03 - Sworn by Kate Sparkes

Author:Kate Sparkes [Sparkes, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Sparrowcat Press
Published: 2016-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

26

Rowan

We walked through the night. Aren and I didn’t speak more about our situation. Even if Victoria hadn’t been with us, there still wouldn’t have been anything left to say. We loved each other. We couldn’t be together. It wasn’t the first time my expectations or plans for my life had gone off the road.

It just hurt more this time.

As the sun broke over the forest we found Florizel in the field outside of the town where we’d left Patience.

“Where’s Ruby?” I asked. “Did she go on?”

“No,” Florizel said. “She took shelter in the wilder parts of the forest so as not to frighten the townsfolk.”

Aren raised an eyebrow. “That was decent of her.”

Florizel snorted. “She wanted to head straight into town and demand a tribute in exchange for not razing the place to the dirt, but I convinced her that the people here are probably richer in pointy weapons than they are in jewels.”

“Thank you,” I said, and tried not to laugh.

I left Aren and Victoria with her while I went to look for Patience. I crossed the fields, careful not to trample the new sprouts, and found her in a dusty yard playing with a pair of boys about her own age, perhaps a little older.

“Avast!” she yelled, and brandished a wooden sword at the side of the new barn. “Board her and pillage, men!”

The boys obliged, climbing a stack of crates and throwing themselves in through an upper window. Moments later they scrambled back down, arms loaded with small burlap sacks.

“Well done,” she said.

“I don’t think pirates are so free with praise,” I said as I approached.

Patience’s face lit up in a broad grin, and she ran toward me with open arms. I squeezed her tight, and my heart swelled. I’d missed the kid.

“I’m not a mean captain,” she said.

“Deadeye, watch out! That traitorous wench may be skleevin’ ye!” hollered one of the boys, a mop-haired thing with a healthy belly under his brown overalls.

I laughed. “Deadeye? Really?”

The boy nodded solemnly. “Only it’s not ’cause of her you-know.” He motioned to his own face and squinted one eye closed. “Pa took us all hunting and she killt more rabbits than any of us.”

His brother, a slightly taller fellow with an impressively freckled face, kicked at the dirt. “She was lucky.”

“Was not!” Patience released me and punched her pirate friend in the arm. He winced. “Your Pa said by rights I shouldn’t be able to shoot with one eye. That makes me even better.” She turned back to me. “He said it must be a blessing from the Goddess, if I don’t do it by magic.”

I smiled. “Maybe it is.” The poor girl certainly deserved something for her suffering—not that any gods I knew operated that way. “Are you coming back with us? If you want to stay here, that’s fine. We’ll miss you, but—”

“Naw, I’m coming.” She handed her sword to the fat kid. “You’re captain now, Mister Tubbs, but only until I come back. Don’t make me whup you again.

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