Page 55 of Storm to Victory
“So I probably should keep my ears hidden.” Pip reached up, ensuring that her straggling and frizzing hair covered her ears. “Strange they didn’t check.”
“Likely a subconscious oversight. You don’t exactly look like your typical elf warrior.” Prince Edmund sighed and leaned his head against the canvas stretched tight across the front of thecargo bed. “The good news is they’re going to underestimate you. The bad news is, if they don’t think you have magic, then they probably assume you’re one of my spies.”
“That would explain why they have divided us up like this.” Pip shifted, trying to find a more comfortable spot. Her head was still aching, and, despite how much time she’d been unconscious, she still wanted sleep. “The two with magic together, and the two spies together.”
“Yes. At least, we can only hope they are together and just in another truck in this same convoy.” Prince Edmund held out his arm. “I know we don’t know each other that well yet, but you can lean against me if you wish. It will likely be hours before we stop.”
It was a fatherly gesture, and after several days in an airship with only the four of them, he felt almost like he was an uncle to her.
Pip leaned her head onto his shoulder, sighing at how good it felt to rest. She let her eyes fall closed. “Do you think they’re still alive?”
“I believe so. Your magic protected the two of us from serious injury. It should’ve done the same for them.” Prince Edmund shifted slightly, as if to get her head into a more comfortable position on his arm. “I’m communicating with Jalissa in our heart bond. The heart bond doesn’t lend itself to true telepathy, but with some time, I should be able to communicate the gist of what happened. At the very least, Jalissa knows I’m still alive and that something went wrong. I’m trying to prompt her to talk to Essie, who will know if Farrendel is still alive. We should be able to get some idea of what is happening eventually.”
“That’s good.” Pip found her body relaxing as she drifted toward sleep.
The joltof the truck stopping woke her. Pip bolted upright, blinking for a moment as she tried to process where she was and what was happening.
Prince Edmund moved first, shoving his wrists into the shackles.
Pip molded the metal back into place before she scooted to her original spot. Fumbling, she worked her wrists into the shackles and eased the metal into place.
Not a moment too soon. The canvas flaps at the back of the truck were flung aside, revealing three Mongavarian soldiers standing there.
One of them pointed a gun in her and Prince Edmund’s direction while the other two climbed into the truck bed.
It wasn’t particularly good form, considering the man with the gun would risk hitting one of his fellow soldiers if a scuffle broke out.
But Pip didn’t resist as the soldier unlocked her shackles, freed the chain from the rail, and reshackled her hands in front of her. He yanked her to her feet and dragged her across the truck bed. He jumped down first, then pulled her after him. She landed with a stumble and nearly went down to her knees. Only the man’s grip on her arm kept her upright.
Prince Edmund didn’t resist either as he was similarly unshackled and dragged from the truck, though his hands were secured behind his back. A sign that the Mongavarians considered him the greater threat.
As she got her feet beneath her, Pip finally took a good look around.
The line of trucks was parked on the side of a dirt road beside a recently cut hay field, the hay still in rows waiting to be baled.
A Mongavarian officer was talking with a man in farmer’s garb in front of a ramshackle farmhouse, the barn behind it in better shape. Other Mongavarian soldiers were in the process of setting up some kind of camp in the field complete with tents and campfires.
As she was hauled farther from the trucks, she glanced over her shoulder, taking in the soldiers unloading supplies. But none of them were dragging a second set of prisoners from any of the vehicles.
Pip shared a look with Prince Edmund. If Fieran and Prince Farrendel weren’t here, then where were they?
Chapter
Seventeen
Pinpricks of pain dotted his chest, the first sensation in the hazy sea he drifted on.
“…waking up.”
“…sedate again?”
“No need. It will not matter...”
Fieran clawed toward wakefulness. Some sense was prickling along his skin, telling him he needed to wake up. He let just a hint of his magic flow through his veins, burning away whatever sedative they’d used on him all the quicker.
“Turn on the machine.”
There was the click of a switch. A whirring noise.
