Page 42 of The Turncoat King

She jerked, heart racing, to find Nedar watching her.

“Repairing my cloak. It got ripped by the branches.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “That’s a strange thing to do now.”

She shrugged. “I’m not doing anything else. I have the means. Why not?”

“You don’t seem particularly frightened for a prisoner of war.” Cassak spoke from across the small clearing, working a thorn studded branch out of the horse’s mane, and she winced as she turned her head a little to look at him.

“I’m in too much pain to care.” She kept her voice flat and matter-of-fact.

Neither man responded to that, and she started working a healing spell into her cloak, using the symbolism of repairing the tear to repairing the damage done to her. It took her much longer than usual. She kept needing to rest, and her mind kept floating off, untethered, and she would realize she hadn’t focused on what she was doing for a while.

When she was done, she was unhappy.

It was not her best work by any measure, and she started again. She was a little better the second time, embroidering a bed to symbolize rest and recovery. When she was done, she felt better still, and she realized she was piggybacking on the incremental improvement of each working.

She could inch her way to healing herself completely.

She was on the fourth working when she finally felt well enough to take more notice of her surroundings.

The two Kassian spies had been talking to each other in low, urgent voices as they calmed their horse and slowly worked it free of its snares, but she had stopped listening to them when she’d started working her healing spell.

Now she could concentrate, she heard the huff of their horse as it finally stepped free of the bush.

“I can hear them,” Nedar was saying, and she could hear both fear and relief in his voice. “We got the horse free just in time. Who’s going to talk to them, me or you?”

“Me.” Cassak rose from a crouch, and caught Ava looking at him.

She kept her face blank and closed her eyes again.

“She’s still barely awake,” he said. “But she’s breathing, and that’s all we need.”

“We can’t carry her. She’s small enough, but you’re injured and I need both hands to use the bow.”

“We could put her on the horse,” Cassak suggested.

“We could.” Nedar paused. “We might have to tie her on. She can barely sit up against the tree, let alone in a saddle.”

Cassak swore. “The rope was in my saddlebag, and who knows where my horse is now. Probably back at camp.”

“If it got back to camp, they might come looking for us,” Nedar said. “That would be helpful.”

Cassak grunted in response. “Let’s assume no help is coming and we have to save ourselves.”

“Ava!” Luc’s voice cut through Nedar’s response. He sounded close. Ava’s eyes opened, and she saw her captors had frozen at his shout.

That didn’t last, though. Cassak was suddenly beside her, hand over her mouth.

“Don’t come any closer or your scout is dead.” The timbre of Cassak’s voice was a little uneven, and she could feel his fear in the tight grip over her mouth and chin.

“What do you want?” Luc called.

“To get away without being followed. We lost one of our horses and have some injuries. Give us a horse and an hour to get away, and we’ll leave your scout to walk back.”

“What’s stopping you from taking her back with you as a prisoner?” Luc asked, and Ava realized her mind must have truly been clouded that she hadn’t thought of this herself.

Cassak was quiet for a moment, and she wished she could see his face.

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