Still she hesitated, and the voices beyond the hill were like thunder. But there was no screaming, so hopefully, the battle hadn’t yet begun. But even if it had, maybe it could be halted. Lives could be saved. I made my voice hard. “Freyad! Think of your duty! I gave you a royal order, and I’ll have you thrown in prison for the rest of your life if you don’t follow it.”
Her forehead wrinkled. She shook her head and frowned at me. “Jiara . . . you think it’s that simple? That I’m only here because it’s my duty? I’m not. I want you safe too.”
My throat constricted, and I yearned for the luxury of hiding Freyad away from the battle, along with Raffar and Matid and all the soldiers from the training field. Or a few seconds to hug her. But I swallowed, took hold of her tunic and yanked her from Cloverlily’s back. At my shove, she stumbled against Jonas’s bird.
I cleared my throat. “Thank you, Freyad. But I’m fine here. All the danger is that way.” In the exact direction I had to send her. I flung a hand up the hill, toward the voices.
She grunted and turned her back on me, but she mounted up behind Jonas. “Find some place safe and hide,” she said over her shoulder as they galloped up the hill.
Waving away the dust they’d kicked up in the air around me, I waited until they were out of sight. I brought Cloverlily to a shady grove of trees and tied her near a thick thatch of grass. She sank to the ground and snapped up some leaves. I stroked the soft plumage on her neck a few times. “You’ll be fine here.”
Cloverlily made a contented humming sound. I left her behind, trudging up the steep hill.
Breathing heavily, I reached the crest, and the sight iced my bones. Illuminated by the morning sun, about a quarter of a mile away stretched a huge line of people, hundreds of Farnskager soldiers with their backs to me, chanting a war cry in unison. Beyond our shouting soldiers was a shining ribbon, the Stundvar River, which served as the border between Stärkland and Farnskag. And on the other side, what was easily twice as many armed fighters. They stood like silent statues in a warrior’s garden, metal armor reflecting the sunlight like mirrors, orange-and-black flags flying overhead. They looked so organized compared to our army. And formidable.
There were so many people—how was Freyad going to find Raffar in that loud, riled up crowd? One person might never manage it. She needed my help. The slaps of palms against each other echoed against the hill and hit my back as I descended. My throat pinched, and I tried to swallow down the dryness. Farnskagers were tough—with their lifetime of tattoos and battle practice, they were tougher than Azzarians, I secretly suspected—but outnumbered two to one?
At the moment, each army remained on their own side of the river. Perhaps Raffar was already negotiating. Perhaps Jonas would make it there in time. I forced one foot in front of the other, prodded myself toward that mass of shouting, stomping bodies, and the restless army beyond it. Because it could also be that Freyad and Jonas were lost in the crowd.
I drew closer, but it was impossible to pick Raffar out of the masses, and I couldn’t see Freyad or Jonas either. I was closer to the right end of the line, so I headed that way, planning to walk the entire row of soldiers until I found my husband. Maybe he could stop this whole thing if he knew about Aldar’s message to the Stärklandish queen. I also had to tell him that Azzaria and Loftaria would be sending their own threats soon.
The shouting pummeled my ears and my skull until I could barely think. I asked questions, but no one could hear me, and in their battle preparation, they were so focused that I may as well have been invisible. Twice, I grabbed arms only to find strangers who stumbled back at my touch, scowling and gesturing for me to leave the area.
“King Raffar?” I shouted.
Each time, the stranger shook his head, and I walked on. Finally, I glimpsed my husband, disappearing behind a clump of bushes and accompanied by a woman I didn’t recognize. Why was Raffar going away from the battlefield?
My legs shook like palm fronds in the wind, but I raced after them, following as fast as I could. What if the woman was drawing him away for Aldar?
“Raffar!” I screamed, waving, but with this many people, the Farnskager war chants were deafening, and Raffar had his back to me. He didn’t turn around.
I ran on, pain pricking my side as the last few yards disappeared under my feet. In a copse of weeping fern trees, the woman stopped and leaned against a trunk.
“Raffar!” I shouted.
My husband’s eyes shot to me. “Jiara? She said you were—”
“It’s a trap.” My breath came in such gasps, I could barely speak. “Aldar . . . plans to kill—”
A club flew at my head, and I dove to the ground.
Beng jumped to Raffar’s back and pinned one of his arms. The woman grabbed the other, yanking it up behind him at an angle that made Raffar cry out. My husband tried to shake them off, but Aldar appeared from behind a tree trunk brandishing a short knife.
The two men stared at each other. Finally, Aldar spoke: “Raffar.” His eyes glimmered with tears. “I wish things could be different. You can’t believe how much. But you’ve made it clear that you’re not the right leader for Farnskag.” His voice was just barely loud enough to be heard.
Thick bandages, rusty with dried blood, covered his forehead and one hand. His cheeks were still visibly marked with Scilla’s anger. I pushed myself up from the ground.
“Aldar, why are you doing this?” Raffar asked, his voice cracking.
Aldar’s feet stilled. His gaze softened, and his breaths seemed shallow. “You said we’d take over the continent together.”
Raffar’s mouth opened, but he hesitated several seconds before he finally said, “We were just children. Foolish children with foolish ideas. Farnskag has it good now. I’ve worked hard to give us strong allies and opportunities. Why give up our safety and prosperity? What would we gain?”
“Control. Land. Security, like we got after the war with Loftaria. If we’re strong, we can gain far more opportunities than you’ve provided with your wife here,” Aldar said, his jaw set.
“Strength? Control? What more control do we need?” Raffar’s eyes were damp but angry now. “Aldar . . . all these months . . . how could you betray me? We were like brothers.”
Aldar’s gaze sought out the ground, then drilled into Raffar. “It was you who betrayed me first. Letting them send me off to Gluwfyall alone. You don’t know what it was like. You betrayed our country and the greatness it might have achieved if we had worked together. I have to stop you from ruining everything that’s good about Farnskag.”
Raffar’s eyes widened as Aldar drew back his throwing arm. Behind him, Beng and the woman cringed, trying to protect their heads behind Raffar’s back, using my husband as a shield. I bent to draw my own knife, but Aldar kicked it from my hand, and it skidded across the dirt.
He scoffed. “. . . that you’re even still here. Stupid bird was supposed to take care of you months ago.”
As he advanced on Raffar, a soft breeze blew—Gio, breathing pictures of the future into my mind. If Raffar died, it would only be a matter of moments before Aldar stabbed me to death. I really didn’t know how many had been told Aldar was a traitor, and hundreds could die today. Stärkland and Farnskag would be at war. Azzaria and Loftaria would be drawn in. Death would reign.
Farnskag didn’t need me as queen. But it desperately needed Raffar to remain king. As Aldar thrust his arm forward, I leaped toward my husband.
When the dagger struck me, my heart stopped. A weight like a monolith bore down on my chest. I fell to the ground and looked to my torso to see the knife protruding from my body, directly over my heart. There was no breath.
The irony was a bitter herb in my mouth—that a person could be chosen by three Watchers and still be killed by a madman’s blade. I’d only just begun to know my husband. I wanted to see the lights in the lake at Gluwfyall again. And walk with Freyad beneath the ironfern trees. And run and play with Pia’s little girl. And d
espite what I’d always said, I wanted to learn to ride one of those infernal elephant birds all by myself.
Aldar’s face distorted in anger and disbelief. And undeterred by my bitterness, I was grateful for one last moment of satisfaction.
You will not take my husband today.
My old translator opened his mouth. Raffar exploded, thrusting off the two traitors holding him. He dropped to the ground, bending over me. His mouth made that mmm sound, and it vibrated against my skin. Then he leaned back, his neck muscles straining like he was shouting. But there was no sound. He took hold of my head, lifting it, but I couldn’t feel his hands on me. My skin buzzed quietly, harmlessly, while a chill seeped into my hands and feet.
Behind Raffar, Aldar bent to the ground where my knife had fallen. He picked it up.
I wanted to scream, to jump up. No! My sacrifice couldn’t be for nothing. My vision went dim like the other times I’d died. The world was quiet, dark. But this time, it was the end because the magic in my charms had already been drained.
I tried to fight the dark, but there was nothing I could grab hold of, and nothing to grab it with. There was no me. I didn’t see Scilla—she had moved on—just the loving threads to Raffar and Freyad and my family. The Watchers came, comforting me, attempting to smooth my cares away.
But nothing they did could soothe my worries. I was needed in the real world. There was so much I hadn’t done yet, and—
Brilliant red fire exploded from my heart and raced throughout my body. Cool water, and the energy of a windy day combined like a cleansing hurricane within me. The pain in my chest was pushed away, pushed until it shifted to my shoulder. Air wheezed like daggers into my lungs. The silence fell away, and shouts assaulted my ears. Praying I wasn’t too late, I managed to cry, “Stop him!”
Like magic, a long, dark point appeared in the middle of Aldar’s throat. Red blossomed there then flowed in a thick trickle down over his chest. His eyebrows moved together, and he stared at the useless knife in his hand. His eyes glazed over, and he plummeted to the ground, motionless, a javelin reaching skyward from the back of his neck. Freyad stood fifty paces behind him, shoulders heaving, teeth ground together.
In a second, Freyad and Matid and two other soldiers I recognized from Baaldarstad pounced on Beng and the woman, ramming them to the ground, jamming knees into their backs. Raffar’s eyes widened when he looked back at me. “The knife . . . it was in your heart.”
I looked down, and the dagger stuck out from my shoulder—not my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut, mad from the pain in my shoulder. It had pierced my heart. I knew it had. But it wasn’t there now. Thank the gods.
“It moved,” Raffar said. “Thank the Watchers, it moved.”
Thank the Watchers? But how?
I shook my head. I didn’t have the strength to tell him it couldn’t have been a Watcher, that their power had all been used up.
I closed my eyes to rest. The world around me spun, and my shoulder and my throat screamed as the knife was withdrawn. Someone pressed a cloth against the wound. Water was brought to my lips, and something else, something bitter and strong. Freyad propped me up, but all I wanted to do was escape from the pain.
A foreign battle cry thundered from the far side of the river, overriding the Farnskagers’ chant.
“Take care of her,” Raffar said.
I opened my eyes, but he was gone.
Chapter 33
The shouts and claps of the war chant shook the air and vibrated in my chest. In the few moments where Raffar and I had almost died, where Aldar did die, the Farnskagers had continued their intimidation tactic. Freyad squeezed a bandage around my stinging wound and stroked my hair with her other hand. My mind buzzed dreamily like I’d had too much wine.
I was so tired . . . and the sun . . . it tumbled so beautifully through the fern fronds above. I closed my eyes to let it seep into my skin.
Another massive battle cry went up from the Stärklandish side of the river, completely drowning out the Farnskagers’ chant.
I ripped my eyes open again. Raffar was gone. I’d missed something, hadn’t I? My shoulder throbbed, and I wanted to close my eyes, but I grabbed Freyad’s hand. “Where’s Jonas? Did you tell Raffar about him?”
She winced. “No. He left too fast.”
Beng and the woman were bound to a nearby tree. Matid and the others were nowhere to be seen. How long had I been out? The trees swayed more than was physically possible, and I shook my head to clear my mind. Raffar had to be warned. “Help me up.”
“You’ve lost a lot of blood. You’re in no condition to walk.”
“Then leave me. You have to take Jonas to Raffar.”
She growled and gently pulled me from the ground. “Leave you. Because that worked so well the last time. Royalty,” she scoffed. “A royal pain is more like it.” Avoiding my sore shoulder, she gave me a hard half-hug, and her voice wavered the tiniest bit when she said: “Jiara, don’t you ever make me watch you die again. Now come.”
Freyad supported most of my weight as she held me in a teetering, yet standing position. After a couple of unsteady seconds, I took the cloth from her and pressed it to my shoulder
myself. She steered me toward the river.
We reached the army, and Freyad commandeered a half-dozen guards I recognized from our training sessions to support
me. Together, we elbowed our way through the crowd. “Move aside for Queen Jiara!” she shouted.
Far off to our right, Raffar strode alone onto a wooden bridge spanning the river.
“Let’s find Jonas first,” she said. “I had one of the guards keep hold of him.” We headed to where Freyad had left him, only to find the soldier say he’d had to run an order down to the troops at the extreme left end and had passed Jonas on to someone else. We moved farther from the bridge.
Raffar raised a hand, and the war chant died out, bathing the plains in silence.
Across the river, the Stärklandish army parted as one, and a stiff-backed woman wearing the armor of her soldiers strode through them and stepped onto the bridge. Behind her, the troops readied their weapons.
I took advantage of the quiet. “Jonas of Stärkland!” I yelled in Azzarian.
“Over here!” came a muffled reply.
We beelined for the sound. After pushing through another clump of Farnskager soldiers, we found Jonas, both arms wrenched behind his back by a tall, muscular soldier. Freyad signaled to the man to let him go, and Jonas shook out his arms as he hurried to us.
“There’s no time to lose,” I said. “To the bridge.”
We hadn’t yet made it to the meeting place when Jonas raised his arms and yelled toward the river, something in Stärklandish.
Raffar and the Stärklandish queen, still ten feet apart, turned to watch our approach. Before we reached them, Raffar motioned to us to stop. “Freyad, stay back with the other soldiers. No aggressive movements.”
He hadn’t said anything about me. With my wound, I certainly wouldn’t be seen as a threat.
Freyad glared at Jonas. “You’ll have to hold Queen Jiara up,” she said.
Jonas didn’t understand her Farnskag words, but he caught me as I slumped against him. Freyad and the other soldiers remained at the foot of the bridge. She nodded at me with teeth clenched together. Then Jonas and I joined Raffar.
I spared a glance down to the Stundvar River. The water was low. It would be easy for the Stärklandish soldiers to rush across it and attack our army.
“What are you doing?” Raffar asked. “And who—”
There was no time for long explanations. “Two things. I informed my mother and the Loftarians. At the very least, they should send word of their support, and threatening messages to Stärkland.”
He nodded. “Good. And—”
“And Jonas here is the prisoner from Stärkland. He can help.”
“You brought the prisoner?” His eyes flicked between unkempt Jonas and me. “I hope you’re right.”
>
The Stärklandish queen’s eyes were wide, and she leaned forward ever so slightly as she asked Jonas a question. He answered. Her shoulders drooped, and her eyes glittered.
The foreign soldiers on the other side were so close, we could see their eyes sweep from one side to the other, but they didn’t change their stances.
With hands empty and outstretched, like that first time he’d walked into Mother’s office requesting our betrothal, Raffar inched to the middle of the bridge. Very carefully, he said, “We do not want war.”
The queen stared at him as Jonas and I followed.
“She doesn’t speak Farnskag,” Jonas murmured.
He scanned the crowd as if searching for a translator, but I caught his attention with a raised finger. I couldn’t translate directly, but I could via Azzarian. “Jonas, you and I will make it work,” I said, ignoring the wooziness in my head. “Between the two of us, we’ll get messages across.” I translated Raffar’s words for Jonas, and he did the same for the queen.
When she reached the center, she nodded to Raffar, and then to me. Jonas handed me over to my husband and moved to the queen’s side. She stretched her arm to cup his cheek and murmured to him.
“My mother,” Jonas muttered, his cheeks turning a slight pink.
For a second, I closed my eyes. “He’s an heir to the Stärklandish throne,” I whispered in Farnskag.
“We kept the heir to the throne in our prison? For months?” Raffar rubbed his forehead. “We’re lucky they didn’t attack earlier.”
And we were lucky Raffar had been so firm about not killing the prisoner.
As best as he could while holding me up, Raffar bowed and said how sorry he was for the horrible misunderstandings. A hot trickle seeped from my shoulder, and I gritted my teeth as I pressed the bandage against it harder. Flashing spots danced in front of my eyes. I leaned against Raffar’s chest, saving my strength for speech.
Jonas and I relayed the story of Aldar’s betrayal. The queen asked a question—her tone was icy—and Jonas’s voice echoed it: “Where is he now?”
A Dragonbird in the Fern Page 28