall of a very irritated baby came from beneath his patchwork coat.
“I found her with Sheriff,” Nat reported. “He almost bit my hand off, but I told him you’d want me to take her.”
Mae rode close by Nat, checking to see that her baby still had all her fingers and toes. Sheriff barked, weaving through the horses’ legs to stay close to Nat and the baby.
“You both did well.” Briar was beginning to feel lightheaded from the pain in her arm. She wanted to take shelter beneath the statue’s giant legs, but they weren’t safe so near Narrowmar. “Are we riding all night?”
“We can rest in New Chester,” Jemma said. Her clothes were dirty and torn, but she had emerged from the tunnel unscathed. “Esteban can’t heal anyone until he has a long sleep.”
The voice mage clung to his saddle, swaying dangerously. That final spell had taken a lot out of him after a long night.
“We thought you were done for when the mountain collapsed,” Lew said, drawing his horse closer to Briar. “Did you get Lord Larke?”
Briar hesitated. “I don’t think he’ll bother us for a while.” In truth, Jasper Larke probably wouldn’t survive the wound from the black curse stone unless he found a voice mage. She hadn’t seen what had become of Tomas after she’d put him to sleep.
Archer himself was in no condition to ask about his father and brother. He had been slammed to the ground, first by Briar in the tunnel then by her father. The brutal blows had taken their toll.
Briar was afraid to get close to him and see the extent of his injuries. Jemma and Lew fashioned a litter to transport him, but they couldn’t do much to make him comfortable. He lay unconscious in the sling, his face covered in cuts, his skin swelling from internal bleeding.
“Can’t you fix him?” Nat asked Esteban as they prepared to set out into the forest.
The voice mage was barely awake. Jemma moved forward to tie him to his saddle so he wouldn’t fall off his horse.
“I have done … more … can’t.”
“Don’t speak,” Jemma said. “When you get your strength back, you can try again.”
She finished the knots on Esteban’s saddle then mounted her own horse. She, too, could barely look at Archer, but her back was straight and her eyes were resolute as she led the way into the darkness.
They had a somber ride away from Narrowmar. The sparse pines rose above them, not thick enough to protect them from the rain, and the sloping ground was wet and perilous. After an hour, they left the woods for the road to avoid jarring Archer’s litter more than necessary. Briar held out hope that they would encounter a traveling voice mage along the way, but the road remained empty.
They stopped to rest in the small hours of the morning, making camp beneath the dripping pines. Nat and Jemma managed to find enough dry wood for a small fire. Lew laid Archer beside it, wincing as the flames illuminated his bruises. They were dark and swollen and still spreading.
Esteban tried twice more to sing Archer back to health, but his powers were utterly spent. He wheezed and gasped, unable to produce a single note of magic. Archer had killed Larke’s voice mage, Croyden, the only other person nearby who might have had a chance at healing Archer’s body. Esteban mumbled an apology, struggling to hold up his head on his scrawny neck.
“It’s not your fault,” Lew told him gruffly. “We all did the best we could.”
They had hoped making camp would give Esteban time to recover, but Archer was fading fast. His breath became a slow rattle. Jemma and Lew sat with him, whispering soberly to each other. Briar didn’t have to eavesdrop to know they didn’t think he would live to see the dawn.
Jemma wore a stoic expression as she pressed a wet cloth to her son’s forehead. She whispered in his ear, perhaps telling him the secret she had kept for his entire life, but he was beyond hearing. The others huddled beneath the pines, unable to revel in their successful mission as their leader lay dying.
“Can you do something?” Mae pleaded with Briar, her daughter swaddled up tight in her arms. “You’re so powerful.”
“I’m not,” Briar said. “I’ve tried to heal before. It doesn’t work.”
“He can’t die, not because of me.”
“It was for both of you.” Briar started to reach out to the baby then pulled back, clutching her injured arm. “And for everyone Larke would have hurt if he’d used your baby to expand his dominion. Now, you can return to your father’s house, or take your daughter and leave this kingdom forever.”
Mae hugged her baby closer, tears spilling onto the blankets. “Please try something.”
Briar couldn’t tell her no, even though she knew it was futile. Mae looked at her with too much trust and desperation.
Briar approached Archer’s broken form, her leg protesting every step. Jemma moved aside to give her space.
Archer was covered in
