Fool's Quest (The Fitz and The Fool Trilogy #2)

I felt the world halt around me. My ears rang. “What stone? Where?” I could not find enough air in my lungs to make my questions more than a whisper.

Shine blinked. She spoke quietly, in a puzzled voice. “He tricked us. The Chalcedean who seemed kind. He found us and he took us back to Dwalia. And Vindeliar and a few of the others. They were hiding because Chalcedeans were near. Almost as soon as she saw us, she made us all hold hands.” She scowled suddenly. “As if it were a game. A children’s game. Soula held my hand too tight, digging her nails in. The bitch …”

Her voice ran down. I held my breath. Let her talk. Ask no questions. I could see how fragile she was, how tenuous her focus on us. She reached toward Riddle suddenly with a shaking hand and her voice went breathy. “Dwalia took out a scroll. And a glove, a very thin glove with silver on the fingertips. But it wasn’t pretty. She put it on. And she touched the stone and—”

“Shun! Sweet Eda be praised! It’s you! Shun!”

Foxglove had halted my guard a respectful distance away and the Rousters had bunched behind them. Lant and Perseverance had ridden forward to see why they had halted, and now he flung himself from his horse and raced toward her.

“Lant!” she cried, and then she shrieked, “Lant! Lant!” She flung herself into his arms and I did not want to see the terrible race of emotions that went across his features. I hoped no one else could know what they meant. He held her, but not as she clung to him. He held her as a thing lost to him, while she wrapped herself in his arms as if she had finally and safely reached home.

“I thought you were dead! I saw them kill you. And then they kidnapped me!” Her dull calm was gone. Safe in his embrace, her hysteria was rising.

“Shine. What stone? Where?” Riddle demanded. He seized her by the shoulders and turned her back to face him. She tried to hold on to Lant’s shirt but at Riddle’s warning glance, he surrendered her and stepped back. Did he look relieved to have her taken from his embrace? She looked confused and panicky, but Riddle put his fingers on her chin and turned her face to his. “Shine. Look at me. We may be able to get Bee back right now. What stone did they enter? How long ago?”

She stared at him, blinking once as if she was trying to put her memory in order. I knew that feeling. Her crying had been too intense for tears. Her nose was running and her cheeks and nose were bright red. She finally spoke. “Last night. Dwalia led them. They all held hands. I was at the end, with Kerf. And Soula. At the last moment Bee leaned down and bit his wrist. He was so surprised he let go of me. But Bee didn’t let go of him. She dragged him into the stone. He went in screaming.” Her voice lifted on her last sentence, as if that gave her satisfaction. She turned back toward Lant, obviously baffled at how he had released her.

Riddle tugged her back to face him.

I tried to keep my voice level and calm. “Shine. You have to guide us back to that stone. Now. I must go after Bee.”

She moved her gaze slowly from Riddle’s face to mine. Her eyes grew flinty and her voice childish. “You left us through a stone. And then they came. You shouldn’t have left us.”

“I know that and I’m so sorry. But you are safe now. And we need to find Bee so she will be safe, too.” I spoke very simply, as if she were a child. I recalled that fragmented thoughtfulness that follows torture or extreme hardship. Shouting at her would do me no good.

She leaned toward me and whispered, “No. We have to get far, far away. They may come back out of the stone. And there were still some soldiers roaming the forest there. I left the fire burning to lure them and I took the horse and left as quietly as I could. I wish the white horse hadn’t followed me. So easy to see her in the night. I would have killed her to keep her from following if I’d had a knife. But I had nothing. Nothing at all. And it got too dark for me to find my way. So I found a thick grove of trees and hid there until daylight.” She drew a breath. “I rode through the forest until I found a road. We galloped and galloped until the stupid horse wouldn’t gallop anymore. And then I found you.”

“You have to guide us back to the stone. See all the guards we have with us? They’ll protect you this time.”

She lifted her eyes and looked at the waiting troops. Then she narrowed her expression. “I don’t think I could find that place again. Even if I wanted to. Please. We have to get far, far away from here.”

“We will,” Riddle assured her. “But first we have to go back for Bee.”

She stared at him, taking deeper and deeper breaths until I feared she would break out into a shriek. “You don’t understand. I can’t go back there!” Her eyes grew very round and black. “After Bee dragged Kerf in. We, we were … There were more Chalcedeans nearby. Dwalia had said so. But they went into the stone and left us, Soula and me. And Soula, she started screaming and hitting me, and trying to follow them into the stone. I had to make her be quiet. And … she was part of them, the ones that had ruined our home and dragged us away. So I … I killed her. I think.”