Page 67 of Bull Moon Rising

There’s an urgency in her voice I’ve never heard before. I pull my sodden hood over my hair, looking up at her in surprise. I reach for the boot but she holds on to it, and her gaze meets mine. There’s a warning in her eyes.

“Greetings, greetings,” a man says in a cultured voice, his accent that of the north. Like mine. “Is there a better place to cross this water? My lord Barnabus’s horse has lost a shoe and is too expensive to risk laming on the rocks.”

I freeze, ice going up my spine. Lord Barnabus Chatworth? He’s here?

Gwenna gives me the boot, her expression firm, as if to saySee?

Oh, I see now. I take my time shoving things back into my pack, determined to make it last as long as possible. I wonder if I can get sick oncommand? Right now my stomach is roiling enough that I wouldn’t have to try too hard. Barnabus is here. Why? He’s made it clear to me in the past that busy, dangerous Vastwarren holds no interest for him. Surely he hasn’t come to retrieve me.

“The stream crossing narrows farther down the hillside,” Magpie explains. “You’re heading in the wrong direction if you want things to get easier. Only gets wider from up here, but it ain’t deep. If your horse can’t cross this you’ve got bigger problems.”

Hawk chuckles. Mereden and Lark do, too. I don’t hear anyone else laughing, though, and my pulse pounds in my ears. Barnabus is here. I’ve been found out. Woodenly, I pick up a soggy piece of clothing and pause, panic rising in my throat. I’m going to lose everything. I’m going to be destroyed. Not only will my father and grandmother be in danger, but our hold will go down in flames. And Hawk—

“Clumsy twit,” Gwenna says in an exasperated voice. “Let me help.” And she kneels next to me and pulls everything back out of my pack. “You’re not going to be able to fit everything in again. Watch how I do it.”

“Thank you,” I mouth to her, squeezing my trembling hands into fists.

The horses grow louder, the sounds of their hooves in the mud and the jingle of harnesses like death knells to me. I glance over, peeking out the side of my hood, and there are at least a half dozen horses around the edge of the stream, the men wearing a familiar livery. I recognize the house colors of their jerkins, the Chatworth Hold deep blue with the bold yellow trim that stands out even to my bad eyes. One of the men is walking, leading a horse by the reins. And then to my horror, Barnabus himself rides up, eyes the stream, and turns to look at our group.

I quickly hide my face again.

“What is going on here?” he asks, voice just as cultured and haughty as I remember. I used to love how precisely he said each syllable, as if he were biting them. Now I know it’s just a tactic to put himself above others. To show them that he’s superior because he has holder blood.

That, or I’m still bitter about him calling me ugly.

His words make me freeze in terror, though. I clutch my canteen tightly, a knot in my throat.

“What do you mean, what is going on here?” Magpie’s voice is an amused drawl. I imagine her with her hands on her hips, confronting him with that world-weary stare of hers. “What does it look like is going on here?”

“It looks like a religious ceremony of some kind,” Barnabus answers, his voice stiff. “Are you some sort of nature cult?”

Gwenna snorts, a sound so low that only I can hear it. I want to be amused, too. Normally I’d laugh at the idiotic suggestion that we’re a nature cult…but I’m too afraid that I’ve been caught. That I’m going to be dragged back to Honori Hold in disgrace, without a single artifact. That everything has been ruined.

“Why in the five hells would we be a cult?” Hawk sounds annoyed.

I can almost see the dismissive look that Barnabus would send in his direction. “You’re all wearing the same clothes. It looks like a religious training program.”

“Your men are all wearing the same clothes,” I hear Lark mutter loud enough to be overheard.

Mereden giggles.

Magpie shushes both of them. “It’s a uniform. This is a training program for fledglings of the Royal Artifactual Guild.”

I tense, waiting for him to remember my fascination with it. How I was always reading books about the greats of the guild. How I’d been obsessed with learning Old Prellian glyphs.

“Ah.”

I wait.

“That explains the colors. Carry on, then,” Barnabus says, as if we needed his permission.

I slowly help Gwenna restuff my pack as the horses splash across the stream. When I dare to look up, they’re on the far side of the stream, nothing but horse withers and Chatworth cloaks meeting my stare.

They’re gone. I’m still incredibly rattled, though.

I’m shaking, and Gwenna puts a hand over mine, as if to comfort me. “I don’t think he noticed you,” she whispers. “He barely glanced in our direction.”

Taking a deep breath, I nod. Then my stomach churns, and I realize I’m going to throw up the cold breakfast I ate a few hours ago. I barelymanage to crawl away a foot or two before I’m puking in the mud, bent over.

---