The Seven Realms- The Complete Series

by Cinda Williams Chima

  Raisa looked over at the two Tamric women. They leaned forward, watching this exchange with eager expressions. Women in Tamron had the reputation of being pampered hothouse flowers, socially ruthless, but physically delicate beings who rode sidesaddle and carried parasols against the southern sun.

  Still, it was tempting. It would be a pleasure to converse with someone other than Simon—someone who could carry one half of a conversation. And perhaps they had more up-to-date news about events at Tamron Court.

  But, no. It was one thing to fool Simon with a story of being a trader stranded in a border town. Simon wanted to be fooled. It would be another thing entirely to sit down with highborn ladies with a talent for ferreting out secrets.

  Raisa smiled at them and shook her head, gesturing at the remains of her dinner. “Tell them thank you, but I’ll be retiring to my room before long,” she said.

  “I told ’em you’d say that,” Simon said. “They said to tell you they have a prop—a job for you. They want to hire you as an escort across the border.”

  “Me?” Raisa blurted. She wasn’t exactly the bodyguard type, being slight and small-boned.

  She gazed at the ladies, her lower lip caught behind her teeth, considering. There might be safety in numbers, but they wouldn’t be much protection to Raisa. While their social weapons would be finely honed, they would be no good in a physical fight, and they would slow her down.

  On the other hand, no one would expect her to be traveling with two Tamric ladies.

  “I’ll talk to them,” Raisa said. Simon went to turn away, but froze when Raisa put her hand on his arm. “Simon. Do you know who those men are?” she asked, nodding toward the card players without looking at them.

  Simon shook his head. He was used to such questions from her, and understood what she wanted to know. “Came in first time tonight, but they’re not staying here,” he said, scooping up her plate. “They speak Ardenine, but they’re spending Fellsian coin.” He leaned closer. “They asked some questions about you and the Tamric ladies,” he said. “I didn’t tell them nothing.”

  Simon’s head jerked up as the tavern door opened and closed. It admitted a rush of damp, chilly night air, a splatter of rain, and a half dozen or so new customers—all strangers. They wore nondescript boiled-wool cloaks, but they had a military edge. Raisa shrank back into the shadows, heart flopping like a stranded fish. She strained to catch any stray bit of conversation, hoping to make out what language they spoke.

  How long can you keep doing this? she thought. How long could she wait for an escort that might never come? If Gerard gained control of Tamron, how long before he closed the borders completely, bottling Raisa in? Maybe it would be safer to cross the border now, rather than wait for an escort.

  But the borderlands swarmed with renegades, thieves, and deserters, and she risked ending up robbed, ravished, and dead at the side of the road.

  Stay or go? The question reverberated in her brain like the rain pounding on the tin roof of the tavern.

  On impulse, she stood and threaded her way to the Tamric ladies’ table.

  “I’m Brianna Trailwalker,” she said in a gruff, businesslike voice. “I hear you’re looking for escort across the border.”

  The stocky woman nodded. “This is Lady Esmerell,” she said, nodding at the younger woman. “And I am Tatina, her governess. Our home has been overrun by the Ardenine Army.”

  “Why choose me?” Raisa said.

  “Traders are known to be skilled with weapons, even the females,” Esmerell said. “And we would feel more comfortable with another woman.” She shivered delicately. “There are many men on the road who would take advantage of two gently raised ladies.”

  I don’t know, Raisa thought. Tatina looks like she could knock some heads together.

  “Did you mean to cross via the Fens or the Fells?” Raisa asked.

  “We’ll go whatever way you choose,” Esmerell said, her lip trembling. “We just want to get away and take refuge in the temple at Fellsmarch until the Ardenine brigands are driven from our lands.”

  Don’t hold your breath, Raisa thought.

  Esmerell groped in her skirts, pulled out a fat purse, and clunked it onto the table. “We can pay you,” she said. “We have money.”

  “Put that away before somebody sees it,” Raisa hissed. The purse disappeared.

  Raisa gazed down at them, debating. She couldn’t wait forever for someone to come fetch her. Maybe it was time to take a chance.

  “Please,” Tatina said, putting her hand on Raisa’s arm. “Sit down. Maybe, if you get to know us, you will—”

  “No.” Raisa shook her head. She didn’t want to be remembered sitting with the ladies in the tavern if anyone came asking questions. “We had better be early to bed if we’re going to make an early start tomorrow.”

  “Then you’ll do it?” Esmerell said, clapping her hands with delight.

  “Hush,” Raisa said, glancing around, but nobody seemed to be paying attention. “Be at the stables at daybreak, packed and ready to ride all day.”

  Raisa left the two ladies and returned to her table, hoping she’d made the right decision. Hoping this would get her home sooner rather than later. Her mind churned with plans. She would ask Simon to pack up bread, cheese, and sausage to carry with them. Once in the Fens, she could make contact with the Waterwalkers, and they might…

  “You look like you could use cheering up, young miss,” a rough male voice said in Ardenine. A bulky stranger dropped heavily into the chair opposite Raisa. It was one of the newly arrived patrons, his face shadowed within his hood. He hadn’t even bothered to remove his cloak, though it dripped puddles on the floor.

  “You, there!” he called to Simon. “Bring the lady another of whatever she’s having and a jacket of ale for me. And step lively, now! It’s almost closing time.”

  Raisa’s temper flared. One of the hazards of dining alone in a tavern was being seen as fair game by any male who wandered in. Well, she would disabuse him of that notion right away.

  “Perhaps you were under the mistaken impression that I wanted company,” Raisa said icily. “I prefer to dine alone. I’ll thank you not to intrude on me again.”

  “Don’t be like that,” the stranger complained, loudly enough to be heard across the taproom. “It’s not fitting for a girl like you to be sitting all by herself.”

  The soldier leaned forward, and his voice changed, became low and soft, though he still spoke Ardenine like a native. “Are you sure you can’t spare a moment for a soldier long on the road?”

  He tugged back his hood, and Raisa looked into the weathered gray eyes of Edon Byrne, Captain of the Queen’s Guard of the Fells. Eyes uncannily similar to his son Amon’s.

  It was all Raisa could do to keep her jaw from dropping open. Questions crowded into her mind, threatening to pour out. How had he found her? What was he doing here? Who knew he could speak Ardenine so fluently? Was Amon with him?

  “Well,” she managed. “Well, then.” She cleared her throat to speak, but just then Simon brought their drinks, slamming Byrne’s ale onto the table so hard that it sloshed. Byrne waited until Simon slumped away before he spoke again.

  “Fetters Ford is no longer safe,” he murmured, still in Ardenine. “We’ve come to take you home.” Byrne looked beyond her, scanning the room. He smelled of sweat and leather, and his face was stubbled from days on the road. Though he slouched back in his chair, Raisa noticed that he’d raked his cloak back to expose the hilt of his sword.

  “Let’s talk,” Raisa said, hope blossoming in her heart. “Meet me in the stables behind the inn in ten minutes.”

  She rose abruptly. “If you won’t leave, I will. Go and bother someone else.” She turned toward the stairs. The Ardenine ladies fluttered and clucked sympathetically, likely thinking Raisa should have accepted their offer to join them.

  “Miss! You forgot your cider,” Byrne called after her, drawing some catcalls and snickering.


  Raisa strode past the stairs and through the kitchen, where Simon was kneading bread for the overnight rising. “My lady?” he said, looking up at her.

  “I need some fresh air,” Raisa said. Simon stared after her as she walked out the back door and into the rain. Shivering, she drew Fiona Bayar’s wrap more closely around her shoulders. It had come with the horse she’d stolen from the High Wizard’s daughter—one of the few things of Fiona’s that fit.

  The stable was warm and dry and smelled of sweet hay and horses. Ghost poked his head out of his stall, snorting and blowing bits of oats at her. She stroked his nose. Two stalls down, she recognized Ransom, Byrne’s large bay gelding, a mountain pony cross.

  The stable doors creaked open and Byrne entered, followed by a handful of bluejackets. Though they could hardly be called bluejackets, since they wore a mixture of nondescript cold weather clothing in browns and greens.

  Raisa scanned them quickly, but to her disappointment, Amon wasn’t there, nor were any of the other Gray Wolves. These soldiers looked more seasoned than Amon’s cadets, their still-young faces inscribed by sun and wind.

  Byrne carefully latched the stable doors and set one of his company to keep watch. The others went immediately to work, leading out their horses and saddling them up.

  “You mean to leave tonight?” Raisa asked, nodding toward the others.

  “The sooner the better,” Byrne said. He stood gazing down at her, chewing his lower lip, examining her for damage. “It is a relief to find you still alive.”

  As if he wouldn’t have known if she’d been killed. As if he wouldn’t have sensed the blow to the all-important Gray Wolf line.

  “What’s happened?” Raisa said. “How did you know I was here? Where is Amon? Why is Fetters Ford no longer safe?”

  Byrne took a step back, retreating from the onslaught of questions. He nodded toward the tack room. “Let’s talk in there.”

  Raisa remembered the Ardenine ladies. “Oh—there’s one thing. Those two ladies I was talking to in the taproom—I agreed to travel on with them tomorrow. Could you send someone to let them know my plans have changed?” It was cowardly, she knew, but she was too weary to deal with Lady Esmerell’s disappointment.

  “Corliss.” Byrne motioned to one of his men and sent him back to the inn to give Esmerell and Tatina the bad news.

  Unlatching Ghost’s stall door, Raisa led the stallion into the tack room and cross tied him, then fetched his saddle and bridle from the rack against the wall.

  Byrne followed her in and closed the door. He watched Raisa work for a moment. “Isn’t that the flatland stallion Fiona Bayar was riding last time she was home?”

  Raisa nodded. Fiona went through horses like her brother Micah went through lovers. “I borrowed him.” Dragging over a step stool, she climbed up so she could fling her horse blanket across Ghost’s broad back.

  “I’d like to hear that story,” Byrne said.

  “You were about to tell me the story of how you came to be here, Captain Byrne.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” Byrne inclined his head, giving in. “Your father intercepted a message that suggests Lord Bayar knows where you are and has dispatched assassins to murder you.”

  “Oh,” Raisa said, looking up from her work. “Right. I know about that. He sent four of them to Oden’s Ford.”

  Byrne raised an eyebrow, which so reminded Raisa of Amon that her heart stuttered. “And?” he said dryly.

  “I killed one, and Micah Bayar killed the other three,” Raisa said.

  “Micah?” Byrne said sharply. “Why would he—”

  “He’d rather marry me than bury me, apparently,” Raisa said. “He kidnapped me from school and was hauling me back home for a wedding when we were overrun by Gerard Montaigne’s army on its way into Tamron. That was just north of Oden’s Ford. If Micah survived, I think he’d assume I’d go back to school rather than on to the Fells. So it’s unlikely Lord Bayar knows where I am now.”

  “This was a recent message,” Byrne said, frowning. “I’m not sure it refers to the earlier attempt.”

  It’s unfortunate, Raisa thought, shivering, when so many people are trying to kill you that you can’t sort them out.

  Byrne lifted Ghost’s saddle and positioned it atop the tall horse. “If you would like to go fetch your belongings, I’ll finish him up.”

  Raisa was familiar enough with Byrne avoidance tactics to know when she was being played. “Corporal Byrne taught me to take care of my own horse,” she said, ducking underneath to buckle the cinch strap. “Who else knows that you were coming after me?”

  Byrne thought a moment. “Your father,” he said. “And Amon.” He bit down on the last word as if he regretted saying it.

  Raisa stood on tiptoes so she could look over Ghost’s back. “Did Amon contact you? Is that how you knew to come here?”

  Byrne cleared his throat. “When you disappeared from Oden’s Ford, Corporal Byrne thought perhaps you had gone home, willingly or not. He guessed you might take the western route, since you’d come that way last fall. He sent a bird, suggesting I try to intercept you here in order to avoid a possible ambush at West Gate.” Raisa could tell he had been shining up this story for some time.

  “Really?” she said. “How did he know I survived? We left a bloody mess behind at Oden’s Ford.” She buckled Ghost’s bridle while the stallion lipped at the bit, trying to spit it out.

  “He…ah…had a feeling,” Byrne said. Raisa snorted. He was no better a liar than Amon.

  “If he thought I was here, then why didn’t he come here himself?” Raisa tugged at the cinch strap, unconvinced that it was as tight as it could be.

  “He thought I could get here sooner,” Byrne said, shifting his weight.

  “Why? Where is he now?” Raisa demanded.

  Byrne looked away. “I don’t know where he is right now,” he said.

  “Well, where was he when he messaged you?” she persisted. “We had no birds at Oden’s Ford that would carry a message to Fellsmarch.”

  “He was in Tamron Court, Your Highness,” Byrne said, like an oyster finally yielding up the meat within.

  “Tamron Court!” Raisa straightened, swiveling around. “What was he doing there?”

  “Looking for you,” Byrne said. “He’d received word that you’d been entangled in a skirmish between Montaigne’s army and a scouting party from Tamron. He thought you might’ve taken sanctuary in the capital. So he and his triple went there to find you.”

  Raisa stared at Byrne, her stomach clenching as certainty set in. “He’s still there, isn’t he?” she whispered. “And Gerard Montaigne has the city surrounded.”

  “That’s why it’s important that we move quickly, while the Prince of Arden believes that you are in Tamron Court,” Byrne said.

  “What?” Raisa whispered. “Why would he think…?”

  “It’s a long story.” Byrne rubbed his chin as if debating whether he could avoid telling it. “Montaigne has threatened to level the capital if they don’t surrender. Whether he can really do that or not is anyone’s guess, but King Markus seems convinced that he can, so he leaked word that you were inside the city, hoping the prince of Arden won’t destroy the city with you inside. Now Montaigne is demanding that King Markus hand you over or he will put everyone in the city to the sword. So Markus sent a message to Queen Marianna, asking her to send an army to rescue you.”

  “Isn’t he afraid I’ll surface somewhere and prove him a liar?” Raisa asked.

  “Corporal Byrne told him you were killed during the skirmish with Montaigne’s forces.” Byrne grimaced. “In fact, Corporal Byrne was the one who suggested this scheme to Markus after Montaigne laid siege to the city.”

  “But why would he do that?” Raisa asked, lost.

  “Corporal Byrne guessed you hadn’t yet crossed the border. He’d rather that those hunting you believe you’re in Tamron Court, and not here in the borderlands. So he and his triple have made themselves
visible in the city so that any spies working for Montaigne or Lord Bayar see that members of the Queen’s Guard are still there and assume that you are also.”

  “No,” Raisa whispered, pacing back and forth. “Oh, no. When Montaigne finds out he’s been tricked, he’ll be furious. There’s no telling what he’ll do.” She stopped and looked up at Byrne. “What about the queen? Will she send help?”

  “Given the situation at home right now, we cannot send an army into Tamron,” Byrne said flatly. “It would destabilize a fragile situation. War may break out at home at any moment, depending on what happens with the succession.”

  “But…if my mother believes that I’m trapped in Tamron Court,” Raisa whispered, “wouldn’t she send an army anyway?” In truth, Raisa wasn’t sure of the answer to that question.

  “I told her not to risk it, that you were not there,” Byrne said, his gray eyes steady on hers.

  “But—but—but—that means that Amon—and all the Gray Wolves—will die there,” Raisa cried. “In horrible ways.”

  “There is that possibility,” Byrne said quietly.

  “Possibility? Possibility?” She stood in front of Byrne, hands fisted. “Amon is your son! How could you do that? How could you?”

  “Amon made this decision for the good of the line, as is his duty,” Byrne said. “I won’t second-guess him.”

  Raisa went up on her toes, leaning toward Byrne, her fury ringing in her ears and freeing her tongue. “Did he even have a choice?” she demanded. “He told me what you did to him—that magical linkage you forced on him.”

  Byrne frowned, rubbing the corner of his eye with his thumb. “Really? He said that?”

  Raisa didn’t slow down. “Does he even have free will anymore, or is he compelled to sacrifice himself to save the bloody line?”

  “Hmmm,” Byrne said, still damnably calm. “Well, I would say he has some free will or he’d not have told you about the bond between queens and captains,” he said.