A River of Royal Blood

by Amanda Joy

  We were too far apart for me to hear his breathing, but the wind worked just as well. I swayed, letting my body move to the sound of branches creaking, leaves slapping each other as they rustled, time still kept by my heartbeat.

  In all that sound, his movements were misplaced notes. I heard them and knew when to evade, dodge, attack.

  I swung away from him, ducking blows, dipping into a crouch, and rising as soon as his arm whistled through the air above me. This time, when he made the grab to spin me into his chest, I pulled him to me instead. I jabbed him in the gut, pleased at his noise of pain. This victory was short-lived, as his leg swept me to the ground.

  The next time, he set me whirling to avoid his blows. It felt so much like a dance—the sweat beading his brow, cheeks flush with color, and our feet pounding the dirt—that I forgot myself. We could have been in the Patch, but this dance was far more intimate.

  The heat from his body warmed my skin and his eyes never left mine. My heart raced as I fought to match his grace, and I could barely breathe when he touched me.

  The illusion faltered when his elbow caught my chin and a kick sent me down into the dirt. Still, my pulse thundered in my ears and my skin felt hot, tight. I closed my eyes and imagined the world was a wholly different place, one where I met him in the Patch.

  “That’s enough for tonight,” Anali yelled, chasing away my foolish imaginings and calling us back to our tents.

  Cheeks burning, I ignored Aketo’s outstretched hand and climbed to my feet on my own.

  He stared at me like I was a problem he couldn’t solve, brow knitted, bottom lip sliding between his teeth. I fidgeted, avoiding his eyes. After what felt like a long time, he smirked. Half in shadows, I couldn’t read him as he murmured, “Until tomorrow, Eva.”

  * * *

  Falun woke me early the next morning with news: last night he’d seen Baccha leaving camp between a change in the watch. Falun had tried to follow, but without Baccha’s blood, he could only track the Hunter for a few miles before the fey’s trail disappeared. And when Falun awoke the next morning, he saw the Hunter emerge from his tent as if he had never left at all.

  CHAPTER 17

  THE NEXT DAY, the road took us along the edge of the Arym Plain. The grasslands were like a massive bowl; the forest dropped off and below swept a flat sea of golden grass, dotted with islands of jutting rock where golden lions lounged. In the distance there were streaky dark lines of swampland and shallow lakes. If we rode any farther, we would find herds of wildebeest, packs of hyenas and jackals. My father’s family home was located deep in the Plain, but he’d never taken me to visit them. It was a hard and dangerous ride through that wild expanse of golden earth.

  We made camp in a sparse stretch of trees between the plain and the distant hills where Asrodei was located. In just three more days I would see my father. I’d done perhaps too well at keeping him out of my thoughts for the first part of the trip, but now I couldn’t stop thinking about the binding. I dreamed of swimming to the bottom of my lake. I always woke just as the pain lanced through my body.

  This wasn’t the first time my father had failed to share the truth with me. Instead of telling me what it meant to be Rival Heirs, he’d left that to Mother, who delivered the news in the cruelest way possible.

  Had the binding also been to protect me, as Mira thought? I wanted to believe that, but hope made the wisest of women into fools. It didn’t escape me that I was looking for an excuse, wanting a reason to forgive him before he’d even confessed. Was it wrong to want someone to trust?

  We’d camped near an offshoot of the Red River and I decided to take my horse down to the stream for a wash—for me and for her. Four days on the road and washing with a bucket of water warmed over the fire had begun to get old.

  I led Bird through the trees to the stream downwind of camp. I let out a groan when I found Aketo, waded in up to his thighs, washing his great buckskin horse. He didn’t see me approach, so I stopped to admire him.

  He was shirtless, naked but for low slung breeches and a leather band around his left arm, and he’d somehow knotted his hair into a bun atop his head. Even from far away, I could see those gold hoops lining his ears.

  He was beautiful, of course. Long and lean and hard in all the right places, curving sinew and gold shining through his brown skin. Shadows traced his jaw—he still hadn’t shaved—and scales flowed down his back and stopped just short of his hips, in a knot-work pattern of gold and copper and black.

  I let myself imagine touching him. I wanted to trace the curve of his bottom lip, half captured between his teeth, half poked out in a ridiculous pout. I wanted to stare at every curve and hollow of his chest and flat stomach until I’d memorized him. Then I wanted to do the same with my hands.

  Aketo turned and looked right at me, that familiar smirk now tugging at his mouth. “I should warn you, Eva. I can feel you.”

  My mouth fell open.

  He coughed, flushing as I stared. “I mean, I can sense you. I can sense anyone’s feelings when they’re near me. It’s more intense, more exact, the closer they are. I thought I should tell you. Didn’t want to interrupt your admiration, but you might’ve stood up there feeling all manner of things . . .”

  He bit his lip again and I wondered if he’d somehow perfected that look by sensing its effect on the people around him. There was a distinct connection between the sight of it and me wanting to throttle him or kiss it away—an utterly infuriating and useless reaction.

  It took a long moment for me speak, as my tongue was stuck fast to the roof of my mouth. He looked pleased and I could feel his eyes on me, heavy and warm and impossibly diverting. “Ad . . . mir . . . ation?”

  “Yes.” He shrugged, a sly set to his lips.

  I counted to five in my head and swallowed the slick reply desperate to leap from my tongue, and then walked with Bird toward the stream. I stopped at the edge of the water and pulled off my tunic, leaving a light chemise behind. Aketo hadn’t moved. I could feel him watching me, though I couldn’t have said what he felt.

  I dove into the water, because it was hot and I hadn’t been clean in days. And because I needed to escape the pressure of his gaze.

  I washed Bird, moving as quickly as possible without appearing rushed. When I finished, I turned to find Aketo at the banks of the stream, still staring. I stared back, wringing water from my hair. “Aketo?”

  “Hmm?” He licked his lips, eyes flashing and matching the gold rings in his ears.

  “It isn’t very fair. You get to know what I feel, but how am I to read you?”

  “I’ve heard the same all my life and I never have an adequate reply,” he said, eyes never leaving mine. “If it helps, I rarely talk about others’ feelings aloud, but sometimes these things are necessary. In this case, so you would know I admire you, too.”

  “It does help,” I said, and slipped beneath the water to cool the burning in my cheeks. When I emerged, he was gone.

  Blessedly clean, I dressed in calfskin leggings and a soft blue tunic and headed back to camp. Once I saw to Bird, I walked back to my tent, fighting against a smile, but Baccha stepped in front of me before I could go inside.

  An atypical frown tugged at his lips.

  I jumped—I hadn’t even seen him since we first arrived in camp. Falun had ridden with him during the morning ride. I’d watched them from the back of the procession, wondering if Falun would confront him about last night, but they barely spoke.

  I crossed my arms. “Hello, Baccha.”

  “Let’s go,” Baccha said. Today his hair was loose again, blond strands dancing when the wind caught them.

  “Where exactly?”

  “Get your things—a sturdy blade, but not a sword, throwing knives, something serrated.” He tapped a foot impatiently. “We’re going on a hunt. It’s time we moved on to marrow magick, Princess.”
r />   Before I lost my nerve, I asked him, “Where did you go last night?”

  He sighed heavily. “I went in search of our quarry for tonight. Are there any more questions, Your Highness? We need to go straightaway. It’s already late. I spoke to the Captain and she wants us back before the second watch.”

  I couldn’t hide my shock as I crawled inside my tent. I picked out a set of throwing knives on a belt made to hang around my hips, and two large hunting knives.

  Baccha helped me to my feet and we walked away from camp after I confirmed his words with Anali. I couldn’t afford to be careless, not with the coin from the Roune Lands eating a hole in my pocket. Though after his direct answer, a coin felt like flimsy evidence of treachery. I decided I would ask him when we reached Asrodei, where he couldn’t stalk into the forest and disappear.

  I let Baccha walk ahead of me once we reached the trees. They were different here; though this area wasn’t near dense enough to be called a forest, the low leafless branches reached out and twined around one another, like dancers in an embrace. It didn’t take long walking through these trees to feel like the camp didn’t exist at all.

  I fought to keep Baccha’s pace. Though grace always marked his movements, here he became something more. He looked taller, grander, and when my thoughts brushed the bond, he felt vaster—like the river between us was where the Red River met the Silvern Sea—and even less knowable than I’d always thought.

  He flowed through the trees. Their twined branches bent to his will, easing apart with his touch, never once catching that great swath of hair flowing behind him, whereas when I wasn’t within a few inches of him, they snatched at me.

  I should have expected his ease in the forest—he was Lord of the Hunt, after all, who once led a host of wolves, night stags, wraiths, and magick-workers hoping to be absolved of their own crimes through Myre at the behest of the Queen. Of course these trees welcomed him. Might the great sands of the South open a path for him? Would the northern snows that piled higher than villages melt at his touch?

  My usual fear of Baccha washed over me. How much of the real Baccha hadn’t I seen? How much had he hidden away? And could I trust him, well away from the camp?

  “What are we hunting?” I asked after we’d been walking for nearly an hour. The sky was darkening and so far Baccha had said nothing.

  He ducked under a particularly twisted web of branches and held them apart for me. I touched the trees, wondering if I might feel the soft buzz of glamour, but I didn’t even smell his magick. As soon as Baccha moved away, the branches slid back into place.

  “Antelope, hopefully. They stray from the grasslands sometimes.”

  We continued forward, though sweeping the ground for double-teardrop-shaped tracks proved impossible when I could barely see in the dark.

  “Baccha. The sun is going down. I have to see the beast in order to kill it,” I said.

  Any eagerness I felt had worn down to anxiety, and the bit of flatbread I’d stuffed down my throat when we first set off wasn’t doing much to curb the gnawing in my gut.

  Baccha stopped so abruptly that I ran right into him. I swore as I fell onto my backside. “What’s wrong? What is it?”

  “I forgot that . . . you can’t see at night.” He slapped a hand to his forehead. “I actually forgot.”

  “So we’re heading back to camp?” I climbed to my feet with the help of his outstretched hand.

  “I don’t think so, Princess,” Baccha answered with a laugh. “For someone so eager to use their magick, you sure are quick to try to get out of it.”

  “My apologies for not realizing stumbling around in the dark was an integral aspect of your teachings.”

  He held up his hands. “What did you expect?”

  “I don’t know, Baccha,” I mumbled. “I expected something like the tutoring of my childhood—tidy, stuffy rooms, musty Sorceryn scrolls, and towering piles of books. Hunting during the day.”

  Baccha laughed, holding a hand to his stomach. “It was your idea to leave Ternain. Come on,” he said, waving me forward. “I’ll give you a bit of me to get you through the night.”

  I folded my arms across my chest and Baccha grinned. Before I could blink, he held his palms over my eyes, pressing down slightly. “Like that,” he murmured, and then he stepped away.

  I blinked a few times, feeling like I had gotten a bit of dust in my eyes. I looked up at him and leaned away. Moments before, shadows had hugged his sharp features. But now, as I stared, his face had cleared. I spun around, my eyes devouring the vivid colors around me. It wasn’t just that the darkness had limited my field of vision; all the colors were richer now, with greater contrast. I could differentiate the shades of green of the vines, the leaves on the trees, and the wilted ones half buried beneath dirt.

  I turned back to Baccha, wanting to devour him with this sight. His hair was even more beautiful. I stepped forward to catch a handful of it, my eyes picking out individual strands of white, yellow gold, rose gold, and even silver. Even the color of his skin was richer, warmed with more honey and gilt than my eyes would normally pick up.

  “Don’t let this add to your ego, but you’re wondrous, Baccha. I wish I could see myself like this, or . . .” I swallowed the rest of my words, but held them close inside. Aketo. My mother. Or even Isadore. Perhaps that was why the fey loved her so, if they could see her like this.

  “You’ll have to take my word for it, Eva.” He reached out to pull one of my braids. “You’re wondrous too. And you’ll be even more wondrous with a pair of horns around your neck.”

  We started through the trees again and I moved with more energy, lighter on my feet than I had felt in days. I followed Baccha easily, and as I did, our speed increased. As we traveled farther east, the trees grew together, their branches woven even tighter, but that wasn’t a problem for Baccha.

  He began to run. The wind that gathered in his wake was the same one I had smelled the first day we met. It whistled through the trees, stirring my hair, moving through my shirt and pulling me along. I stayed as close to Baccha as I could, stepping only where he stepped, sure that the wind would drive me to terror if I strayed from him.

  By the time Baccha slowed, I was breathing heavily, but not as tired as I should’ve been. I should have been clutching my sides, cursing the soreness in my thighs, bent over trying to pull air into my lungs. I could tell we’d traveled a long distance, longer than seemed possible. I whispered, “How did you . . . How did I do that?”

  Baccha looked over at me. “We traveled on the wind. And before you ask, no, it is not a gift you could borrow. It took me the better half of my first two centuries to learn it.”

  “Which was . . . when?”

  “Hush, now.” He pointed at a set of tracks in the underbrush. “We’ll walk from here.”

  I tried to be as quiet as Baccha—his steps made no sound—but mostly I failed. Even with my new keen sight, I stumbled over roots and slippery lichen. But I kept my eyes open and listened.

  We walked for about five minutes until I heard it—the soft crunch of leaves crushed underfoot, the wind whistling in a different way, moving around something new. I stopped Baccha with a hand on his back. I pushed urgency through the bond, willing him to stay still.

  I lifted my shirt, easing a knife from the band around my stomach, and stepped around a tree. My vision narrowed until it was all I could see.

  The antelope was lovely, a soft and buttery brown, with stripes of white around its narrow neck. It stood less than fifteen feet away, bending over to gnaw at a tuft of grass. Its horns curled back and then forward again, ridged and sharp. Beautiful. My eyes ran down its thin but powerful legs, the wide white stripes on its back.

  I shifted and the antelope lifted its head. Those eyes met mine just as the knife left my hand. A second later I heard the sound of a bowstring being pulled taut, released, a
nd then the impact of three arrows into its body. One in its chest and two in its midsection. The antelope fell on its side, one of the arrows snapping beneath it.

  “I had it well in hand, Baccha.”

  “You dealt the killing blow, which is really all that counts. I just didn’t want it stumbling around spilling blood all over.”

  I showed him the other two knives in my hands.

  “Well, I apologize for underestimating you, but you don’t exactly exude skilled huntress,” he huffed, while wrestling his hair into a knot at the back of his neck, then stuffing it into the collar of his shirt.

  “What about you, Hunter? I spotted the antelope before you even noticed,” I said, jabbing one of my knives in his direction.

  He smiled with enough viciousness to make me step back. “Watch where you point that. This is your hunt, Princess. If you’d like to see how I . . . hunt, I can arrange a demonstration. I should warn you, I am better at hunting people than beasts.”

  “I’ll pass,” I said, shaking off a chill.

  “Then we might as well begin.” Baccha pointed to the antelope.

  I walked to where it had fallen and removed my knife from its throat, grimacing at the smell of blood and death.

  I cleaned the knife on a patch of moss at a nearby tree. Heat still rolled off the beast as its blood leaked onto the forest floor. Even with a thick mess of blood at its throat, it was beautiful. Liquid black eyes stared up at the stars, and those horns were half the length of its body.

  “Well?” I asked, once Baccha had removed his arrows.

  He blinked at me, and then laughed. “Retrieve the horns, Eva. That is the only part of marrow magick we will do tonight. You only need to claim them.”

  “How . . . ?” I paused, trying to find the right question. “There isn’t a more delicate, magickal way of doing this? Where the horns just fall off?”

  “I suggest a serrated knife.” Baccha tried to shrug as if he wasn’t enjoying this, but his smirk was telling. “Get as close to the head as you can get.”