Blooms of Consequence (Dusk Gate Chronicles Book 4) (8 page)

He knew that if Quinn was here, she’d handle it – probably she’d be in there
organizing
the search for him. If he was the one missing, she’d have found him by now. But that was the problem; she wasn’t here. A shudder shook his body as he tried, unsuccessfully, to banish the thought that she might not come back.

Glancing up at the sky, he offered up a prayer to the Maker, begging for help – for a sign of where they could look, for her to just come walking back into the camp like nothing had happened, for anything that would bring Quinn back.

It was then that he noticed the two birds circling overhead. Aelwyn and Sirian. The sight of them startled him for a moment – it had been quite a while since he’d seen either of them flying freely like that; they’d taken their nesting seriously, both always hovering near the nest rearing their hatchlings. He knew they’d been out more frequently lately, since most of their brood had launched, but with being confined to the castle, William hadn’t seen them. He’d seen more of Raeyan than either of them lately.

Raeyan.
He scanned the sky and the tops of the nearby trees quickly, knowing that they would still be taking their one remaining offspring out on longer and longer flights, helping with the training process, but the younger bird was nowhere to be seen.
Was it possible?

He whistled to the birds, calling Aelwyn to him. His companion dipped lower, winding in an elaborate motion over his head, but she didn’t land. She circled twice and then darted toward the north for several hundred feet before turning back and flying overhead for a moment, before turning to repeat the pattern.

William didn’t hesitate; didn’t think twice about going back into the camp and alerting anyone. Completely ignoring the earlier admonitions from his younger brother, he climbed into the saddle and took off after his bird.

*          *          *

Quinn really hoped she wasn’t going to have a heart attack. Her heart was pounding so heavily that she was beginning to feel nauseous and hot, even though nobody had entered the tent – not
yet
, anyway. The footsteps had stopped, and then headed in a different direction, but she was sure she didn’t have much time.

Her fingers were shaking so badly that she could barely work them to open the little silver canister on Raeyan’s leg, but she managed it. She didn’t think she’d ever been this relieved to see a charcoal pencil and rolled up paper as she was right then.

She didn’t have any idea where she was or who she was with, and between the hurry she was in and the way her hands shook, her message was probably going to be both useless and indecipherable, but she hastily scribbled that she was okay and in a tent somewhere northwest of the camp – an hour or so on foot, and shoved the roll of paper back into the cylinder.

“I’m sorry I don’t have anything for you, Raeyan,” she whispered, leaning down and kissing him on the head, “but please, take this to William or Thomas or Nathaniel, or somebody, okay?” Then she pulled the edge of the window open again, and shoved him out. As she sat back onto the bedroll, pain shot through the cut on her leg, making her suck in a breath.

Squeezing her eyes shut, and concentrating on breathing through the pain, she listened to Raeyan’s escape. She could still hear the rustling in the trees as he hopped up, hopefully trying to find a spot where he could take to the air, when the footsteps sounded again, crunching in the dirt back to the tent.

Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure that her nausea was just from the anxiety. A sickly wave of heat rolled from down her neck and chest, settling heavily in her stomach just as the flap finally opened, and the man, a new one she didn’t recognize, poked his head inside. “Lady Quinn?”

Bile rose in her throat, but she choked it back – she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Instead, she stared at him, blinking.

His eyes swept her still form, and she saw them widen slightly as he took in the bloody cloth wrapped around her thigh.

“Are you all right?”

There was genuine concern in his voice, which caught her off guard for a second – only a second though. Remembering that she was being held hostage, and that these people had her family, too, brought her composure – and anger – back quickly. Narrowing her eyes, she shrugged; she wasn’t okay, not at all. Her leg was throbbing, and just thinking about speaking aloud made her worry that she would vomit again right there in front of him.

“Did this happen on your way here?”

She kept her stoic expression firmly in place, but she nodded. Did it really matter when it had happened? Where did he get off with the concerned act? If he really cared about her well-being, she wouldn’t be here.

“Do you need help standing?”

“No.” She spit the word through her teeth and forced herself up, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment against the searing heat that flowed through her leg, and the fresh bout of dizziness that made her immediately want to lie down again.

The man seemed not to notice – either her acting was better than she thought it was, or he was extraordinarily polite for a kidnapper. He took a step backward, holding the flap of the tent open wide.

She followed him out. Now that she could see the sun, she realized it was still earlier than she’d thought. For as much heat as it had been pouring into the tent, she’d expected the sun to be higher in the sky. The morning air was cool and helped her nausea subside a little, even though it was still heavily scented with smoke.

“There’s a stream just through those trees,” the man said, pointing. “If you need a few minutes to yourself...”

She frowned at him for a minute, studying his face. He was probably in his late thirties, with dark brown hair and eyes. Nothing about his clothing – rough woven pants, and a white short-sleeved shirt that tied around the neck – gave away anything about whom he might be or where he was from. A quick glance at his soft, smooth hands, though, suggested that a tent in the wilderness wasn’t his usual habitat.

 He looked sincere. After a few seconds, she decided that she wasn’t immediately threatened by him, and that his offer of time to herself was genuine. He waited silently while Quinn appraised him, and while she turned and walked in the direction he was pointing, concentrating with everything she had in her to not limp.

Obviously he wasn’t worried about her running off, she thought, as she ducked through the trees, hearing the flow of the promised stream before she actually saw it.

Of course, she
wasn’t
going to run off. Her family was here. Remembering the sound of her sister’s voice, here, where it didn’t belong, brought the nausea roaring back with an intensity she could no longer fight. She vomited fiercely several times, unable to stop until there was nothing left, and she collapsed, exhausted on the bank of the stream.

For several minutes, she couldn’t move, couldn’t even lift her head, but finally the worst of it passed, and she struggled to sit up and clean herself up in the water.

She didn’t know how much time she had before someone came looking for her, but she wanted to get herself together as best she could before facing whatever the rest of this situation was going to bring. She didn’t want Annie and Owen seeing her this way.

What did it mean that her family was here? Had they come through the gate on their own? Maybe, but why? Or had someone with too much knowledge actually managed to breach the gate and gone into Quinn’s world and kidnapped them?

Quinn shook her head and dipped her hands into the stream, bringing a handful of the cold water up to her face. She couldn’t think that way yet – that thought was too terrifying. It wasn’t worth wondering about right now. As soon as she was finished here, she would be getting the answers anyway. It wasn’t worth getting worked up about now.

When her face and mouth were clean, she turned her attention to the part she was dreading. Her leg.

Ignoring her injury wasn’t going to be a choice. The bulky cloth she was using as a bandage was in the way of her being able to lower her pants to relieve herself – and she wasn’t going to be able to put that off any longer.

The whole cloth was stained red, and the bottom layer of it was stuck to her skin – she tried sliding her finger underneath it to loosen it, but the resulting stab of pain made her abandon that idea immediately.

Tears threatened, along with a warning in her stomach that the nausea was only taking a break.

She took a deep, shaky breath, and then, grateful for the shallow, sloping bank, she removed her shoe and sock, stretched her leg out, and slid it into the water.

The cold water made her gasp at first, but she gritted her teeth and kept at it. It only took a minute or so to adjust. Slowly, she slid her leg further and further into the stream, turning her body sideways as far as she could so that she didn’t get completely wet. Finally, the water reached the bottom of the bandage. She used her hands to scoop more of the clean stream water over the bandage. The jolt of pain as the water hit her cut made her cry out. She stopped scooping for a minute, taking several deep breaths before forcing herself to continue.

Blinking back tears, she pushed herself to get the bandage all the way wet, and then carefully untied the cloth and loosened it.

The wound was worse than she’d guessed. Deep and raw, with edges that were angry and starting to turn red. The wet cloth the night before had been a bad idea. She couldn’t bring herself to look at it for more than a few seconds. Without looking again, she carefully edged her leg all the way into the stream, where the water could flow over the injury.

Ignoring the pain as best she could, though every muscle in her body was tight, and she was definitely nauseous again, she concentrated on washing every trace of blood out of the cloth, until it was as clean as she could get it. She knew that she should really be keeping her wound clean and dry, but at the moment it looked like clean was going to have to do.

Setting the bandage to the side on the cleanest-looking rock she could find, she pulled her leg back out of the water, and somehow managed to get back to a standing position.

She had just finished taking care of her personal needs behind a tree, when she heard heavy footsteps in the foliage, and then the man’s voice again.

“Lady Quinn? Are you in need of assistance?”

“No.” Her anger hadn’t abated at all – if anything, she’d crossed from furious to livid. There were footsteps again, moving a little further away, but stopping still nearby.

She finished adjusting her clothes, and then took the clean, dripping bandage from where she’d set it on a rock. Pulling back up on the leg of her woven pants, she hazarded one more glance at the injury, nearly vomiting again in the process, and then covered it with the bandage. She wrapped it as tightly as she could stand, hoping that keeping tight pressure on it would help when she tried to walk again.

Sweat was dripping down her face from the effort by the time she emerged from the trees to face her new guard again, but she was on her own two feet and walking, and she wasn’t in immediate danger of vomiting again.

“I want to see my family,” she said. “Now.”

The man nodded, and began walking up the path toward the campsite.

TRACKING AELWYN WAS EASY and familiar. She would fly ahead of William for several hundred yards, but then circle back and dip down low, right in front of him, almost as if she was checking up on him.

The bird had been his companion since he was thirteen, and the bond between the two of them had been strong since the very beginning. Aelwyn had even been tolerant of his frequent absences from this world; she would always be waiting in the trees near the gate when he returned, ready to pick up right where they’d left off – so long as William brought her back a treat.

He didn’t know where she was leading him now. They traveled northwest from the emergency camp, heading the opposite direction of the fire. The area was all wilderness – thick with shady trees and lush vegetation. He crossed several small streams, but only once did he and Skittles stop to drink and refill his canteen. Even the horse seemed to understand the urgency of the situation, and took only a short drink before stomping his feet impatiently for William to remount.

If they were in Quinn’s world, the terrain here would probably be popular for hiking and camping, he thought ironically. But as those were not popular pastimes in Eirentheos, William didn’t see any signs of other people as Aelwyn led him deep into the woods. There were no trails here; he had to ride slowly and calculate their path carefully, avoiding trees and rocks. Skittles didn’t seem to mind, though.

After nearly an hour of riding, the bird dropped down into the trees in front of him, out of sight, before popping back up again, and coming to land several feet in front of Skittles. William brought the horse to a stop and looked around, listening.

Then, several things happened at once. He heard a loud crunching noise behind him, Aelwyn squawked loudly and took to the air again, and William realized, with a sickening thud that resonated down into the deepest part of his insides, exactly how stupid he had been.

He turned to face the noise, and found himself looking down at two men he didn’t recognize. Though they were dressed simply, in clothes that didn’t identify them at all, and the horses carried no identifying blankets or banners, either, both of them were large and muscular – the build typical of soldiers and castle guards.

“Nice of you to come, Prince William,” the taller one said.

*          *          *

Quinn followed the guard up the path and back toward the campsite. Part of her wondered where the man who’d brought her here last night had gone, but she didn’t really care. She’d allowed herself to be kidnapped – that was done. Now she just wanted to get back to her family and then figure out what was going on here and how she was going to get them out of it.

She didn’t dare hope that Raeyan would be successful in getting her message to someone – and even if he did manage it, her scribbled note wasn’t exactly informative. No, she was going to have to try to get them out of here herself. Of course, she didn’t have any idea how to do that.

They passed the tent where they’d slept last night, and headed toward the other tents. She was surprised at how small and empty the campsite seemed. In the daylight, she could see that there were fewer tents than she’d guessed – only four were huddled around a small fire circle. The fire was extinguished. There were no people here.

The man led her past those tents, and toward a thick wall of trees. Quinn was beginning to get very anxious. Where was he taking her? Where was her family? But as soon as they stepped through an opening that had been cleared in the underbrush, she had her answer.

They were in another small clearing. Here, there were two large tents and an even larger canopy, with drapes covering at least the two sides she was facing. A man stood on the opposite side of the canopy from her, right by the corner. He held a sword, and appeared to be guarding the clearing. He nodded toward the man Quinn was following.

“Look at these flowers, Mommy!” Annie’s sudden voice shot through Quinn like an arrow, making her blood run cold. She hadn’t realized that in the short time she’d been away from them that she’d become terrified they’d be separated again.

Suddenly, she was no longer following the man, no longer walking carefully to hide her limp. She dashed for the front of the canopy as quickly as she could.

No drape covered the west-facing side of the canopy. It was open, letting in the sunlight and air, though it was shaded from the increasing morning heat. Annie was standing just inside the entrance, proudly holding up a handful of pretty pink flowers towards her mother, who was sitting on a rug at the back of the canopy with Owen curled up next to her.

None of them saw Quinn right away, although the man who was in the tent with them did.

“Ah, the
Lady
Quinn,” he said, taking a step toward her.

She could almost hear her mother’s eyes lock onto her, and she could definitely hear her little sister’s excited shriek, but Quinn held out her hand to her mother – asking her to stay seated for a moment, and she kept her eyes on the man.

She’d never seen him before, but she knew immediately who he had to be – that the mysterious
Jonathan
would turn out to be who she’d been afraid of seeing here. He had the same square chin, straight nose, and high cheekbones as Nathaniel, but his wide gray eyes were just like the ones that had stared back at her from the picture on her bedside table at home her whole life.

Even though he’d dressed in very ordinary, rugged clothes – probably to disguise his identity – as he stepped toward her, she could see his well-trained bearing.

“
Prince
Jonathan.”

Surprise widened his eyes. Behind him, her mother watched with interest, though she looked ready to stand and run between them at a moment’s notice.

Her own eyes narrowed as she scrutinized Jonathan, trying to assess the situation. He looked a little shocked at her easy identification of him, and she was suddenly quite sure that she knew more about him than he did about her. But why had he brought her here, then? And what was he doing with her family?

Annie, seemingly unaffected by the seriousness of the situation, ran up to her. Quinn sucked in a breath as the little girl wrapped her arms around her legs, and Jonathan’s eyes flicked down to her leg, and then back over her shoulder.

“Was I not clear that she was to be brought here unharmed, Clarence?”

“I spoke to Levan about it. He says she fell – he didn’t touch her.”

“Is that true?” Jonathan asked, turning back to her.

“Come over here, Annie.” The sound of her mother’s voice nearly brought tears to her eyes. She blinked hard several times, and deliberately focused her attention back onto the man in front of her – her real father’s youngest brother – knowing that if she looked too much at her mom and her siblings, she was going to lose her composure completely, and if she did that, she might miss her chance to figure out what was going on here in time to gain an advantage.

“No, not exactly,” she said.

“Then what happened?”

Her eyes flicked to her mother, and then back to him. “It’s not important right now.”

His eyes narrowed, but he nodded. “Are you all right?” he asked, studying the cloth on her leg. She followed his gaze, noting that the cloth was stained again, this time with pink and yellow streaks. Bringing her eyes quickly back up to him, she took a deep breath and promised herself she wouldn’t look again.

Her first instinct was to tell him defiantly that she was just fine, but then she saw a hint of what might have been genuine concern in his eyes, and she shook her head once. “I don’t think so.” Truthfully, her leg was blazing, and the nausea had returned, tightening her stomach in sickening waves. She felt warmer than she should have, too, even considering the heat of the morning. Twice, on the walk here, she’d felt a shuddering chill, followed a few seconds later by a flash of heat.

“Shall I send for a healer?”

So he had a healer here. His set-up might be more elaborate than it appeared to be. She was starting to think that Jonathan’s presence here might have something to do with all of the “refugees” who had been camping in the area near the gate lately.

“Not yet,” she answered. “I want to know what you’re doing with my family here, first.” Besides, she didn’t want anyone touching her – anyone besides William, anyway. Maybe Nathaniel or Jacob. Definitely not someone who was aiding and abetting in the abductions of her and her family.

Jonathan frowned. “Maybe first you could tell me what Stephen’s son could possibly be doing, courting someone from another world. Is this Stephen’s plan, then? To take over both kingdoms entirely, with help from your world?”

 Quinn’s eyebrows shot up so far that she thought she might have to go searching for them later. “Stephen doesn’t want to take over Philotheum. Is that the story Tolliver is telling you? Is that how he’s getting your support?
You
, of all people? King Jonathan’s youngest son?”

He narrowed his eyes, contemplating her. “What makes you think I support Tolliver?”

Quinn raised an eyebrow again, and he suddenly looked wary, as though he might have slipped and said something he shouldn’t. Of course, considering the circumstances, what had just come out of his mouth was fairly dangerous.

“What are you doing here in Eirentheos, then, if Tolliver didn’t send you?”

He sighed, and something in his expression shifted. “How do you know so much about our political situation?”

She stared at him, studying him carefully, frowning. She was now certain that he didn’t know who she really was. Her eyes flicked to her family in the corner. They looked all right. She still didn’t know how they’d gotten here, but Jonathan obviously already knew that they were from another world – that she was.
Had he gone there and gotten them?
That didn’t seem likely.

“Who do you believe I am?” she asked.

“I’m trying to figure that out. Tolliver believes you’re some kind of spy, possibly from another world, where Stephen has allies who are going to help him in his takeover of Philotheum.”

“And he sent you here to prove it.”

“Yes.”

His quick, honest answer surprised her. “What do you believe?”

He sighed again. “I never believed that Stephen wanted to take over our kingdom. But then, I never believed there really was a gate connecting this world to another one, either.”

“What changed your mind about that?”

He glanced back at her mother and her siblings. “When I watched your family appear out of nowhere onto a bridge the night before last.”

Well, that answered that question, although she couldn’t figure out what would have possessed her mother to bring her siblings and come looking for her here. There were still several days left of spring break, and she hadn’t made any promises about when she would return.

“And my mother told you about the big conspiracy Stephen has to take over the kingdom using a woman and two small children?”

He met her gaze. He’d been raised a prince in a castle with Hector and Tolliver – he would rise to whatever challenge she set. “It actually appeared to be news to her that you are courting Prince William.”

Her own expression was guilty as she finally glanced back at her mom. Quinn had somehow come to have an entire life here in this world that her own mother knew nothing about. The last time she had been home, she had told her mom a little about her relationship with William, but it hadn’t been so serious then.

Nausea bubbled up in her stomach again, and she swayed, but managed to stay on her feet and keep herself from vomiting.

“Are you all right?”

“I need to sit down.” She wasn’t going to let this stop her from having this conversation. Every instinct she had was screaming how important this was.

He picked up a wooden folding chair, and set it on the ground next to her. As she sank down into it, in the most dignified way she could manage, he pulled up another chair across from her, and sat down.

His action put her strangely at ease – that he sat down to stay level with her, rather than towering over her. “Better?” he asked, in a gentle voice that caught her even more off guard.

“Sort of,” she said.

In the corner, her mother twitched, again as if she was about to dash across the tent to her, but Quinn shook her head once, silently begging her mother not to, not yet.

Taking a deep breath, she mustered up the strength to look him in the eyes. “What is your goal here, Jonathan? Not what you’re telling me Tolliver sent you for – I don’t believe for a minute that you’re actually doing his bidding the way he surely thinks you are. Why did you really come? What do you want?”

He paused for a long moment, clearly weighing his next words. “When I came here, I wanted to know if it was really true – the rumors. If Stephen really does want to see the kingdoms united again. If he’s willing to stand up and help me remove my half-brother, and somehow return our crown to the rightful line.”

“But now?”

“Now I don’t know what to believe. Why is Stephen in contact with another world? I didn’t believe Tolliver – thought it was all just more of his nonsense and bluster. I really thought Stephen would never do something like that. But here you are, courting William. And you are from another world, are you not
Lady
Quinn?” His sarcasm on the word
lady
was thick and mocking.