Page 56 of The Flame and the Forsaken

“Ahh...” Destin eyed the row of ales. He’d never wanted a drink more. “Remy’s, but you said she wasn’t there.”

“Where else?”

“My place, but I ken you’ve already checked there.”

“Where else?”

“There isn’t... There’s a spot in the woods where we sometimes meet, but there’s no shelter there. It’s not a place one stays for long.”

“What ’bout th’ other members of Obsidian Sky?” Hamish asked.

Hearing the men speak their name aloud so casually was like a slap to the face. He couldn’t help that Remy and Augustine had been revealed as outlaws, but he wouldn’t add Alessia’s and Magnur’s names to their bank of knowledge. “I don’t know. There is nowhere else. Our family home...” He didn’t finish.

Samuel nodded, processing. “Think,Destin. Erran followed hersomewhere.”

“I don’t?—”

“Think!” Hamish boomed, rattling the mugs and drawing curious eyes from onlookers.

Destin knit his brows at the man who certainlylookedlike a brute, but it was clearly all bluster. He was soft on the inside, like Magnur. Didn’t mean Destin wanted to test it though. “You can’t imagine how badly I want to find her, but you both know more than I do.”

“You know more than you realize. You know her better than anyone,” Samuel said.

“But I wasn’t there. I didn’t see her ride...” A wild thought struck him. “Which coast was she riding toward?”

“Devon, if she stayed on the same road.”

Destin blurted a laugh. He looped his hands over his head and looked up at the candelabra hanging above him.Mariel, Mariel, Mariel.

“Nothin’ funny about any of this,” Hamish grumbled.

“Tell us,” Samuel said, unruffled.

“It’s insane,” Destin said. And it was insane. She hardly knew how to captain the damn ship, let alone flee in it. And with Erran? “And a longshot at that. But I ken I might... I might know where she was headed.”

Chapter11

Boar

Mariel was up before Erran, though she hadn’t really slept much at all with their last conversation repeating over and over in her head.

His patience. His resignation. There was no anger but certainly disappointment, and that she could understand because she was disappointed in herself too. He’d put aside their differences and recognized the necessity of working together, the great equalizer of circumstance that had made them peers. Friends, even. But she’d met his attempts with erratic mood swings and maddening half-truths.

She didn’t know how to apologize, at least not yet, but there was something she could do. He couldn’t know about it until she was done—another lie, but for a good purpose.

Mariel tiptoed around the cabin as best she could with a twisted ankle, collecting the spear, her daggers, and the satchel, in case she found anything new to forage. Her crutch she tucked under her arm but didn’t use yet, wary the thumps would rouse him. She checked once more to be sure he was asleep, and snuck out.

They’d identified a few trouble spots during their exploring and had avoided them.

That morning, she was headed directly into one.

Erran might not think they could take down one of those monstrous boars, but the shed, cabin, and well told her differently. Mendidcome to the island, often enough to build an infrastructure capable of supporting their hunting. She’d seen the old carcasses hanging in the shed by the coast. They weren’t small.

Her bow would have made the task far easier, but people had been hunting boars with spears forever.

Shehad not, but if she let inexperience hold her back, Obsidian Sky never would have become what it had been.

Past tense. No matter what happened, their days as outlaws were behind them, at least as a collective group. Maybe the end had been imminent for longer than she’d realized. Alessia had been losing interest for a while. She enjoyed her honest work as a blacksmith and dipped out of their group celebrations earlier and earlier. Remy had grown more reticent, perhaps a side effect of getting older, but he’d also expressed repeatedly that he wanted Augustine out. He was afraid she’d be hung by the Rutlands if discovered, and Mariel wasn’t sure he was wrong. Magnur... Well, Magnur was down for anything. He never questioned the work or what it required. He would follow Mariel until she told him not to.

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