Master (Book 5) by Robert J. Crane Page B

pushing Windrider to close on the healer near the front of the formation, “may I speak with you for a moment?”
    “But of course,” Erith replied, her horse not removing itself from a direct path following Martaina’s. The ranger glanced back at Cyrus with a cryptic look that Cyrus managed to decode from his long association with the ranger: This woman is driving me nuts.
    “Over here, Erith,” Cyrus said, gesturing to her to fall back. “In private.”
    The sun was high overhead. The healer’s navy skin was darker than the blue of the skies, her lips pursed as she reined her horse back with greatest reluctance. Cyrus would have sworn he heard Martaina muttering a thanks in elvish under her breath.
    “Erith, you can’t keep following Martaina about,” Cyrus said when the dark elf’s horse was walking abeam his own. “It’s torturous.”
    “What?” Erith’s face twisted in outrage. “I’m trying to offer aid to her. I know these people, and I—”
    “You are annoying Martaina, who is trying to do her job by finding them,” Cyrus said as Windrider whickered.
    “I can be useful in this,” Erith said.
    “How?” Cyrus asked. “Are you going to tell Martaina what Cass Ward smells like so she can sniff him out?”
    Erith looked as though she were about to say something then stopped. “Well, he smells a fair sight better than you.”
    “There’s no need to be hurtful,” Cyrus said with a frown. “We’re all here for the same reason. I know you’re anxious about your friends—”
    “I left them,” Erith said, her face twitching with emotion as she said it. She turned to face forward, leaving her profile visible to Cyrus. “When things got unpleasant with the Alliance, when Goliath and our members were boxing you into a corner, I abandoned them because I thought Sanctuary needed my help more.” She smiled almost ruefully, then sniffled as her face broke and her shoulders heaved once. “I left them to join you in the most horrible of times, and now I’m the only one who gives a damn that they’re gone.”
    “You’re not,” Cyrus said, clutching Windrider’s reins in tight hands. “Plainly.”
    “Which opens an interesting line of inquiry,” Erith said as she sniffled. “Why are you so keen on this? You know there’s no money in it.”
    “Not everything is about gold,” Cyrus said tightly. “Sometimes it’s about repaying those who have done you a kindness in the past. Paying your debts. Cass Ward was kind to me in a time when few were.” He let the reins slip through his fingers, playing with the leather as he stared off into the blue skies in the distance, the occasional white cloud gleaming in the sunlight.
    “Well, they were my family when no one else was,” Erith said, looking sidelong at Cyrus. “Cass, Elisabeth, some of the others. They were my friends. They adopted me when I was poor and just starting out, after I’d left Saekaj Sovar. I owe them for that.”
    “If they’re able to be found, we’ll find them,” Cyrus said with a nod.
    “And if they’re not?” Erith was chewing her bottom lip. “Able to be found, I mean?”
    “Then we’ll figure something out,” Cyrus said. “I won’t leave them forgotten if there’s any lead left to be pursued.”
    “I believe you,” Erith said, and Cyrus turned his head to look at her. She was staring back at him, and he could see the certainty in her eyes. “You and I are the only ones who would have gone looking, though.”
    “You and I are the only ones with a personal stake in seeing them found safely,” Cyrus said. “Us and …”
    He saw her looking at him out of the corner of his eye. “You were going to say Alaric, weren’t you?”
    “Curatio too,” Cyrus said, turning his face away from her. “But he’s distracted at the moment.”
    “I’ll stay back,” Erith said, “from Martaina.” She almost looked contrite as she said it. “I’ll just keep my peace and ride along.” She tried to smile but