Page 23 of The Ember and the Emerald

“In his hut,” someone called.

The crowd gathered the tainted vegetables as if they were priceless treasures.

“Hands off! That’s mine,” I rushed out when someone lifted my backpack.

To my shock, the culprit dropped the bag as if it were toxic.

The drivers dismounted and came around. One collected my property.

The other man helped me out, surprisingly gentle. “I apologize for the bindings, Oracle,” he said, not freeing my arms, “but we were told to leave them on you until you made a promise to our leader not to run.”

An awful suspicion rose. “And who told you this?” Without the sides of the wagon and what little warmth the blanket provided, icy winds hit full force. A thousand little needles stung every inch of bared skin. And there was a lot of bared skin. I still wore my mother’s blue sundress.

“Your queen.”

I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. Ding, ding, ding. Suspicion confirmed. Elowen.

Four men dragged Jasher from the other wagon, and I huffed with relief. Breath misted in front of my face. He still wore his wrist shackles, plus extra chains, and now snarled with fury, fighting against his captors, but he was here, alive, and well.

“—weapons just appeared,” a trapper was telling another. “I took them twice, and three times they returned, strapped to his back.”

Jasher kept his gaze straight ahead, off me and everyone else. Steam curled from his nostrils.

The drivers gripped my biceps and guided me forward, away from the half-shifted monstra.

“Stop!” I demanded when the four yanked Jasher in the opposite direction. “He’s mine. Bring him back! Don’t you dare harm him.”

They ignored me. Jasher did, too. My captors forced me toward the largest hut, not slowing when my feet tripped over themselves. Protective instincts demanded I keep fighting, but my mind shouted, Wait.

We swept past a doorway made of hanging fur. Heat from a crackling fire greeted me with open arms, and I closed my eyes for a moment, savoring the warmth.

A bald man in his thirties sat beside a teenage boy, both too thin, with sharp angles and hollow eyes. They crouched over a book, reading together.

The boy looked wrongly familiar. A memory tugged, unformed and unsettling. My mind couldn’t make sense of it.

“Gerald?” one of my guards said.

The man and the boy looked over, both of them examining me with equal parts curiosity, confusion, and intrigue.

“Queen Elowen says I’m to quote her verbatim, my lord,” the guard added.

My pulse skittered.

The guard’s cheeks pinkened as he cleared his throat. “Gerald, my sweet, we’re now even. Consider the oracle and her pet monstra payment for my daughter, and our bargain officially concluded. Send my sweet Iris home. But be careful. The new girl bites harder than the monstra. Just make sure she promises not to run before you remove the bindings. As you know, even in Lawless Forest, a water maiden is bound to her word.”

My world narrowed to a single, brutal point. Payment.

The word struck like a stone to the chest, knocking the breath from my lungs. I wasn’t bait. I wasn’t collateral. I was currency.

My jaw clenched so hard it ached. Queen Elowen hadn’t just arranged this. She’d calculated it, trading me like an object passed across a table. My life for Iris’s.

Betrayed! I’d known it. Known. It. Yet I’d worked with her, anyway. Fool! Never trust a water maiden. Never, never.

Gerald stood, propelled by excitement. “Another monstra?”

“Yes and no,” the other driver said, clearly confused. “It’s some kind of hybrid. Half-monstra, half-human.”

“He isn’t to be harmed,” I stated, using my most authoritative voice. Difficult to do while my teeth were chattering.