Page 30 of Her Cruel Redemption

I found myself flashing my teeth in something halfway between a snarl and a grin, gripped with a furious exhilaration as I took a few more steps forwards, holding my hands out as sparks continued to chase their way up my arms, making my hair stand on end. I swivelled my right hand and another bolt of lightning leapt in a wide arc, slamming to the ground with one, then another cacophonousboom!The impact knocked my legs out. Pain tore through my head. I curled into a ball on the ground, smacking my hands over my eyes in a gasp, attackers momentarily forgotten. Oh, ithurt.So much that I thought I might vomit. But there were people here who would hurt me more, and I was vulnerable. I struggled to push myself off the ground, one hand still grinding against my forehead. I squinted through the throbbing, bracing myself to move, to lash out.

But there was no one looming over me. The attackers lay in struggling piles around me, staggering to get themselves upright. The first to his feet took one look at me, meeting my eyes for a split second, before he turned to bolt back through the trees. Within moments, they were all streaming away, scattering like a group of frightened cats, no longer a collective unit but a bunch of scared boys running for their lives. Then another bolt of pain lanced through my head and everything went dark.

Chapter Thirteen

Igingerly touched Rhiandra’s face, gnawing on my lip as I watched her eyes flickering behind her eyelids.

‘It’s alright. Don’t frown. She’s not fever struck. Look, she’s coming out of it now,’ Daethie said, bending a little closer to Rhi’s face with a faint smile. ‘But she could be more careful next time.’

‘There shouldn’t be a next time,’ Elias said. He was standing in the entrance to the tent with his arms folded, strung tight with tension. ‘This can’t happen again. It’s dangerous. She could have hit anyone, any of us, and she was supposed to be keeping her magic hidden.’

I met his eyes. ‘I know. But she was in trouble. I doubt she would have thought she had any other choice.’

The lightning strikes had been loud, and they’d brought our whole party running. Kelvhan had been the first to reach the spot, finding an unconscious Rhiandra lying near an injured Tanathil and our terrified horses. A nearby tree had been smouldering and flames had licked the charred ground where other bolts of magic had struck, but Mae had extinguished them quickly enough as Kelvhan had scooped Rhi off the ground and bought her back to camp. Daethie had checked her for injuries and found nothing, attributing her unconscious state to magic poisoning.

‘Will this happen to her every time she uses it?’ I asked.

Daethie cocked her head to the side and stared into the distance, like she was listening to something far away. ‘I’m not sure. Maybe not. Her body could come to tolerate it better. But when her body is in poor condition from hunger or exhaustion or illness—or travel—she’ll fare worse. The limits will change.’

The sound of heated cursing cut through the stillness from a spot just outside the tent. Rhiandra’s eyes snapped open, and she choked on a gasp, her body going rigid right before her arms started thrashing around. Daethie immediately planted hands on her shoulders and held her down, making soothing noises and quickly murmuring a narration of what had happened as Rhi frantically scanned her surroundings, her gaze falling finally on me. She managed to take a deeper breath and closed her eyes again before letting it out.

‘Are you alright?’ I asked her as she pushed herself into a sitting position.

She pressed a hand to her head. ‘Sensational. Is Tanathil--?’

‘He’ll be fine. Mae is fixing him up.’

‘Did they get anyone else?’

‘No. I think you scared them all off before they had the chance.’

She drew her hand away from her head as another string of venomous insults and curses reached us. ‘Then what’s that?’

‘Goras caught one of them,’ Elias said. ‘He’s tied up outside.’

She raised her eyebrows, peering around Elias as though to catch sight of the prisoner. ‘Have you got any information out of him? We need to know if they were here because they were looking for us, or if they just found us through luck and coincidence.’

‘He’s not willing to talk.’

‘Thenmakehim talk.’

Elias stared at her blankly.

‘We can’t hurt him,’ Deathie said, stroking at her braid nervously. ‘That isn’t what you mean.’

‘Oh you must be joking,’ Rhi muttered, staggering to her feet. I stood with her and caught her when she wobbled, but she shrugged me off. Elias stepped out of her way as she brushed past him, and I followed quickly behind her as she immediately narrowed in on the angry prisoner bound in the boughs and roots of a yarrow tree.

He eyed her as she approached. He was a bristly, hairy man, with a scraggly beard streaked with lines of grey. His expression was wary.

Goras climbed off the log he'd been sitting on to draw closer as Rhi stood before the prisoner and examined him. There was something sharp in her manner that sent a shiver of premonition down my spine, something glittering in her eyes that I didn't know how to describe, something that made me wary.

'So, he hasn't told you anything?' Rhi asked.

'Mostly insulted me,' Goras muttered. She moved closer to the bearded man, slowly raking him with her gaze. He was completely immobilised, with tree roots snaking up his legs and winding around his wrists, holding him with his limbs splayed out.

'What's the matter? Run out of insults?' she asked as she leaned in to examine his face.

'If you're gonna try something on, better be getting around to it soon. I'm getting tired of hanging here,' he replied with a leer. 'But yeh won't, will yeh? Won't bend your principles to draw pain. Not a bunch of Yoxvese purists and a couple of human girls.'

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