"By morn, the poison sets like iron. The sunset ceases travel goers."
"You mean to say that something's going to stop us if we don't make it there before sunset?" The discomfort shone through Atlas' voice like glass and I shifted again in my seat, then shut the book and nodded.
Lefeli glanced between the both of us with wide eyes. "Do we have any idea how the book will stop us?"
"To put it in perspective," I said, "I think it would be safe to say we know as much about the book as we have money in our pockets."
Atlas groaned, running a hand through his hair, then he beckoned Birdy faster and we set down the path about as fast as the horse could go.
I had no way of knowing how close we were to Azareba, but it didn't look good when the sun hit midday and Atlas still seemed as tense as he had this morning. And the day pressed on, the road going in and through forests, around fields, over hillsides, even around elegant flower fields of bright greens and pinks, but the sun still crossed the sky and before I had the chance to breathe, sundown was an hour away.
"Atlas," Evyne growled, "I could steer Birdy better than this in my sleep. At this pace, we'll never make it."
"One problem," Atlas turned to her and snapped. "You're less active than a bear in January!"
"Oh, come on." I sat straighter on the bench and fingered anxiously at the book cover, then I glanced at the sky, stained orange and offsetting my nerves. It seemed like new sentences only appeared in the book when it was open, so what if I simply kept it closed? What if we just remembered what it said so we wouldn't have to spring new curses on ourselves? Would it be that simple?
Was it ever that simple?
Birdy huffed, slowing down, and Atlas beckoned her forward, but she tossed her head and whinnied.
Oh, curses. I looked around us. Of course, we'd just entered more forest, which means we couldn't see past the road, and now Birdy decided to stop. Now, of all times.
Evyne swore, rustling in the back, and Lefeli tugged on my sleeve. Oh yes. As it turns out, the dark is the best place for things to go wrong in all the worst ways. No time better to fulfill a curse than sunset.
A good fifteen hooded figures crept up on us from all sides, all of them noiseless, all of them inexplicably threatening.
"Bandits." Atlas cursed, too. I imagine he'd already had enough of bandits after the chase in Esterwilde. Well, that made two of us.
"Lefeli"—her grip on my arm twitched when I spoke—"do you happen to know any Latin phrases that could ward off creepy black figures?"
"I can't do magic." Her voice was high and squeaky.
At once, Atlas shot to a standing position on the bench, rocking the cart and scaring the wits out of me. His eyes were hard.
"What do you want?" he demanded, his voice carrying.
There was a pause where the bandits said nothing and a bead of sweat ran down my forehead despite the weather. One of the figures unsheathed a long blade with a metallic scraping that echoed across the canopy.
"We want your help with something." His raspy voice addressed only Atlas. My gut twisted. "You see, we have friends who would love a little company, and we want your lady friends here to help them with that."
Atlas grimaced, clearly ticked, and put his hand on the sheath of his dagger. I watched his movements. Was he only protecting his sister or was he actually a decent person?
"Why don't your friends just go visit a brothel, then?" Atlas growled. "I'm sure it'd be no problem since they have enough money to hire the likes of you."
"Oh, really?" A different one answered this time. "And what do they mean to you, huh? Aren't you just—"
Atlas dropped down on the bench and snapped Birdy's reins, sending her forward with a jolt and kicking the cart along behind her. Several shouts erupted as we plowed through our attackers and down the road full speed.
"Bloody rotten death!" Evyne screamed, and only then did I realize she'd been swearing under her breath through the whole encounter. She shouted more obscenities toward our pursuers and I couldn't quite blame her. I wondered if she swore this much when not poisoned and having daggers flung at her, but my thoughts were interrupted when we flew up over a large rock in the road and the book flipped off my lap and fell off the side of the cart, hitting the road far behind us and tumbling down into the underbrush.
Atlas noticed Lefeli's reaction and shot me wide eyes when he saw the book gone, but I waved them off and said, "Don't worry, it'll be back."
A loud thwack sounded off to my right and I ducked down as another one hit to my left. The bandits had picked up horses and were gaining on Birdy, and it didn't seem like they had any shortage of weapons on them.
"Faster!" I shouted, but just as I did, something hit a wheel and we veered to the right, Birdy struggling in protest as the cart went careening off the road. We were heading so fast the world blurred.
The seat seemed to fly out from under me and the cart moved quicker than I could hold onto, and before I knew what was happening, my shoulder connected with cold hard earth and I was tumbling, rolling, spinning and spinning and spinning.
The world flew past in a series of bright colors and blurred shouts and crashes, then something rammed into my head and in a flash of searing pain, everything went dark.
+++
Pain. The first thing I felt was the horrible throbbing of my head and the bruises around just about everywhere else on my body. The next thing I felt was confusion and disorientation. How did I get here? Where was I? I didn't dare make a noise for fear of finding out.
I felt a cloth wrapped over my eyes and my hands were bound together in front of me so tight my fingers bit icy numbness up my arms. A hot, metallic taste coated my throat when the next level of consciousness hit me.
Where was Atlas? What about Evyne and Lefeli? Were they okay? No, no, I'd need to be able to see to figure that out...
Several voices were whispering in a husky conversation nearby and I heard the crackle of a fire burning somewhere near that. Cold dew soaked my clothes from the grass beneath me and I had only the means to make conclusions as to what was happening. Sooner or later I would go insane like this, so I did the only thing I could think of to keep my wits.
I listened.
At first it was just the low hum of the voices, then I began picking out sentences and individual words as the ringing in my head subsided. From the mismatched voices, I vaguely collected that the conversation was something along the lines of a mapping discussion, and that these people—all male—were not my companions.
It sounded like a slave trade.
I swallowed the scratch in my throat and weighed my options. If I stayed calm, I was pretty sure I could find something useful in their conversation as to where we were, or even who I was with, and it was possible to formulate a plan based on that information. If I brought their attention to me, there's a possibility they would harm me, or worse, but there's also the possibility that I'd collect much more useful information like whether or not there are other victims—or I could scream loud enough to draw some attention from someone nearby who could help, but there was always the possibility—which was uncomfortably likely—that there was no one around. I didn't like that option very much.
I ran through scenarios until my headache returned and I sighed inaudibly. I hoped I'd never have to consider options like these ever again.
My ears perked as a new voice joined the conversation, and a gut feeling told me I'd heard it before. After that, I figured out through the process of elimination who it was pretty quickly.
I was most definitely with the bandits.
I didn't like this situation at all. I had essentially no control over what was happening and I was completely and literally in the dark about everything going on around me.
Except the fact that they didn't know I was awake.
I slowed my breaths, deepening them, calming my nerves, but before I could do anything, something touched the small of my back and nearly caused me to blow my guise.
"Veia, be quiet."
The voice was barely audible, but I recognized Evyne's accent before she even spoke. My mind was running a million miles per hour again.
"You and I have been taken by the bandits from earlier today, but Atlas and your friend Lefeli managed to escape with Birdy. We're to be sold, but we're gonna pass through a town named Kalahkat to get to the buyers. Atlas and Lefeli have been waiting nearby and they'll travel to Kalahkat to free us there. Hold your breath for ten seconds if you understand."
She caught me off guard, but I complied as she counted quietly, then her pressure on my back loosened.
"Are we—"
"Quiet." She poked me again.
The bandit's conversation abruptly burst into laughter and I realized the girl might have been trying to listen to them.
The conversation came through in broken pieces, some making jokes about other people in the group, others voicing more disturbing things about their plans with the trade. Every now and again Evyne would translate something they said because apparently she could hear them better than I could, and we only continued to lay on the ground and wait. My arms and legs had lost all feeling and my head began to spin again. The cold had seeped into my clothes from the soil and my body resisted strong shivering bouts.
Finally, I could follow the bandits' conversation no more, and as their words faded into one another, I slipped back into an uneasy rest.
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