Driven By Instinct

4 - Charm

Constantine roused Vica with the sun. "This is Greenshire," he was saying, using a stick to dig a slight depression into the loose dirt in front of him. He leaned forward on the log that he was using as a seat to scratch a small area of cross-hatched lines downwards of 'Greenshire.' "We're here, crossing the woods five miles south. We're heading to Landon now. That's a little over twenty miles. You were here three days ago."

Vica was sitting several feet away, huddled on the ground with legs folded under her and her hands jammed between her knees to try to stave off the cold from her fingertips. She suppressed an uncomfortable grimace at the reminder that this man had been following her movements closely for some time now, had been tracking her like a hound would a raccoon or a fox without her knowledge. To think, she had attributed the sense of being followed to her fatigue and paranoia. Maybe if she had trusted her intuition more, she would have been soundly sleeping and superbly warm in some distant village right now.

"We're stopping by Landon to get you clothes so that I don't have to carry around a frozen body, unless you can knit something out of leaves and twigs."

She nodded agreeably and ducked her head to blow some warm air on her hands, after which they immediately returned to the warmth between her knees. Behind her blank eyes, however, her mind was struggling to wrest some idea on how to use the information to her advantage. Landon, she thought. She remembered it, of course, still fresh in her memory. They had had that wolf problem. She had spent six nights and five days singing forth dozens of acres of trees on the side of the forest opposite the town in order to lure the wildlife there, and the wolves in turn. By the end, she had been waking up shaking and her flesh in scorching pain from her efforts on the days previous; on the last day she had only managed saplings instead of hearty trees.

In other words, if Landon had been nearly driven into a corner by a few wolves making off with their livestock, they wouldn't be able to offer any help with the significantly more dangerous predator before her. They certainly had no formidable soldier-types for her to call on, Vica thought dubiously. They had a small militia to deter banditry, but nothing else besides. And she wasn't about to ask their cheese artisan to start brandishing his curd knives. And that was all assuming that Constantine wouldn't immediately m******e them if she so much as threw the townsfolk a longing glance over her shoulder. No. She would have to bide her time. The people of Landon could barely protect themselves much less offer her any aid if she asked.

Constantine had been watching her as she discreetly pondered her hopeless circumstances, but now he abruptly used his booted foot to stamp and rub out his crude map from the dirt. "You're not very exciting," he told her, his tone almost admonishing. "Don't be so obvious that you're going to behave. I've been so bored, Vica."

Vica gave him an answering half-purse of her lips at the smug, buried threat in his words. Give me my magic back, she wanted to say. I'll misbehave on the spot. "I'm waiting for someone to save me," she said instead. "Do you know who my father is? He'll be here any minute now, and then you'll be sorry."

Constantine exhaled through his nose with a smile. "He's a dead man."

"So you say. He's the mightiest warrior in all the land. And the richest. He's got three heads and a hundred hands."

He leaned forward and propped his chin up with a fist, elbow balanced on his knee. In his other hand, he absently twirled the stick he had used earlier to draw in the dirt. "What are your parents like?" he asked, suddenly changing tack. "You can't have seen them in months. I would have known if one of the places you wandered through in the past half year was your home."

Vica furrowed her brow into an expression of skeptical apprehension. "What do they have to do with anything?" she hedged. "They're lovely people. Never done anyone harm in their lives."

"Just curious. They'll miss you when you're gone."

Her stomach turned. Violently. "You're kind of awful, has anyone ever told you that?"

"Maybe you should tell them where you're going so they don't worry."

"Oh?"

"Where's your home village? We should stop by."

"No, thank you." Vica stood up and dusted the broken grass and dirt from her robe. "I forgot to mention that I'm actually an orphan child. No family at all. I've been just sad and alone all my life."

Constantine chuckled, and then he too rose to his feet. "I believe you."

"Thanks, it's my orphan charm."

"Not that," he told her with a wide smile as he turned her around and urged her forward with a hand on the small of her back. "I think your parents must be lovely."

Neither Constantine nor Vica spoke again for hours. Her stomach was growling by midday but she knew better than to complain about it - he was the jauntiest kidnapper to ever exist, but that still made her a prisoner even if she wasn't tied hand and foot. Probably because that would only slow their travel, she suspected, since she would have to hobble instead of walk. It didn't matter. She had already seen plenty of hints that if she were to try to make a break for it that he could just drag her through the dirt all the way to their destination.

He maintained a punishing pace once they had cleared the woods, and Vica resigned herself to misery. No one ever said that a captive's lot in life would be a kind one. They stopped twice, briefly, when it seemed that she could go no farther; she would surreptitiously pick at the edible plants and slip them into her mouth whenever she could. She needed to keep her strength up in case an unexpected opportunity came her way. She noted, however, that Constantine seemed not the slightest bit fatigued or hungry. Ever graceful, she thought sourly on the ground as she massaged her swollen ankles.

They arrived in Landon with daylight to spare. The twilight of evening wouldn't fall for another hour even with darkness falling earlier every night, but Vica was all but stumbling with every step by the time they could see the rooftops of the town's buildings in sharp detail. Her exhaustion would have been less paralyzing if she hadn't been forced to weather the cold for the last eight hours, but as it was, she was nearly seeing double.

Whoever was keeping vigil in their sole watchtower must have raised the signal upon their approach; Vica could see several figures waiting at the rustic town gates now. She wondered what she ought to say to them when they inevitably asked why she had returned so soon with no prior warning. When she had left, she had made it clear that they would not be seeing her for quite a while. The best laid plans of mice and men, she thought wryly. She glanced now at Constantine, who had slowed his pace just slightly so that he was now walking by her side instead of slightly ahead.

"Did you change your mind?" he asked, looking at her with an uncannily easygoing smile. "You're free to cause trouble. You've been so quiet all day while I've been looking for a reason to upset you." He raised his hand and reached for her; the lack of distance between them meant that Vica barely had any time to notice the movement much less avoid it. He picked something out of her hair, flicked away a stray leaf that had apparently been nestled there for hours without her knowledge. "You look like a mess. When they ask, tell them you were on your way back here for more supplies since Greenshire couldn't provide what you needed. You got lost while making your way through the forest. I was passing by and offered to escort you to Landon. You're very much in love with me and have asked me to continue escorting you to your next destination."

Vica sighed. "Who's going to believe that? A mage, lost in a forest, couldn't find her way out -"

"They'll eat it up," Constantine interrupted her, lowering his voice even further now that they were almost upon the townspeople, who had also begun hurrying towards them with welcoming smiles.. "Then pretend you're sick. Simple people love a damsel in distress. Now stumble."

"What?" she asked in confusion.

"I said, stumble -" and then Constantine's foot flashed out at her own, just barely concealed under his long travel cloak. The movement was so inhumanly fast that the approaching townsfolk evidently missed it even though they were looking directly at him; certainly Vica was taken entirely by surprise herself even with a forewarning. When Vica's feet tangled together and she tipped forward with the beginning of an outraged shriek crawling up her throat, she suddenly felt strong, slender hands catch her by the waist and the arm.

She looked up into Constantine's face to find a stranger looking back - gone was any trace of smug, cruel intentions. She noted unhappily that he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen when he looked like this: compassion in his eyes that now seemed more warm and golden than feral and yellow, his lips parted in a concerned 'O.' He had even had the gall to allow his high cheekbones to tint themselves in the slightest pink of a flush as he helped Vica to regain her balance.

He greeted the first two men to reach them with a hurried nod of acknowledgement. They had immediately picked up their speed and trotted the rest of the way after seeing Vica lose her footing. "She's unwell," Constantine told them in a voice that was almost breaking in its urgency, holding Vica close to his side. "I found her wandering on the way up to Greenshire this morning. She needs food, a bath, a bed -"

Son of a b***h, Vica thought, and she swallowed her bitter resentment before obediently slumping into his arms like a rag doll. A liar, a wretch, an absolute demon of a man.

God help her.