“Why did you help me?”
The man clasped his hands in his lap. “Do I need a reason to help?”
“Yes, I think you do.”
“I just wanted to even the odds a little.” He smirked, glancing at my shoulder and cap. “But I’m glad I did.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Who are you?”
He watched me across the flickering flames, the shadows deep around him. “Erron.”
His name sounded unfamiliar on his tongue. I didn’t offer my name in return; he didn’t ask.
“You have a gift.” His eyes flicked to my shoulder. “There are many here who do.”
I shifted, every sense sharpening, the chill in the air settling around me despite the fire.
Erron leaned away from the fire as if he were too hot despite the cool night. “I’ve heard some of the most powerful mages of old had this gift of healing.”
I studied him again. His brown eyes were so deep they looked black, and his skin ageless. Alarm slithered through me. Surely the Medallion would have given a bigger warning if this was a mage. “The mages of old had destructive powers. Healing is a gift that can’t be twisted by their evil.”
Erron laughed, a mirthless chuckle that faded into the night. “Anything can be twisted.”
My hand drifted toward my sword. “You seem to know a lot about these…gifts.” I wouldn’t call it magic until he did.
He shrugged and stood, brushing leaves and dirt from his cloak. “I think you’ll find the friend you’re looking for if you take the road east at the next fork.” He whistled once and a huge brown gelding emerged from the shadows. He mounted and turned north. “And I wouldn’t take the main path at Rialzo down into Riiga.”
I gripped the sword at my waist and pulled my tired body to stand. “How did you know—”
“There’s a better path to the east, one that has been forgotten. Look for twin pines and twin peaks.”
“Who are you?”
His eyes darkened as he looked to the south. “It’s not your concern.” He kicked his heels into his horse and galloped into the night.
I leaned against a tree and rubbed my hands over my face, stubble scratching my palms. Twin pines and twin peaks? What was he talking about? How had he known so much about mages, about who I was and where I was going?
A nearby stream gurgled in the silence. Even the fire had gone out with Erron’s departure. You’ll find the friend you’re looking for…Could I trust him? Could I risk not trusting him? If there was a chance Chiara had taken a different route to Riiga, I needed to know.
The Medallion warmed, a comforting heat, but my thoughts warred against each other—she would have taken the fastest route to her father. Wouldn’t she? Yet I hadn’t sensed a lie in anything Erron said.
I found the stream and dipped my hands into it, drinking from my cupped palms and splashing the cool water over my face and hair. The chill invigorated me, masking the ache in my muscles, the emptiness where my store of magic usually was.
Chiara would have taken the fastest route south. I splashed my hands into the water and muttered a curse. Yesilia wouldn’t have. She’d know the main road was easier to track.
I’d take the eastern route, then. After I’d gotten some sleep. I hoped there weren’t more mercenaries close by, because I didn’t have the strength to take another step.
I needed to find Chiara and Yesilia. Soon.
Chiara
The road south yawned in front of us, lined with fields and tall grass, gentle hills rolling into the distance, tall trees marking property borders. The clouds still hung low, but only a light drizzle fell, coating everything in tiny beads of clear water.
Aleksa and I had left before first light, with food from Lessia and a hug from Dora, who told us to keep our eyes on the clouds.
Yesilia had squeezed me tight. “It’s a sad day when you realize your days of adventuring have passed.” Then she’d leaned close, and whispered, “You’ll figure out the clue.”
Ilma hadn’t awoken when Aleksa left, but she seemed to be breathing easier than yesterday.
As we left town, walking on the side of the muddy road, my shoulders itched like we were being watched. When I turned, no one was there.
After we’d walked more than an hour, Aleksa finally broke the silence. “Why are you going to Riiga? The truth, please,” she added.
“I’m looking for my father,” I said, tucking my hands inside my cloak. Both the hem on my cloak and my dress were heavy with mud again. “Why did you come to Turia?” If she was asking questions, so could I.
“I told you—to escape a prison.”
I tilted my head. “Are you a criminal?”
She snorted. “No.” We continued on, and I thought she’d given up questioning me, but then she said, “What kind of business did your father have in Riiga?”
There was no one on the road today—everything was still too wet to travel easily. “A wedding in Vera. He never arrived.” It was as close to the truth as I could get.
Aleksa skidded to a stop. “You don’t know if he’s in Riiga?” she asked with a worried frown.
I sighed, the familiar anxiety coiling inside me. “He disappeared either right before crossing into Riiga, or right after.”
Aleksa rubbed her forehead and started walking again. I lifted my hems and hurried to keep up. “If you can find him, if he’s alive, how do you plan on getting him back? You don’t seem the type to wield a sword.”
I kicked a rock into the grass. She was right, there wasn’t much I could do. I pulled the book out of my pocket. “I found a poem—a clue, I think—that leads to something…to something valuable,” I finished. Tales of mages would have sounded far-fetched to me if I hadn’t experienced one firsthand. “I was hoping to find whatever the clue leads to, then trade it for my father’s life.”
“That could work. If you find it. And if you find whoever took your father. And if whoever took him cares about your treasure.” Aleksa stared at the path beneath our feet, the beaten-down grass and mud that squished with every step. “But whoever took him won’t deal fairly. What will you do if they take your treasure and don’t give up your father?”
I closed my eyes and tilted my head back. I hadn’t considered that.
Aleksa kicked a downed branch out of the path with a grunt. “The world isn’t a nice, safe place, Chiara. I don’t know what life you’ve lived to think anything is fair, but it isn’t. And the sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be.”
I swallowed and tucked my cold fingers back into my pockets. She was right. If Janiis refused to trade, I’d have nothing to protect myself or the poem’s reward or anything.
“Can you tell me more about what’s happening in Riiga? What I will face when I arrive?”
She didn’t answer for a long time.
“Ilma will get better,” I said quietly instead of asking again. “Yesilia is the best healer in the kingdom.”
We walked five more steps, and Aleksa let out a deep, low sigh. “I’m not used to sharing my burdens with others.” I waited, hoping she’d trust me a little. I needed her—if not her help in Riiga, then her knowledge. “Riiga is…in a dangerous position. The king’s been cruel since his wife died eighteen years ago, but something changed in the palace. Something worse than even him.” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head back and forth. “There’s never enough food, barely enough water. You work in the king’s vineyards or you starve. Two months ago, they started killing anyone found on the street at night.”
“What?” I asked, loud enough that a bird startled out of a nearby tree. I lowered my voice. “The king didn’t stop them?”
She shrugged. “It’s the king’s men who do it. He’s passed laws that no one can be outdoors past curfew, that everyone must work in his camps. Only it’s not just the vineyar
ds now. He’s mining at the cliffs. When the soldiers came to drag me and Ilma and our little brother to work, our mother told us to run to the neighbor’s and hide.”
She twisted her threadbare dress between her fingers, tighter and tighter. “There were soldiers there, too. One grabbed my brother. I tried to…” She swallowed. “I tried to get him back, but the soldier tossed him into a wagon with bars all around it. My mother was already in it. She screamed at us to run. So we ran.” Her hands swiped at her cheeks in hard cuts. “I heard my brother was conscripted into the army. He’s only fourteen. I should have stayed. Should have gone with them. But I thought maybe I could find someone to help.”
A cold fury started in my gut. I wanted to rage against them all—how could Janiis do something like this to his own people? How could his men follow such awful orders? And how could my father not know? We had advisors on Janiis’s council—how could this have gone on so long without detection?
“No one in Riiga would help you?” I whispered. The Riigans I’d met were cunning and opportunistic, but surely they’d help one of their own.
Aleksa sniffed and straightened her shoulders. “I got plenty of help,” she said in a hard voice. “Friends who took us in at night so we wouldn’t be arrested or killed. Who kept us away from the soldiers and camps. They helped us get into Turia. But I got hungry. Needed money for food, needed work for money. We adapted. Learned enough to make money and slowly continue north. Then Ilma got sick.”
I relaxed my fists and took a deep breath. I couldn’t do anything now, but once I figured out the poem and found my father, we could do…something. Find a way to remove Janiis from the throne. Something.
“Where did the guards take your mother?” I asked.
Aleksa shook her head. “I’ve never seen it, but others said King Janiis is cutting away at the cliffs. His men round up wagons full of people, force them to work for days, then let them go home to rest. But so many never return. I don’t know if my…if she…”
“And your father?” I asked quietly.
She stared at the ground. “He passed away last year.”
Why did life have to be so hard? “Thank you for helping me,” I whispered, stepping around a wide puddle.
Aleksa cleared her throat and scratched under her scarf. “I only said I’d get you into Riiga. Once we’re down the cliff, you’re on your own. I’ll return to Ilma and continue to Turiana.”
“Turiana?”
She brushed away a stick that had caught on her boot. “I’m going to see the king. Plead for help.”
I tilted my head—she claimed to be no one, yet she would plead her kingdom’s case before Turia’s king? I wanted to tell her she’d speak with him sooner by accompanying me, but I couldn’t reveal he was missing. Not now, when I might be close to recovering him.
I hoped Ilma reported the same to Yesilia—Enzo needed to understand that our towns weren’t being invaded by Riigans, the Riigans were fleeing their homes. If I’d been in Aleksa’s situation, I would have done the same.
I’d once thought all Riigans were like Koranth and Sennor—power hungry, ambitious, selfish. But I was coming to find out how wrong I’d been.
My foot slipped and I tumbled forward, throwing my hand out to catch my fall. Mud squished up over my wrist. I grunted and stood, trying unsuccessfully to wipe the muck away. “Thank you for showing me the way. I’ll take whatever help I can get.”
Aleksa’s brows furrowed and she studied me, then shook her head and didn’t say more. We walked in silence, the peaceful countryside penetrating the haze of awkwardness surrounding us.
My legs ached from pulling my feet out of the mud, but we still ate as we walked. Janiis’s wedding was in four days—we’d lost too much time in Cozzare.
“Why is no one traveling north?” Aleksa asked, breaking the silence.
I shrugged, too tired and muddy to care. The sun set behind us, casting its last rays of orange and purple over us.
One of Aleksa’s feet stuck in the mud, and she twisted it up with a slurp. “Cozzare was always bustling with people coming up from the south.”
She was right. We hadn’t seen anyone. But what could have stopped the travelers? The rain had been bad, but surely it wouldn’t stop people used to it? “Should we camp off the road?”
Aleksa nodded. “And take turns keeping watch.”
We followed a stream along the road until it cut through the edge of a field, turned over and ready for winter, and into a small wooded area that hadn’t been cultivated for farming like most of the surrounding land.
By the time we reached the bosco, the sun had set. We huddled under a broad-leafed tree that still had most of its leaves, and tried to sleep.
I missed my bed, missed my family. Missed Yesilia’s wisdom and spark. Missed having a full stomach. Being clean. And the closer we got to Riiga, the more nervous I became. Aleksa would get me down the cliff somehow, but then what? How would I figure out the clue on my own? And then how would I find my father and rescue him?
The first tinges of doubt seeped into me like the fog wrapping around us, a cold blanket that settled over my skin. Perhaps I shouldn’t have come. But if not me, who? No, I was the best hope my father had. The thought didn’t give me much comfort.
* * *
I slept only a few hours before Aleksa woke me. “I’m falling asleep,” she whispered. “Can you take a turn?”
I nodded and lay back down, then jerked up when I realized I’d fallen asleep again. I put my cold hands against my neck and patted my cheeks to stay awake. I thought about my family. About my father. How brave and how reckless he’d been to go to Riiga. He’d been counting on his position to protect him. And if it hadn’t protected him, there was nothing to protect me, either.
Clouds passed overhead, leaving pockets of stars winking through. Branches rustled in the night, but no walls stood between me and the world anymore. No glass. No barriers. And while it was freeing, I’d also never felt so exposed. So vulnerable. Out here, anything could happen.
A stick cracked. I tensed, my heart beating loud in the silence. I strained to see something—anything—I could use as a weapon. I grabbed Aleksa’s walking stick. My mind flipped through different options of what could be out there, each scarier than the last, until the spit had dried in my mouth and the ridges of the stick bit into my hands.
I eased off the ground, wincing as dry leaves tumbled from my cloak. Another crunch, closer this time. I could wake Aleksa, but if whatever was out there didn’t know we were here, she might startle awake and make noise. Instead, I leaned into the tree behind me, hoping I could surprise whatever was approaching.
Soft footsteps padded closer, quiet but distinct. Two feet—not an animal. Long stride, so probably a man. A thief, to make such little noise.
I widened my grip on the makeshift staff. The steps came closer, pausing just behind the thick tree at my back. Now or never.
I inhaled deeply and spun around the tree, twisting my torso to put more force into the swing like Jenna had taught me. I brought the stick down hard, but the thief caught it and pulled even harder. I stumbled forward. He spun me around, his hard chest at my back.
Panic bubbled up at his tight grip. Jenna’s training took over, and I cried out for Aleksa, then lunged to the side, trying to get enough leverage to flip him. He moved with me, and we both rolled backward. He was faster and pinned me, but Aleksa swung at him with what sounded like a branch, its crack exploding in the night.
“Jöklar,” he cursed, tumbling off me. Glaciers?
“Run!” Aleksa grabbed my arm and started dragging me.
The voice. It couldn’t be. Not him. Not this far south. The man propped himself up on his elbows.
“Ren?” I whispered.
He launched up, without the staff, and wrapped his arms around me, hugging me tight, then
holding me at arm’s length. “What were you thinking? Do you know how worried your family is?”
“I…Ren?” I couldn’t believe he was here. “They sent you to find me?”
“I sent myself.” He rubbed his chest.
“Who are you?” Aleksa interrupted. She held a knife in front of her.
I put my hand out. “It’s okay. He’s…” I trailed off. The king of Hálendi? My soon-to-be sister-in-law’s brother? The man I’d had a major crush on until he flirted with me like he did everyone else?
“I’m Ren,” he said, rubbing his head. “Who are you?”
“Aleksa,” she whispered, inching behind me.
I held my breath right along with her. Ren didn’t show any surprise at the Riigan name.
He groaned. “Good move, Aleksa. Stunned me enough you both might have gotten away.”
Something in me loosened when he didn’t dismiss her or berate her for being Riigan. She’d started to trust me; I didn’t want that work to go to waste.
“Where did you learn to fight like that?” he asked me.
He was still so close. So warm. I stepped back, next to Aleksa. “Jenna.”
He chuckled, the warm sound intimate in the darkness. “Just so you know, your tell is your deep breath before you make a move.”
“What?” I said, huffing an indignant laugh.
“Right before you swung at me, you took a deep breath. I heard it. That’s how I knew you were about to try and take my head off.”
I shrugged and held my hand out for the staff. “Someone was sneaking up on us in the middle of the night. What was I supposed to do?”
I couldn’t see his expression, but I felt a change in the air when he spoke. “You were supposed to stay home. You have no idea how much danger—”
“I know exactly how much danger is out here,” I shot back. “Just because I’m young—”
“And inexperienced. And unarmed. And—”
“—doesn’t mean I don’t understand the risk.”
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