“He seemed so sure about everything. It made me wonder. Could I possibly grow to love a man I hated? I had been wrong about so many things. I had made so many mistakes.”
“But?”
An orange in the air.
“But some things are true. You feel them in your gut and can’t force them. You can’t—”
Another orange.
I reached out, my hands holding either side of his face. “Some things—”
He leaned forward and his mouth met mine, then he pushed me back so we lay on the floor of the pavilion. His kisses were heated, hungry. True. His fingers just as zealous, fumbling with my shirt.
My hands slid beneath his vest, across his chest, searching, hungry too. His weight pressed down on me, pinning me beneath him.
“Montegue,” I whispered. “The guards.”
“They aren’t watching.”
“They are,” I said. “They shouldn’t see the king like this. Maybe we should go on to Tor’s Watch. The office. It’s private.” I pushed against him.
He looked at me, his pupils shrinking to pinpoints, knowing I was right. The most powerful king on the continent, of course, should not be rutting like a buck in a forest.
He rolled off me and yelled to the back of one of the guards who dutifully pretended he didn’t know what was going on in the pavilion, “Get the children! We’re leaving.”
The guard left, and Montegue hurried to put on his boots. I did the same. He didn’t notice that my bruise had vanished. A piece of the fantasy filled his eyes instead—delivered by a thief.
* * *
By the time we were booted and belted and our cloaks were in place to leave, the guard came running back without the children. “They’re gone,” he said, his face ashen. “I can’t find them.”
“What?” I snapped, whipping around to fully face him. “Where—”
Montegue cut me off. “How can they be gone? Where’s the guard who was watching them?”
“I can’t find him either.”
I stormed down the steps. “What do you mean? How—”
“They have to be here,” Montegue said, looking out at the graveyard. “They must be hiding. Playing one of their games.”
“Lydia!” I called. “Nash! It’s time to go!”
The graveyard remained still. The guards, Montegue, and I all spread out, calling their names. Montegue’s voice grew angrier and louder the farther we went into the graveyard with no response.
“They were all at the wash when I left them,” I said, my tone sufficiently worried. “They have to still be there.”
But when the wash came into view, it was empty. I turned and faced Montegue, shoving him with my hands. “What did he do with them? Do you even know that guard?” I yelled. “Where is he?”
Montegue whirled and headed back for the pavilion, taking two of the guards with him. “Keep looking here!” he ordered over his shoulder, his cloak waving behind him. “We’ll check with the squads on the road. Maybe they tumbled down the embankment.”
Once he was gone, I told the remaining guard to search all the bushes near the base of the bluff. “I’ll go check the stand of sycamore at the far end.”
We parted ways, but before I reached the sycamore, I stooped at the base of a tall old spruce with thick, gnarled roots at its base, and pulled away the mounds of needles I had piled between them to hide the dead guard’s weapons. I replaced my dull sword and dagger with his very sharp ones, and added his short but deadly push knife to my belt.
“Lydia!”
“Nash!”
The calling continued in the distance.
And then it became oddly silent.
I headed back toward the pavilion, prepared to ask for news and suggest we search Tor’s Watch next, but then I saw Montegue walking toward me. Slowly. Deliberately. Behind him was a squad of soldiers, and one of them held a launcher.
And walking just a step behind him was Dinah.
Blood drained to my feet. Nothing about this was right, but I kept walking forward, playing it out. Montegue’s face was hard, his chin lifted as he looked down at me. Really seeing me.
“Where are they?” he asked flatly.
Dinah shook her finger at me as the pitch in her voice rose higher with every word. “Her! It was her! She did it! Oleez told me! She said the children weren’t coming back. That we had to leave. But I had nothing to do with it! Nothing! I came as soon as I knew! I’m loyal to His Majesty. I’m—”
“Shut up!” Montegue ordered. But she didn’t shut up, and his hand swept backward, hitting her face and knocking her to the ground.
I stared at her, horrified. Dinah betrayed us? Stupid girl. What have you done? Oleez had been certain she could trust her and needed to bring her with when she escaped. Did Dinah think this would gain her favor with the king, or was she just hysterical with fear? She lay there whimpering, and Montegue turned back to me.
His jaw was rigid. All the passion that had consumed him just minutes ago was now channeled in a new direction. His attention dropped to my feet. “I see your limp is gone.”
I nodded. “A miraculous healing.”
His cheek twitched. “We can still work this out,” he said, making a poor effort to soften his voice. He had no intention of working it out. I saw the inner workings of his mind—he was an architect working on a new plan. “You were frightened for the children,” he continued. “I can understand that. I—”
“Really, Montegue? You would forgive me? How lucky I am. Because of course, you are not a monster, as you have told me so many times.”
His stance shifted at my sarcasm.
“How brave will you be now without children to shield you?” I asked. “Will you still ride freely among your adoring subjects?” I laughed just to rub it in, because I knew how much he hated disdain, and I wanted him to feel this moment all the way to his marrow.
He was immovable, a stone standing in front of me. “Where are they?” he repeated.
“Out of your clutches and far away by now,” I replied. “They have a good hour lead and a skilled soldier helping them. Lucius is quite remarkable.”
“Lucius?”
One of the guards behind him answered, “The soldier who was assigned to them.”
“He was in on it too,” I said. “See? I know your own soldiers better than you do. How many of those standing behind you right now are really on our side? How many of them might be aiming an arrow at your back even as I speak?”
Blink last. He knew the game too, and he resisted the urge to turn around, but I saw the flutter of his lashes and the doubt that swept through his eyes. He glanced at the dull, useless weapons at my side, already planning a new strategy.
As he eyed me, I eyed other things. In a split second I judged the positions of the soldiers behind him, two with arrows nocked, four with swords drawn, and four with halberds poised to charge. I eyed the soldier who aimed a launcher at me. He couldn’t fire it. He was in too close of range, and the blast would surely injure or kill the king as well. I noted the clouds passing overhead, and the shifting light and shadows, and when the sun might be in the soldiers’ eyes. I tried to remember how many steps to the wash behind me, and what trees, tombs, and gravestones stood in the path for cover, and then I tried to remember the steepness of the embankment along the road, and where the soldiers stationed below were positioned, and then the distance to the deep canyon just beyond it. Pivot. A new plan. It all flashed through my mind in a few short seconds. I had to decide whether it was viable, but it was obvious the odds were not in my favor. Not remotely. Not this time.
Montegue smiled as if he knew what I was thinking and stepped closer. “There’s nowhere for you to go. Put your weapons down, and we’ll talk.”
A grin lit his handsome face, and his voice was warm. But I saw the flush at his temples, the tension in his shoulders, the rage that seethed in him. I would be thrown into a cell and left there to rot until he had wrung every bit of information out of
me that he could. That was not an option either. I would never reveal where Lydia and Nash were.
His eyes drilled into me, judging the timing of his moves too. And then he lunged. Because he was stronger and could overtake me easily. Because he had the gods on his side.
But this time I didn’t have a pickle fork clutched in my hand. Beneath my cloak, I gripped something else in my fist.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
KAZI
My arm shot out, slashing upward, the razor-sharp push knife catching him in his chest and jaw. He fell back, screaming, clutching his face as blood spurted between his fingers. In the flash of chaos as soldiers leapt to help the king, I turned and ran for the wash.
“Fire!” he screamed. “Fire!”
I heard scrambling and shouts behind me.
“Get out of the way! Out of the way!” someone yelled.
Arrows whirred past. I heard the thunk! chink! whoosh! as they hit tree and stone, and purred past my ears.
I was about to jump into the wash, when the force of an explosion ripped through the air. I was thrown from my feet and sent rolling down the dry creek bed. Dirt and rocks sprayed all around me. Splinters of stone pierced my skin. Dust choked the air, and my ears rang with pain. I rolled to my feet and kept moving. I couldn’t see through the cloud of dust, but I knew the direction I needed to go.
Rocks crunched beneath my boots as I ran, the air still thick with dust, but once I was past the cloud, another volley of arrows screamed past me. I varied my steps like an unpredictable rabbit, then ran up the opposite side, out of the wash, and down an incline, finally out of their line of sight, but I was running so fast I couldn’t stop when I hit the embankment, and for a few seconds I was airborne, hoping I wouldn’t hit the tree straight in my path. I reached out, grabbing a branch that flung me in a new direction, narrowly missing a trunk, but then I hit the ground hard, tumbling out of control, the thick bed of slippery needles giving me nothing to grab hold of, rushing me downhill like a raging waterfall. I flailed, trying to find something to hold on to, and finally dug in my heel as I grabbed a sapling. My grip ripped its branches clean as it slowed my slide, and I came to a stop just before I reached the road below.
The cover of the trees had at least hidden my descent from the soldiers stationed on the road, but the soldiers above me were still in pursuit. Their arrows were blocked by the trees between us, but not for long. I had no choice but to make a run for the canyon that lay past the road. Screams and orders echoed all around me—including the voice of the king—and the soldiers below turned, weapons raised, looking into the trees for the source of the commotion. I threw a pinecone past them, hoping to divert their attention, if only for a second—that was all I needed—and I ran.
“There!”
“Stop her!”
The road exploded beneath me, and I was in a free fall again, tumbling down the steep canyon embankment, but this time it was not trees in my path but rocks. I was pummeled, every bone banged and crushed, bouncing over rocky ground like an out-of-control rag doll, unable to stop, the ground punching me again, and again, until I finally fell over a ridge and landed on the stony shelf below. Everything went from loud and explosive to still. The sky swirled above me in shadowy reds. I felt wetness and warmth. Blood. It ran into my eyes, blinding me. I winced, lifting a shaky hand to swipe it away, and my breath caught. My shoulder. This time it was pain that blinded me.
Frustrated shouts rolled through the stony canyon again.
“Where is she?”
“Where did she go?”
I was temporarily hidden from view by the tall ridge.
More shouts, and then Montegue, his voice blaring over the others.
“Get down there!”
“Find her!”
And then a desperate “Out of my way! I’ll stop her!”
Did he plan to send a wall of fire blazing down the canyon to burn me to a crisp? His heart’s true desire.
But then I heard a scream. A loud, glorious scream that bounced off the stony canyon. It was the sound of thwarted dreams. The sound of fury and betrayal.
The king’s scream.
I teetered on the edge of consciousness, but I smiled.
He had found the gift I left for him, the very colorful eyestone I had tucked in his vest pocket. The eyestone that was about the same size as a magical vial.
My other hand painfully slid inch by inch across the stone to my side, feeling my pocket to see if it still held the king’s treasure. It was there.
Out of his hands. And I would make sure he never got it back.
* * *
None of this was supposed to happen until later, not until we were on the way to Tor’s Watch to continue our search. I would slip silently into the shadows, then lead them on a wild chase far away from the graveyard. The next morning Paxton would meet me. Dinah changed that.
I knew I had to run. I had to go. But I couldn’t move. I had come down the steep canyon face the fast and hard way. Far above me, I heard them calling for ropes. It wouldn’t be long before his soldiers followed the slower way. I had to keep moving and lead them away from the graveyard and Lydia and Nash. But everything hurt so badly. My shoulder, my head, my hip.
When I tried to move, the world went white with pain again. I gasped for air.
I braced myself, digging my nails into my palms as I reached up and felt a knobby bump on my left shoulder where there shouldn’t be one. It was dislocated. I heard bits of rubble tumbling down the canyon face. They were coming. “You can do this, Kazi,” I whispered to myself. “You have to.” I had watched Natiya once, after she had fallen from a horse—
I pressed my right hand over my mouth, not allowing myself to scream, and turned my other palm upward. Slowly, I slid my injured arm over my head. Relax, let the muscles do the work. But between the pain and knowing soldiers were already scaling down the canyon, it was impossible to relax. I shook with pain. My good hand moved from my mouth to the hand that was now over my head, and I gently tugged on my wrist. You can do this. I tugged harder, the stony ledge spinning. I was afraid I might pass out. A mewl escaped from my lips, light vibrating behind my eyes, and then there was a soft pop.
My held breath escaped in a hot, miserable gasp.
It was back in.
The sky still bobbed above me. I took a deep breath, and then another, letting my lungs fill and my senses return, but there wasn’t time for more. I struggled to my feet, using only my right arm for leverage. I held my left arm snug against my ribs and stayed close to the ledge wall so I wouldn’t be seen from above, then looked out at the canyon for an escape.
The floor of the canyon was only about another twenty feet down. I planned my path. Once I was out in the open, I would have to move fast—if I could. My whole left side had taken the brunt of the fall. My leg ached too. I studied the shadows. It was closing in on noon, and there were few of them. But there were enough—trees, boulders, the wild growth of shrubs. I saw the line I would follow.
I pulled the vial from my pocket and stared at it. I had only seconds to decide. It imprints on whatever it touches. After all these months next to the king’s heart, could it serve anyone else’s desire but his? Could it serve mine? Temptation, reason, and fleeting seconds battled within me. But I didn’t know how to use the magic or even know if I could, and there was a good chance I would be recaptured. I couldn’t let it fall back into his hands. I surveyed the ledge wall and spotted a tiny crevice at the bottom. I tucked the vial inside, and a small lizard scurried out.
And then I ran.
I was spotted almost immediately.
More screams echoed from above. “Fire! Fire!”
He would never let me go, not just because of what I had stolen from him, but also because of what I had never truly given him.
“You are nothing!” he screamed. “Nothing without me! Do you hear me? Nothing!”
I had almost reached the shadow I was aiming for when the canyon thundered with anot
her bone-rattling explosion, a tree splintered into a thousand pieces, and I was thrown to the canyon floor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
JASE
“Did you hear that?” Wren asked.
I had just finished doling out coins for the stable master when the faint noise rumbled.
“Thunder,” the stable master called after us as we walked out the door.
When we reached the yard where Synové was waiting with the horses, she looked up at the sky and asked, “What was that?” Her brow was riddled with suspicion.
“Not thunder,” I answered. There was a crack to it—a hard, snapping sound I recognized. A launcher. But it was somewhere in the distance, not here in town. Soldiers practicing? Or were they destroying more of my home, trying to wipe out all evidence of the Ballengers?
As we rode our horses to the west artery out of town, we could see there was some sort of commotion going on. Soldiers were running with weapons drawn, bursting into businesses on the boardwalks, searching for something. Down the smaller avenues, I could see them doing the same with homes. When we reached the end of the artery, it was blocked. There was a throng of people pressing toward the guards, wanting answers. I got off my horse, keeping my hat low and my head down, and pushed my way through the crowd to where the soldiers stood behind a blockade.
“Wez do not live here,” I explained. “Wez need to go.”
“Nobody’s leaving. Town’s shut down. Come back in a few hours. The roads should be open by then.”
“But—”
“Move along!” he ordered, pressing his halberd to my chest.
I carefully backed away.
We tried to get out through the other arteries, but they were all blocked too. There was a tight net around the town. Synové asked a shopkeeper what the soldiers were searching for. She wouldn’t answer, especially to strangers like us. Everyone in town had grown accustomed to being very tight-lipped, but then we heard a soldier pounding on a door, and when the elderly man who lived there opened it, the soldier had to repeat himself twice so the aged man could hear. They were searching for an older woman with gray hair.
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