Chapter Eight
They had only three days of lovers’ bliss before the fateful day that Arul and Mara flew back from their recon flight much too early, fear and panic clear on their faces.
“What happened?” Kenner asked, terrified of their answer, and Mara hissed at him angrily.
“That bitch you brought here told the Skatians about the Rookery!” she replied, loudly enough to attract attention from passersby.
Deciding she was too unstable to give him a coherent answer, Kenner turned to Arul, but his friend’s words brought him no peace. “We saw a pair of kayaks trying to reach the Rookery from the Ridgeside,” he reported, breathless from the exertion the rushed flight had put upon him. “Mara stayed to fight them off, and I flew forward to see if there were more waiting in hiding. And it was there, Kenner. A Skatian ship, with symbols of Lady Esplyn’s House woven into the main sail.”
Kenner frowned darkly. This was terrible news, indeed, and for more reasons than one. “I don’t know how they found out about the Rookery, but I would bet my life Teresa had nothing to do with it,” he told Arul.
“And I want to believe that, for your sake,” his second replied. “But who else would’ve told them?”
“That’s preposterous!” Elder Fanag exclaimed as she made her way through the rapidly gathering crowd. “She doesn’t even know the Rookery exists. I never once mentioned it to her!”
“Kenner did!” Mara revealed, her voice thick with venom. The crowd fell silent in shock, but Mara continued without pause. “He took her to the Isle of Ponds three nights ago and told her everything!”
There was a pregnant pause, and then another member of the Squadron, the youngest of the men, stepped forward. “It’s true,” he said, obviously uncomfortable with airing his dirty laundry out in public, but determined to soldier on for the greater good. “Mara and I were... um… taking a private moment in the woods when we saw Kenner land on the perches – and he brought his woman with her. We heard everything. He even told her about how one could navigate through the Ridge to reach the Rookery.” He looked at Kenner with guilt and pain in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Commander... but Mara’s right. The foreigner is the only one who could’ve done it.”
Then all hell broke loose. On one side, Mara was rallying her supporters to gather a mob and find Teresa to ‘burn her like the witch she is’; on the other, Elder Fanag was trying – and, unfortunately, failing – to defuse the situation. And, in the middle, was Kenner, who found himself with no idea what to do for the first time in his life. He knew in his heart Teresa wasn’t the traitor, but he had no way to prove it, and no way to protect her.
This was all his fault, he thought, hating himself in that moment. If he hadn’t had broken the rules just to give them both a bit of joy that evening, if he hadn’t been stupid and told her things he knew she had to find out in her own time, no one would be able to cast doubt in her direction.
But he did break the rules, and he was stupid, and now Teresa might die for it.
Unless he reached her first, he decided and took to the sky to the utter surprise of everyone around him.
As quick in action as she was to throw accusations around, Mara shapeshifted and went after him, but Kenner used his advantage well and created enough space between them to lose her halfway to his destination. He also had the added advantage of knowing exactly where he was going – Teresa was helping one of the local farmers gather her fruit crops today on one of the Eastern isles.
He didn’t waste time explaining why he was there or extracting her safely.
He just swooped down and snatched her from the ground, careful not to hurt her, and then flew, far away and as fast as he could, out of Kinai territory and onto a small, uninhabited atoll that marked the first third of the distance away from the Firuzian Kingdom. He first put Teresa down, who was terrified and demanding answers, and then came down as well, changing forms as he landed because of the lack of space.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Teresa yelled at him, “You have no right to grab me like I’m some dumb farm animal on a grazing field!”
Kenner let her vent and spoke up only when it seemed she’d exhausted herself screaming. “Skatians were spotted trying to sneak into the Rookery today,” he told her. “And Mara convinced everyone that you were the one who told them about it and taught them what to do.”
Teresa’s face paled instantly. “But... but I didn’t,” she stuttered. “You know I didn’t. I spent every moment I wasn’t working for the past three days in bed with you. I couldn’t have told them even if I’d wanted to!”
She began to shake uncontrollably, and Kenner pulled Teresa into a long, tight hug. “I know you didn’t,” he assured her. “We had the bad luck of not being the only lovers on the Isle of Ponds the other night – Mara and one of the men from the Squadron were there as well, tucked away in the woods. They saw and heard the entire conversation we had before we went down to the ponds, and she’s using that as proof against you.”
“That bitch,” Teresa murmured into his chest. “What does she have against me, anyway? She’s never even talked to me, but she hated me from the moment she saw me.”
Kenner sighed. “I’m afraid that’s my fault,” he admitted, though he would’ve preferred not to speak of it. “She and I were an item at one point, but we quickly parted ways – she was a little too unhinged in her passions for me, and I was not ambitious enough for her liking. But it seems I was the only one who took the ending of our relationship seriously.” He closed his eyes, feeling like a fool. “Arul tried to warn me, but I kept brushing it off. She is one of the two best fliers in the Squadron, and I didn’t want to believe she could be such a liability because I didn’t want to be forced to send her away.”
Teresa just sighed and, after letting herself soak up his strength for a few minutes more, broke their embrace, ready to face the horror now.
“So what do we do next?” she asked, “We can’t leave things the way they are. If they thought I was guilty before, they must be fully convinced of it after the way you stopped them from getting to me.” Unfortunately, she was likely to be completely right about that.
“The only thing that could save you now is if we find the real culprit,” he said, and she nodded.
“All right... but how do we do that? What do we know so far that could help point us in the right direction?” She kept asking questions, her past as an investigator surfacing to help her resolve this problem, and he told her everything he knew.
She thought on all the information he had given her for a while, pacing the small berth of the atoll, and he gave her the space she needed to work things out in her head. Meanwhile, he sat down in the shade of a small palm close to the beach and tried to think about what they could do if the worst came to the worst and they never found the real traitor. At the moment, they had nothing but the clothes on their back, and that limited their options severely. Even if they had the money, where could they go? Back to Skatia? He’d never do that to Teresa. Running to the Makish and the Firuzians was likewise not possible, because the Kinai did trade with both nations, and they would not be able to hide there for long. The only other solution was to try and find some lonely mountain in the Garn territory, or another island, bigger and better equipped than this one, but both of those options sounded much easier said than done.
“You know, the more I think about it, the more it seems to me our safest bet would be to locate the Skatian ship Arul said he saw and force whoever is leading their expedition to admit who their source was.” Teresa suddenly sat by his side, shaking him out of his rather depressing thoughts.
“That... might actually work,” he noted, as he thought her suggestion over. “But if we want to catch them, I’d have to leave right away, and leave you here, because I will need all of my maneuvering ability to force them into submission.”
Teresa nodded gravely. “I know, and I hate the idea, but what other choice do we have?”
Kenner said nothing. There was no need to. They both knew the answer to that question was ‘none’.
“I have nothing to leave you with,” Kenner said quietly. “No food. No water. No weapons.”
Teresa cupped his chin and made him look at her. “I can handle being hungry and thirsty for a day. And, if you hurry, there might not even be any need for a weapon.” She kissed him with passion, leaning her whole body and all its soft, plentiful curves against his before she released him. “Go,” she whispered, and Kenner gave her one more quick embrace before he left her, racing against the clock and the incredible odds stacked against them.