The Choice of Magic - Michael G. Manning Page 0,201
he never wanted things to turn out this way. That’s why he keeps trying to help you.”
“I don’t know enough about him to have an opinion,” said Will, “and while I haven’t met my other half-sister, having met Laina doesn’t give me much hope. She seems thoroughly rotten.”
“She isn’t as bad as you think,” offered Selene. “She just hasn’t seen enough of the world to learn more empathy yet. Her father has kept her sheltered.”
“Yours certainly hasn’t sheltered you.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You’re obviously from an important family, but they let you run around loose in the world like this. It doesn’t make sense. I was starting to think you were a princess for a while, but there’s no way a king would let his daughter put herself in such dangerous situations.”
“My family isn’t like others.”
“Do you have any siblings?” asked Will.
“Not anymore,” she answered. “I had an older brother, but he died when I was small.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “Don’t be. He was much older. I hardly knew him.”
“How did it happen?”
“An illness. They wouldn’t let me see him, but that’s what I was told.”
Even without names, Will was learning more about her than he had discovered in all the time he had known her. “What about your mother?”
She shook her head. “She died giving birth to me. I have a step-mother, though.”
Damn, thought Will. She’s had a tragic life. “So, it’s just you and your dad then.”
“And the Nerrow family,” she added. “I was fostered to their household when I was eight. It was much nicer than mine.”
“Fostered?”
She chuckled. “It’s something the nobility does. Most children are sent to live with a different family when they reach a certain age. It helps to create connections between families of power.”
“He wouldn’t. Not with me there,” she answered. “Besides, he’s too soft. I don’t think he could stand to be parted either of his girls.”
In the darkness, Will watched the first patrol he had seen pass by for the second time. He had a good grasp of the timing now. There were four groups of three men. Each group completed a full circuit of the camp roughly every twenty minutes. It would be six or seven minutes before the next patrol came by. Since they were bundled together, he held onto Selene, and they stood together. “It’s time.”
Chapter 60
They moved forward through the shadowy region beyond the lanterns of Barrowden, and soon they emerged into the light. It wasn’t that late, so there were still a few people moving about, but since it was a military camp there were fewer than if it had still been a village.
“Shouldn’t there be more guards?” Will muttered.
“I think since this region is so well protected by the pass they don’t think there’s much threat,” suggested Selene.
As they walked, Will began to notice the difference in how much sound they made. Their feet were completely silent, and their clothes didn’t rustle, but their voices were completely normal. As many times as he had had to sneak around thus far in his career, he figured he should insist that Selene teach him the spell after they were done.
Barrowden as he had known it was completely gone. The village homes and buildings had been razed, and whatever could be salvaged—along with a significant amount of new timber—had gone into constructing the new Darrowan base of operations.
Unlike the Terabinian army camp and the Darrowan camp in the pass, Barrowden’s tents and new buildings had been arranged in a neat grid. Wide lanes separated the tents and intersected each other at ninety-degree angles. He supposed that the layout facilitated ease of movement and made everything easier to find.
The camp was also well lit, and though the lanterns weren’t that bright there were very few truly dark regions within it. Again, that made it easier for people to move about after dark, but it also made it harder to hide. Will and Selene both tensed when a few soldiers passed them in the street, but the men barely glanced at them.
“This might be easier than I anticipated,” Will observed.
Selene nodded. “Don’t get too comfortable, though. Eventually we’ll have to do something, and it won’t be so easy anymore.”
They continued on in a straight line, following the lane they had first entered on. Most of what they had passed thus far consisted of pavilion tents with short, temporary walls that rose four feet high along their margins to create semi-permanent dwellings.