Page 58 of Rogue Familiar

“Get on the horse,” Jadren ordered tersely, seizing her by the waist and tossing her bodily across the saddle. Ow. “Ride straight for the house and claim asylum. If you encounter a border guard, tell them who you are and do the same.”

She scrambled to a sitting position and held a hand out to him. “You’re coming too.”

He shook his head. “Go. I’ll play rear guard.”

“I remember what happens to the people playing rear guard,” she shot back. “Either we both run or we both fight—and you told me that you can’t defeat Ozana, so fighting her on your own sounds like a really bad idea.”

He gave her a look of pure frustration. “I’m trying to be fucking noble here. Go!” With that he smacked Vale’s rump, clearly expecting the horse to take off running. Instead, Vale obeyed his rider’s implicit command to stand solid, swinging his head around to give Jadren a look of mild indignation. A whirring sound hummed in the distance, one Selly recognized as belonging to one of the elemental-powered carriages.

“Can Vale outrun one of those carriages?”

“Doubtful,” Jadren answered, finally taking her hand and clambering up behind her. “Let’s hope he’s rested enough to get us to someone with Refoel authority.”

“Hold on.” Without waiting for him to settle, Selly urged Vale into a flat-out run. He wasn’t a racehorse, but he possessed plenty of heart. Maybe they’d get lucky.

They did not get lucky.

Vale did his best—beyond what most horses could do—but he’d already been tired and carrying two people, plus bags was more than even he could muster. Ozana caught up to them not long after.

Selly sensed the phalanx of Elal spirits preceding the wizard, the ones Jadren had said were clouding the air and providing camouflage for the El-Adrel automatons. She had no time, however, to congratulate herself on her growing ability to sense magic passively, as the path ahead suddenly disappeared in an apparent cloud of fog.

Undaunted, Vale didn’t even slow, plunging into the mist—then tripping, staggering, and nearly falling as something snagged his feet. Afraid the valiant steed might break a leg, Selly reined him in, soothing him with calming pats on the shoulder. He was soaked in sweat and breathing hard, so much so that Selly feared she’d foundered their staunch friend.

She opened her mouth to ask if they’d be at a disadvantage on the ground, so they could unburden Vale, but Jadren had already leapt off. Facing back the way they’d come and extracting tools from his vest, he cursed a steady blue streak under his breath. When she dismounted and joined him, he gave her a nasty glare. “I don’t suppose you’ll hide.”

“Nope.” She readied her own weapons, quiver at her back, a few arrows in hand, and daggers at the ready. Sticking one blade in her teeth, she grinned at him around it, making it clear that conversation, at least on her side, was over.

He growled in supreme frustration, wizard-black eyes glittering in suppressed ire—and also a hint of humor. “Why did I have to fall hopelessly in love with a half-insane, feral swamp creature?” he muttered, facing down the trail to the increasing hum of the as-yet invisible carriage.

“Funny,” Ozana sang out from nothingness, “that’s exactly what Maman would like to know.” The sound stopped and spirits swirled in the air like heat shimmer over sunbaked earth, drawing aside to show a fancy open carriage of white and gold, Ozana—mud-smirched and quite scorched—perched on the seat.

Selly didn’t wait for the taunting. She fired a sequence of three arrows at Ozana, aiming for each eye and the base of the throat. All three bounced harmlessly off an invisible shield, just as in their previous confrontation.

“Wards,” Ozana told her with considerable disgust. “Are you truly that ignorant?” She smoked with fury, her magic palpable as she aimed some sort of device directly at Selly. “Maman is most anxious to explore the depths of your attachment to this idiot, Jadren. Get in the carriage. Both of you.”

“Or what?” Jadren challenged, edging slightly in front of Selly.

A streak of fire like a horizontal lightning bolt shot out of the device and hit Selly in the shoulder. It burned with agonizing heat—and kept burning. After her first yelp of shock and pain, she clamped her teeth on further whimpering, but the burning continued to intensify, feeling as if it burrowed down to the bone. Jadren glanced at her, his face so white and strained that his eyes looked like black pits of despair.

“Or I’ll kill her,” Ozana said flatly, her own gaze fastened on Selly like a snake about to strike. Except she’d already struck, her wizardry a connection pumping venom into the wound, weakening Selly rapidly. Though she fought the sapping weakness, Selly fell to her knees. Jadren reached for her…

“Don’t,” Ozana’s command snapped out, freezing him. “Make one move in any direction except toward this carriage and I’ll blow her head off. You know I never bluff, Jaddy boy. You won the first skirmish, but the war will be mine.”

“Seliah is too valuable to kill,” Jadren said.

Ozana laughed. “Not to me. The pleasure of depriving you of the one familiar Maman would ever let you have is beyond value to me. You might be harder to kill than an alley cat, but at last I know how to hurt you.” She blew a kiss at Seliah, the magic making the liquid fire blossom into her blood and spread through her body.

She couldn’t help it: she screamed, the shriek scraping out of her throat and fading into a sob, the dagger she’d had uselessly clenched in her teeth falling to the ground. Jadren made a sound, too, a faint echo. Then he walked toward his sister. “Fine. Make it stop now.”

“Not until you’re both in the carriage.”

“She can’t even walk,” Jadren bit out. “And you won’t let me touch her, so how in the dark arts am I to get us both in the carriage?”

“All right,” Ozana said after a pause that seemed to last forever. “Carry your precious darling into the carriage and then I’ll make it stop. But no false moves. Even look at her wrong and I’ll blow a hole through you to kill her. Don’t think for a moment that I’ll hesitate.”

“I know you better than that,” Jadren replied in a grim voice, turning slowly back to Selly, keeping his hands in plain view.

“You should.” Ozana gloated. “Who’d have ever predicted that sniveling little Jaddy would fall in love with a familiar. It’s so unsavory. Makes me sick to my stomach, honestly.”

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