It was only to be expected, given Kai had, until recently, been in the opposing army to those men. Realising he was Granthian by birth, the soldiers had been surprised and unhappy to discover he had free run of the house, was allowed to train with the guards, and was unsupervised in Master's presence. Sasha confided she had overheard one of the generals berating Master for continuing to keep him, but Master had refused point-blank to send him away. The relief I felt at hearing the story was overwhelming, for I hadn't realised how afraid I was of losing Kai until I heard how very nearly it had happened. Another master would have dismissed him, for certain.
"I don't like this," Kai muttered, scowling at the world in general as we walked away from the training paddock.
"What?"
"Something's going on." He fell silent as we passed a couple of soldiers patrolling the garden, taking my arm and leading me to our chamber.
"What's going on?" I demanded the moment he closed the door.
"The guards think Master's leaving the compound."
"What? Why? When? Are we going with him?"
"I don't know." Kai frowned. "I don't think so. Some of the soldiers are packing for a journey, but they won't say where or when they're leaving. The guards are unhappy. They think they should be accompanying him."
"Is he in danger?" It was becoming my constant worry. I didn't know enough about life in the wider world to judge Master's place in it, but even I knew he was a figure of some import in the local area. If the generals thought Otiz was threatened, he would be the first person evacuated.
"I don't know!" Kai snapped. Immediately he was contrite, taking me into his arms and kissing my forehead. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to get angry at you. I'm just frustrated."
"We both are. I wish someone would tell us what's going on." Any time we broached the matter with Master, he quickly shut us down. I was getting very tired of being told I had nothing to worry about when it was so clearly a lie. "Will any of the guards tell you more? Shan, perhaps?"
Kai shook his head, chewing his lower lip. "Shan doesn't know any more than we do. I'm not sure even Morgan knows exactly what's happening. Ever since the army arrived, they've practically taken over." He sighed. "It used to irritate me when we marched into a place to protect it and the locals were hostile. Now I think I understand why. Nobody tells anyone anything."
"They think we're helpless," I said bitterly. "Or rather, I am."
"And they think I'm dangerous." Kai grimaced.
"Do you think he'll even say goodbye?" I asked. I couldn't bear the thought of waking one morning to find Master had left us, that he was out there somewhere, possibly in danger, not knowing if we'd ever see him again.
"He'd better." Kai's voice was a low growl, and under other circumstances I might have been amused to hear his possessive tone, maybe even teased him a little. As matters stood, Kai's anxiety only fed my own.
We passed the day miserable and discontented, unable to concentrate on anything for long. Neither of us would settle until Master was back under his own roof, safe for another night. The world outside the compound walls had suddenly become a dark and dangerous place, filled with nameless, faceless enemies.
The first sun set, and Kai grew increasingly restless. He threw down the book he had been attempting to read and instead began lifting the smaller weights from the set Master had given him. I focused on the movement of his arm, the ripple of muscle as he curled each weight up towards his chin and back down. He looked toned and healthy, but wound tight with tension, like a coiled spring. Master was late and I knew Kai was as worried as me, although we had no cause yet to be alarmed. The days of living according to a regular routine were long behind us.
We still hadn't finished decorating our dayroom, the activity seeming shallow in the face of our altered situation. I knew the soldiers looked down on us; they thought us vacuous whores, good only for fucking. They accorded us no respect, but I didn't want to lessen their opinion still further by fussing with swatches of materials while they were preparing for a war which seemed suddenly to have brought itself to our doorstep.
By second sunfall we were nervous. Master hadn't returned after dark since the bombing in the marketplace. We left my room and wandered through the house, gauging the mood of the soldiers to determine if anything was wrong. They bustled through the hallways, looking through us like we weren't there, or else sneering at our collars and sparse uniforms, which denoted our position and purpose as clearly as if our flesh had been branded in scarlet letters. A couple of household guards approached, and Kai, recognising them, begged for information. The men shared an uneasy look and admitted they had expected Master's party to have returned already.
"Is someone looking for them?" Kai demanded.
"The soldiers are taking care of it." The older guard grimaced, clearly unhappy his position had been usurped. "There's nothing you can do. Go back to your room."
We ignored the order, choosing instead to wait in a corner of the entrance hall, in sight of the door but out of the way of the men passing through. I wished myself invisible as a general passed us, throwing a sour look in our direction, but Kai met his gaze defiantly, refusing to be cowed. This was our home, and we had every right to be there. It was our master we were waiting on.
Sasha found us an hour later and forced us to accept a couple of bread rolls each when we refused to leave our post to eat in the kitchen. She clucked around us like a mother hen, scolding that we would both catch our deaths loitering in a draughty corridor, but short of being dragged bodily from the spot, I had no intention of moving, and Kai seemed equally determined to keep his vigil. Eventually, shaking her head in fond despair, she abandoned her attempts to make us move and instead brought a blanket to at least keep us from freezing.
Huddled together under the scratchy material, we shivered in our dark corner. The hour was late and even the generals were anxious. A party of soldiers had left to start searching, but nobody would tell us where Master had gone or what they feared had gone wrong. The bread lay like lead in my stomach, and I felt sick to my core as visions of Master lying dead at the bottom of a ravine swirled before my eyes.
At last the silence was pierced by shouting from outside, along the perimeter wall where the guards and soldiers were stationed. I gripped Kai's hand tight enough to cut off both our circulation, hardly daring to breathe. The bone-deep anxiety I felt was becoming far too regular an experience.
Men entered the hall, moving with purpose, and Kai and I emerged from our nook and led the crush as we raced to open the door. Outside, the front of the house was lit by flaming torches, placed every few feet along the drive all the way to the gate. Heedless of the stab of sharp stones under my bare feet, I broke into a run, Kai keeping pace at my side.
A soldier shouted for us to be stopped, but the guards we passed let us be, understanding better than the strangers we'd been forced to accommodate that our rightful place was with our master. The gates swung open with a squeal of metal on metal as we approached, the soldiers around the walls barked orders, and a posse of men trooped inside.
I spied Master in the centre of the press, standing head and shoulders above the others and walking unaided. Relief hit me like a ton of rocks, and I collapsed to my knees, shaking with adrenaline as I realised how certain I had been that he was dead. Again. I didn't think my heart or nerves could stand it if we continued to live like this.
Kai stopped to pick me up, and Master broke free of the group and came to his aid. Together they lifted me and set me on legs as weak as a foal's, and I clung shamelessly to them both, heedless of the disgusted snorts of the soldiers surrounding us.
"What happened?" Kai demanded roughly, running his hands over Master's torso. He touched his arm, and Master winced.
For the first time, I noticed his vibrant teal robes were covered in dark stains down his left-hand side, stains which flickered red in the firelight as another torch was brought forth. Kai held Master's arm and pushed his sleeve aside to reveal skin red with blood.
Master snatched his arm away. "I'm fine," he insisted. "It's a superficial cut."
"What happened?" a general asked, echoing Kai's words.
"Ambushed. On the Riga Pass."
"Soldiers?"
"Thieves." Master shook his head. "They must have been desperate to attack us."
"Were any captured?"
"No."
The general let out a curse.
"There's no need for that," Master said sharply. "We killed a couple, and the rest got away. They'll be long gone by now, back into the mountains."