“I’m going to do it anyway.” Turning to her desk, she sat down and picked up a pen. “By the time my father realizes what I’ve done, it will be too late for him to punish me for it.”
Killian snaked the pen from her hand. “I’ve a better idea. Let me write to Kaira.”
Princess Kaira was the general of Gamdesh’s armies and the Sultan’s favored daughter. Killian knew her personally by virtue of them both being marked but also because his brother Seldrid was married to the Sultan’s niece. Kaira could and would influence her father, but the fact remained that Gamdesh was on a totally different continent and any aid they sent might not arrive in time. Mudaire needed to find a way to fend for itself. To feed itself.
Frowning, Killian bent over the desk and scribbled a few paragraphs describing the woe, the need to evacuate, the lack of vessels to do so. Not a direct request, but Kaira would understand.
“It feels like the walls are tightening in on us,” Malahi said, shivering. “Like Mudaire is a prison. And soon to be a tomb if something doesn’t change.”
A thought that had been niggling in the back of his head came to the fore—an idea he knew that Malahi wouldn’t agree to easily. If at all.
“Then let’s escape for a few hours,” he said. “Trust me?”
Malahi cocked one eyebrow, then shrugged. “With my life.”
Opening the door, he stepped out into the hallway. “Lena, come here for a minute.”
The young guardswoman followed him back in, raising an eyebrow when he shut the door. “I need your clothes.”
“Pardon?” Both Lena and Malahi said the word at the same time.
“You’re the closest in size, so”—he waved his hands back and forth between them—“switch. Malahi needs a disguise so we can sneak out and you will stay in here as our decoy.”
“Have you lost your mind, Killian?” Malahi was eyeing him suspiciously. “What exactly do you have planned?”
“A surprise. Now change clothes.”
Both girls retreated behind a screen. A few moments later Malahi emerged dressed in uniform, Lena following in a silk wrap. She swiftly braided Malahi’s hair, then perched on one of the chairs. “What do you want me to do?”
“Stay in here until we return.” He gestured at the side table, which had a basket of fresh fruit. “Eat. Lounge. Pretend to be a princess. Just don’t open the door. Malahi, put your hood up.”
* * *
The stables were quiet, few horses remaining given the expense of feeding them. Two of them were Killian’s: his black brute of a war-horse, Surly, and his dappled-grey mare, Seahawk.
Surly turned around to face the back of his stall at the sight of Killian, but Seahawk stuck her head over the door and whinnied loudly. “Hello, beautiful,” he said, kissing her on the nose. “Care to go for a ride?”
“Half my court would sell their souls to hear those words from you and you say them to a horse?”
“My horse has no expectations beyond being fed.”
“Unlike your conquests?”
His hand stilled on the animal’s neck. It bothered him more than it should that Malahi believed the rumors about him. Not that he’d done anything to dissuade her from her belief in them.
“Denying a rumor only gives credence to it,” his elder brother Hacken had told him years ago, back when Killian still asked for his advice on anything. “It’s likely only some love-sick milk maid or dowdy courtier making up stories to impress her friends. It will blow over.”
It hadn’t blown over, but Hacken had been right about denying it being fruitless. Not even Killian’s own father had believed that the rumors that his son spent his nights chasing skirts were anything less than the Six-sworn truth.
A groom appeared, sparing Killian from the conversation. “I’ll saddle her myself,” he said to the boy. “If you could ready Her Highness’s mare for Lena, please.”
It was a matter of minutes before both horses were ready and outside. “Remember, Lena is a terrible rider,” he said into Malahi’s ear before giving her a leg up into the saddle.
Malahi dutifully bounced like a sack of potatoes as they trotted through the city, but once they exited the west gate she pulled back her hood. “Race?”
“To Hammon’s Rock?” he asked, naming the landmark.
The Princess only dug in her heels.
Their horses’ hooves thundered against the road as they galloped west, neck and neck, though that wouldn’t last. Hers was the faster mount and Malahi was less than half his weight.
But Killian had been riding before he’d learned to walk.
So he cut left, taking a shortcut. Behind, Malahi laughed as she followed, both of them leaping rickety fences and crumbling walls as they plunged through the farmland, scaring up birds as they went. The land should’ve been lush, crops rising high in the summer heat and livestock dotting green pastures, but instead it was brown. Empty. Nearly barren of life.
This is your fault. You let the Corrupter and his Marked in.
Shoving the thought out of his mind, Killian glanced backward. Malahi was gaining ground. Her braid had come loose, and her golden locks trailed out behind her. Her amber eyes locked with his and she grinned, her expression fierce and defiant and honest. A fighter. So different from the façade she put on for her court. The face of the queen this kingdom needed. “Try to keep up, Princess!” he shouted, and dug in his heels.
Seahawk surged forward, plunging between an abandoned farmhouse and a barn. Both had been looted, broken furniture and mud-soaked clothing littering the yard. The barn had been partially burned, scorched planks of wood reaching skyward like blackened fingers. The gate on the empty pigpen swung open and shut, and against one of the posts sat an abandoned doll, its eyes seeming to track Killian as he passed. Where is its owner? he wondered. Is she safe with her parents somewhere in the South? Or is she trapped in Mudaire’s walls like all the rest?
Is she even alive?
Faster, he willed his horse. As if it were possible to outrun his own thoughts.
Malahi surged past him, racing toward a spot where the wall had crumbled. Killian kept straight on, Seahawk gathering herself beneath him and then vaulting the obstacle, her stride lengthening on the far side as they flew across the empty pasture.
One more fence stood between them and the road, and beyond loomed Hammon’s Rock, the granite glittering in the sun. There was a ditch between the fence and the road, and he tugged on the reins to slow his horse’s pace, not caring to risk her breaking a leg.
“I’m not going to let you win, Killian!” Malahi shouted, pulling alongside him. “And you’re cooking me lunch as my reward!”
“Malahi, slow down!” he shouted. “There’s a ditch!”
She either didn’t hear him or didn’t care.
His skin abruptly began to prickle, everything coming into sharp focus. “Malahi, stop!”
The wind stole his voice, carrying with it a fetid stench that made him gag. Gods, no!
“Malahi!” he screamed her name. “Don’t jump!”
Her head whipped around, and she sat back, hauling on the reins.
It was too late.
Her horse leapt the low fence, Malahi losing her seat and toppling backward, barely missing the wall as she fell to the ground.
Killian flung himself off Seahawk’s back as she slid to a halt, running to Malahi’s side.
“I’m all right.” She brushed away his hand as he tried to help her up. “My horse…”
A desperate, frantic whinny split the air. They both stumbled to the wall, leaning over the rough-hewn blocks of stone.
Filling the ditch between the wall and the embankment of the road was a river of black slime. And in the center of it struggled the horse, already up to her belly and sinking fast.
Malahi screamed.
Killian was already moving. He ran to Seahawk and extracted a length of rope from his saddlebags. Leaping over the wall, he slid down the bank to the edge of the blight, for
ming a loop, which he tossed over the mare’s head and drew tight. He scrambled back up the bank and over the wall, fastening the other end to his saddle.
Malahi caught hold of Seahawk’s reins, urging her to pull.
“Keep it taut.” Sprinting back to the wall, which was nothing more than rocks that had been stacked on top of one another, Killian shoved his weight against it, sending the rocks rolling down the gentle slope. He slid after them and pushed the rocks into the murk, swearing as they sank into the spongy earth.
The mare’s nostrils flared in desperation and exhaustion, her eyes rolling as she struggled.
“Easy, easy.” Killian stacked more rocks to create enough of a bridge that he wouldn’t sink himself, then picked his way out into the black flow. “I won’t let it have you.”
He stretched out his fingers toward the mare’s nose, reaching for the reins. The rocks were sinking beneath him, the sludge rising up his boots. “Come on, lovely. Try. You need to try.”
The horse stretched her nose toward his hand and Killian lunged, catching hold of the reins. “Pull!” he shouted, scrambling backward, lending his strength even as Malahi urged his horse on.
The mare squealed and struggled, and for a painful few moments Killian thought it was a lost cause. That whatever sickness the Corrupter’s minions had put into the earth was too strong.
Then the horse began to shift, creeping forward inch by inch. When her neck and shoulders were free, Killian dropped the reins and reached for a stirrup, his boot heels digging deep into the ground as he hauled the horse free.
The mare collapsed on the bank, sides heaving even as the rest of her trembled.
“Malahi! Ease up!”
He was unbuckling the girth and pulling off the ruined saddle when Malahi slid down the bank. “Is she all right?”
“I don’t know.” Taking the saddle blanket, he used the side that had been pressed against the mare’s back to clean off the sticky mess, feeling her legs for any sign of a break. “Just exhausted, I think.”
In silence, they cleaned up the animal as best they could without water and, when she finally struggled to her feet, led her up the embankment and through the gap in the wall. Only then did Malahi say, “Did you know it was this bad?”
Killian shook his head. “I haven’t ridden out this far in some time.” And with the flow of refugees stopped, the only news came via the Royal Army’s supply caravans. None of them had spoken of this.
“Do you think my father knows?”
Yes. “I don’t know.”
“Can it be stopped?”
His hands paused where they’d been rubbing the mare, trying to scrape the filth from her chestnut coat. “The tenders might be able to do it, but they’re all with the army.” His gaze shifted to Malahi.
“I can’t.” Her voice was wooden. “Even if I am capable of doing something to push the blight back, I can’t do it in the space of an afternoon. I’d have to be out here daily, and everyone would know it was me. I’d have to leave to join the other tenders with the army, and that would be the end of my plans.”
“I could sneak you out. No one has to know.”
“He’d know.”
“Maybe so, but your father can’t do anything about it without risking everyone discovering that he has been lying to the entire kingdom, which we know he won’t do.”
“He can kill me. He will kill me.”
“I won’t let him.”
Malahi shook her head. “I can’t risk it. What was it that your father said? That even the Marked are fallible?”
That Killian was fallible. And yet thousands of people were starving. Were trapped with little chance of rescue. “If this blight reaches the walls, it might eat its way under them. They’ll collapse.” He eyed the slow-flowing ooze. “Perhaps that’s its intended purpose.”
“Maybe it is! But what are we supposed to do about it with my father in power?” Malahi’s hands were balled into fists. “Until he’s removed from the throne, anything we might do is just spitting into the wind. Only a month, Killian. Then I’ll be queen and you’ll be in command of the Royal Army and we can finally fight back against Rufina. We can win. And then we can make Mudamora strong again.”
“And until then, we do nothing?”
“Yes.” The muscles in her jaw stood out against the skin of her face. “Because to do something might get us caught. It’s not worth the risk. And I know this is killing you. That you feel terrible enough about the suffering of our people—that you think it’s your fault. That you’re willing to do anything to try to help those who’ve been hurt most. But I need you to believe in me enough to understand this is the right path.”
Clouds were rolling in overhead, promising rain, if not snow, the wind whistling through the dead grass. The sun descended in the west, illuminating the Liratoras with a red glow, as if the kingdom beyond—Derin—were the underworld itself. The shadows the mountains cast were long and black as the blight, reaching in their direction. They needed to get back to the relative safety of Mudaire. But not yet.
“Try.” Killian jerked his chin at the blight. “Fix some of it. See if you can drive it back. Then at least we’ll know whether it’s even possible.”
She stared at him, silence hanging between them. “That’s why we’re out here, isn’t it? Not to escape for a few hours. Not to—” Malahi broke off, shaking her head, but before Killian could put much thought toward what she’d intended to say, the Princess picked her way back down the bank to the edge of the stinking stream of blackness. Leaving him to lead the two horses, she walked along it, following one of the branches, eyes fixed on the shifting murk as it slowly narrowed until it was little more than a grasping finger of rot. There she paused.
She pressed her hands against the earth, and Killian watched her eyes grow distant, the grass around her hands turning green and lush, growing taller and taller. But the blight did not recede.
“There’s no life in it,” she whispered. “There’s nothing in it to grow.”
Pulling her hands back, Malahi rose, and Killian’s heart skipped at the first doubt he’d seen since she’d brought him into the fold of her plans. “Killian,” she said. “I can’t fix this.”
28
LYDIA
Finn brought Lydia back to the same house where she and Killian had sought refuge the night of the deimos attack. They stopped up the street from it, and Lydia eyed the blue door apprehensively. “Does Killian own this property?”
Finn frowned at her. “Of course not. Don’t you know the Marked can’t own property? His brother owns it. Though you won’t be finding Lord Calorian”—he put heavy emphasis on the title she’d failed to use—“here often. He stays with Her Highness. But this is where her bodyguard lives when they aren’t on duty.”
Lydia flushed at her social misstep, wondering if Killian had noticed. If he’d cared.
“Your story is this,” Finn said. “You were the lover of a—”
“No,” Lydia interrupted. “Pick something else.”
“Fine. You are the niece of a ship captain who was supposed to be delivering you to family members in Serlania. You were on your way south from Axbridge when your uncle decided to make port in Mudaire. He gave away your place on the ship to a paying passenger, leaving you here with nothing but the clothes on your back.”
Lydia started to argue that the story seemed improbable; then she thought of Vibius and said instead, “I’ve never been to … Axbridge. What if they ask questions I can’t answer?”
“No northern girls in the guard, so it’s not likely. And besides, none of them will pry.” Giving her a sideways glance, Finn said, “The girls in the guard … They aren’t High Lords’ daughters, if you get my meaning. They understand not wanting to talk about your past. Besides, your story is the same as everyone else’s. You’re just trying to survive.”
Finn opened the unlocked door without knocking, and Lydia followed him inside, an eerie sense of déjà vu coming over her.
It was brighter now, the sun filtering through the panes of glass over the door. The wooden floor gleamed with polish, the drops of blood long since washed away.
Finn took a sharp left, leading her down a narrow hallway toward the sound of female voices.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said to a trio sitting around a large dining table. “I’m delivering your newest recruit. This is Lydia.”
The girls all lifted a hand in greeting, introducing themselves. One, a sturdy girl with pale freckled skin and sandy blond hair, stuck out her hand, which Lydia awkwardly shook, clenching her teeth as she felt a slight pull on her insides, her mark taking over.
But the other girl didn’t seem to notice. “Gwendolyn. Gwen, to those who know me. I’m the day lieutenant for the guard, but I’m home today because something I ate played foul with my innards. Not much good to Her Highness if I’m constantly bolting off to the privy, right?”
I think I solved that problem for you, Lydia thought to herself, giving Gwen an amused smile as the other girls laughed.
Gesturing for Lydia to take a seat, the girl waved a hand at Finn. “Go flirt with the cook and get yourself fed.”
Finn scampered off, leaving Lydia alone with the girls.
“Eat!” Gwen said. “It’s a bit picked over, but you’ll get your fill at dinner.”
Perching on one of the benches, Lydia scraped what remained on the serving platters onto a clean plate. The meat was dry and salty, the unfamiliar vegetables bland, and the bread dotted with what she sadly expected were weevils, but the food tasted like the finest meal she’d ever had in her life. A young woman with russet skin, short brown hair, and large hazel eyes poured her a glass of water, which Lydia guzzled down.
“I’m Sonia,” she said, her voice holding the same accent as the Gamdeshian sailor Lydia had spoken to in the harbor. “You’re from the North?”
Lydia’s palms prickled with sweat. “Axbridge.”
“High Lady Falorn’s stronghold.” Sonia nodded. “Mudaire is the farthest north I’ve ever been, but I should like to visit one day.”
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