“First, I will need to go back to the night we made camp after leaving Barloch,” she said and explained how she saw the dark, ethereal shape hovering over Muir and how it warned her to stay silent.
Dar kept his voice to a whisper. “That hints of dark magic. It is good you said nothing about it.”
“I saw the image again when the king’s warrior struck me. The figure shook its finger at me in warning once again. The first time was to warn me to hold my tongue and tell no one what I saw. The one today? Giving it thought, I believe it was warning me not to search for her.”
“This stays between you and me,” Dar ordered, fearful of what such news could bring.
Elara felt the same. “I agree. It is for us alone.”
“This could prove a more dangerous quest than I first thought,” Dar said, his brow creasing.
“What choice do we have? We must see it done.”
“I will increase the Hunters who go with us.”
Elara’s eyes went wide. “We cannot take Hunters with us. We must go alone, just you and me.”
“Absolutely not,” he snapped. “I will not take a chance with your safety.”
Elara pushed at his chest to ease away from him. “No healer will speak to me if Hunters are with us.”
“What of me? Will they turn their backs on you when they spot a Hunter with you?” he asked. “I tell you now. I will not hide who I am again nor am I ashamed of who I am. Hunters have a long, proud heritage in Scotara and I will not deny my legacy.”
“And healers are just as proud of their peaceful, healing culture. It was one thing when the king sent Hunters to question the healers and a far different thing when he sent them to take healers by force. With talk of war spreading, the king would be wise not to make enemies of his people.”
“Scotara is on the verge of war. The king will do whatever he must to keep the kingdom and its people safe.”
“Even if some people suffer for it?”
“It is the price of war,” Dar said. “And the king pays the highest price of all, since fatalities are inevitable. The reason he so desperately searches for a healer that can prevent him from losing anyone in the kingdom.”
Elara kept silent, her thoughts wandering, thinking the cost might be higher than the king would want to pay in the end.
She spent the rest of the journey in thoughtful silence, tucked close against Dar. The rhythm of the horse’s gait, the solid strength of the man at her back, the occasional brush of his breath near her ear, none of it should have felt as comforting as it did.
Yet comfort didn’t stop the worry that whispered through her upon their arrival at Venngraith, the village of Falkrith, home to the Hunters’ chieftain the next day.
A message from King Dravic, intended only for his father, Chieftain Cadmus, had brought them here. Elara had not been allowed to hear the substance of it, only told that it was for “Hunter ears alone.”
She wondered about the message. It had to be important since it delayed their start in finding the healer. She also was not ready to see the place that was to be her new home. She may have told Dar that she would not reside in Venngraith, but she knew in the end there would be little she could do to stop it. Unless she wanted to live separately from Dar as he suggested and, for some reason, that idea did not set well with her.
As they rode, she kept her hand lightly against Dar’s chest, not because she needed steadiness, but because she couldn’t seem to help it. And each time her fingers brushed the leather, he shifted as if acutely aware of her touch, though he said nothing.
Still, she felt his thoughts, tight and restless.
They crested a hill and suddenly the land of Venngraith, the village of Falkrith, stretched beneath them.
Elara drew a sharp breath.
She had braced herself for harsh mountains, stony ridges, wind-carved slopes—but autumn in Falkrith lay draped in copper and gold. Lush trees, their leaves burnished by the season, rolled across the valley. A slow river glinted like polished steel between stands of yellowing birch. Small woodland creatures scattered through the underbrush, their white tails flickering.
“It’s… beautiful,” she whispered before she thought better of it.
Dar turned his head slightly, enough that she caught the faint curl of a proud smile at the corner of his mouth.
“Aye,” he murmured. “Venngraith has some stark regions, but the whole of the land is not as fearsome as rumors say.”
“It is far lovelier than I imagined,” she confessed.