by Carson Rae
“Please,” I say. “With meat.” My expectations for the stew are low, but last time I was in the desert I learned never to turn down a meal.
He leaves, and Belén and I climb into the loft. The ceiling is low and made of dried palm thatch. It’s hot up here—a little too hot—and I already miss our camp that is open to the breeze and to the stars. But the innkeeper did not lie; the straw is fresh and clean.
“We got lucky,” Belén says. From below comes a soft snort and a hard thunk as a horse paws against his stall door.
“Yes, we did.” And I can’t help but wonder: If luck is a finite thing, to be doled out in increments, have we used it up too quickly? From habit, my fingertips find the Godstone at my navel. Please, God. Let this work.
Heat washes through my body as the stone pulses a joyous response. I jerk my hand away.
I’ve been praying less lately, even though I feel bereft without prayer. Ever since my encounter with the zafira, when the magic of the world touched me directly, the Godstone has been too eager, like a tidal wave inside me yearning to rush free.
By the time the girl, Sirta, comes with the stew, it’s too dark to discern anything about her. How she maneuvers two bowlfuls up the ladder I cannot guess, but we thank her and eat eagerly. The meat is gamey, and the cook used too much salt, but it’s not as bad as I expected.
Normally, I’d use any idle time to practice with my daggers. Belén has taken up where Hector left off, teaching me to defend myself, even to fight a little. But the loft offers little room for exercise, and I don’t want to make noise that would draw attention. So after eating, we settle in to wait impatiently. We’ll make our move at first light.
I don’t realize I’ve dozed until Belén shakes me. “The sky brightens,” he whispers. “Soon, now.”
I stretch and blink myself awake, then shoulder my pack and follow him down the ladder.
The back of the stable is open to the outside so that the building resembles an overgrown potting shed. A guard passes the opening at steady intervals. I’m hoping that when Storm and Mara begin their attack, he’ll run off on foot instead of pursuing the enemy on horseback.
Seven of the eight stalls are occupied by horses. The eighth is stacked high with hay bales. Most of the tack, however, has been wisely stowed elsewhere. Belén and I poke around quietly and come up with only two saddles, one bridle, two soft halters, and a single blanket.
“Mara and I will go bareback,” he whispers. “You can have the horse with a saddle and bridle.” I breathe my thanks.
The clang of cast iron and the stomp of footsteps filter through the door from the kitchen. The inn rises early to prepare breakfast. Not much time until someone comes to tend the horses.
“Can we wedge the door shut?” I ask. “It might win us some time.” Even the minute or two it would take for the soldiers to realize the door was jammed and run around back would help.
Belén’s gaze darts around. “The hay bales! Help me move them.”
I open the stall door and wince at the creaking hinges. The bales are too heavy for me to lift, but I’m able to grab a cross-section of twine and drag them backward into place. Belén, on the other hand, stacks them quickly, two wide, two thick, four high, until we’ve made a solid wall.
“Watch the entrance while I saddle a horse for you,” Belén says. “Listen for Mara’s signal.”
I creep toward the opening, wary of the patrolling guard. The sky is as blue-black as a bruise, and the stars are dimming. As soon as light peeks through the mountain peaks, Mara and Storm will begin their phony assault.
My Godstone cools in my belly, giving me a slight shiver, and I cast my awareness about, alert for danger. If my life were imperiled, the stone would turn to ice, but it is merely chilly. Which means either the danger is distant, or it remains within the realm of possibility. All these nuances now, ever since the zafira. It’s like I’m living with a whole new Godstone. Or maybe it’s always been this way, and I’m only now learning how to interpret its signals.
“You there!” comes a voice out of the fading night.
I whirl to find the silhouette of a man in desert robes bearing down on me. The guard. With a calm that surprises me, I step from the shelter of the stable to intercept his path. Better to keep his eyes on me than allow him to notice Belén preparing the horses.
“Good morning to you!” I call out cheerfully.
“This area is off limits,” he says, his hand going to the hilt of his sword.
“It is? We rented space in the loft from the innkeeper. He didn’t say anything about that.”
“Then you should go back inside.”
What to say next? If I don’t convince him to walk away soon, Belén will have to kill him.
I sigh loudly. “Please, sir, I won’t cause any trouble. It’s just that my husband is still in there, snoring up a sandstorm, and I couldn’t take it a moment more.”
He chuckles, and relief washes through me. The cold of my Godstone begins to ease.
“Promise not to stray from the stable?”
I open my mouth to promise, but Mara’s war cry rips the sky. It’s high-pitched and eerie, as mournful as death, and knowing it’s my friend does not prevent the back of my neck from prickling.
I lurch forward, clutching the guard’s robes in what I hope is a decent approximation of panic. “It’s an animagus! We’re under attack!” The animagi have never announced their attacks thusly, but the guard shoves me away and dashes off.
I turn to find Belén leading two horses my way. The tallest one, a black monster with flaring nostrils, is the one he chose to saddle for me. I shrink a little.
“Don’t let her size fool you,” he whispers. “She’s gentle as a lamb. After you mount her, I’ll hand you the reins for this pretty girl too. As you ride, keep enough slack in the reins so she can trot easily beside you.”
The second, smaller horse is a bay, maybe a blood bay, though it’s too dim to tell, and she prances in place, swishing her tail. Belén grins, patting her neck. “Mara is going to love you,” he croons.
I hear distant shouting, another war cry. Storm and Mara only have a moment more before they must dash away to our rendezvous spot.
“The rest of the horses?” I ask.
“I opened the stall doors. I’ll set the hay bales on fire as I leave.” At my indrawn breath, he says, “The horses will panic. They’ll be impossible to catch. Do you have a better idea?”
I feel sick. But no, I don’t have a better idea. I can’t bring myself to answer Belén, so I place my foot in the stirrup and heave myself up, swinging my leg over the mare’s impossible girth. I sway as she adjusts beneath me. She is so huge, and I am so high off of the ground.
Don’t think, Elisa. Just do.
Belén hands me the reins to the other horse. I wrap the ends once around the pommel of my saddle and hold tight with my left hand. With my right, I flick the reins of my own horse experimentally, and she steps forward.
“Head east, out of the village. Go slowly until you find your seat. I’ll catch up in a moment.”
I kick my heels against the mare’s withers, and she lurches forward into a lazy walk. We’ll have to move a lot faster than this very soon, but I take Belén’s advice and concentrate on finding my seat in her swaying rhythm. The mare beside me kicks her knees up a little higher than necessary, and I know she’ll be delighted when Mara finally demands that she run.
We skirt the village, keeping to the shadows. I see no one; everyone is hiding, fleeing, or trying to organize a defense. From the corner of my right eye, I catch a smear of brightness as it arcs over the village and plummets to the ground somewhere in the plaza.
Someone screams. The horse beside me whoofs as she sniffs the air, and she dances nervously. Smoke. She smells smoke.
I must get away from the smoke before the horses panic and I lose my already-tenuous control. I kick again, but she takes only a few quick steps before settling back into slow, useless plod
ding.
More arrows spear the brightening sky. Storm’s voice booms across the tiny valley, menacing and curselike. He’s intoning something in the Lengua Classica. Then a giggle bubbles from my throat when I realize it’s a silly rhyme about poppy fields and drunk sheep.
Panicked shouting, an order for archers to fire, and suddenly the northern sky glows with a nimbus of burnt orange. Buildings block my view, but I know something burns. My eyes sting, with shameful tears and from smoke, as I kick my useless mare again.
Hoofbeats approach from behind, and I twist in the saddle. It’s Belén. One fist is clutched in the mane of a tall dapple gray, the other holds the reins of a smaller chestnut. “Elisa, we have to move!” he yells.
“I can’t!” I say helplessly. “She won’t—”
Belén races up to me, leans over, and thwaks my mare on the rump. She jerks into a trot, and suddenly it’s all I can do to keep my seat without losing control of my extra mount.
We reach the tethered camels, which are rolling their eyes and tossing their heads in panic. Belén leans down with a knife and cuts them loose, and they gallop off. I watch them go mournfully, wishing I was riding one of them instead. Belén leads us slightly south of the village, and once we’re out of sight, we start switching back along a rocky slope, gradually circling north toward our rendezvous point. I lean forward over the mare’s neck to keep my seat on the incline.
For the first time since we decided to become horse thieves, real fear stabs my gut—but not for me. What if someone doesn’t make it? Mara is used to these hills and gullies; she stands a good chance of disappearing into the scrub and slipping away. But Storm is a stranger here, ill suited to the dry and dusty climate. What if I have sacrificed him? What if we get to the rendezvous point and he is not there?
My heart twists. Storm and I have gone from enemies, to uneasy allies, to grudging friends. I would never tell him so, but I am fond of him. Being queen has taught me that loyal friends are in short supply, and I’m not willing to lose even one of mine.
We reach a narrow gulch, half covered in bramble. Belén brings his horse to a halt, kicks a leg over, and slides off neatly. He grabs my mare’s bridle to hold her steady while I dismount. “We lead the horses from here,” he whispers. “We must go quietly.”
He sets off with his pair, and I follow. The gulch is barely wide enough for two horses, and they bump each other nervously as we travel. I stare at the hindquarters before me, expecting a kick to the face at any moment. But then my mare whuffs into my hair, blasting my neck with moist air, and all I can think is, Please, please don’t bite me.
The area is a warren of buttes and brambles and gullies. Were it not for Belén I would be hopelessly lost. We take several turns, climb two ridges, circle a giant jutting butte—all the while suffering the onslaught of tumbleweed and manzanita. My cloak protects me from the worst of it, but my cheeks and hands are raw with scratches. A grudging respect for the horses begins to grow inside me. Their skin is so much more delicate than that of camels, but they plod forward, unperturbed.
Belén stops and holds up three fingers—a signal for me to be silent while he scouts ahead. I’m supposed to duck out of sight whenever I’m left alone, but this time there is nowhere to go. Instead, I peer past the horses’ rumps to see what has stalled us. Our tiny gulch has become impassable, blocked by creosote and dried yucca stalks and bushes I can’t identify. He quietly parts the branches of the thicket and disappears inside, leaving me alone with all four horses.
The sun is high now; we’ll have to find cover soon, or a clear path to run. Birds serenade the brightening day, and something rustles in the brush beside me. A lizard, I tell myself firmly, even though this is viper country.
Belén materializes out of the thicket. “It’s safe,” he says. “Mara and Storm are there.”
I wilt with relief.
The bramble is too thick for us all to go at once, so he leads the horses through one at a time. When at last it’s my turn, he pushes the thicket aside and I squeeze through, my hair and clothes snagging on branches. He follows after, letting the branches swing back, and I find myself in a tiny canyon of sandstone that is barely large enough for four people and their horses.
Mara and Storm sit at the other end in the dry grass. Mara is doing something to his upper arm.
“Are you injured?” I ask him.
He nods. “I was nicked with an arrow. It’s quite painful.”
Mara rolls her eyes. “It bled a good bit,” she says as she wraps a strip of cloth around his arm. “But it’s shallow.”
“Any trouble getting here?” Belén asks. “Were you followed?”
Mara stands and rolls her shoulders. “I don’t think so. But oh, you both should have seen it! Storm was marvelous. And when he started yelling in the Lengua Classica, everyone panicked, and all their shots flew wide—”
“But did you see any trackers among them?” Belén presses. “Anyone we know? We should put as much distance between us and the village as soon as possible, just in case.”
Mara scowls at him. “All the best trackers and scouts joined our Malficio, remember? Most of them are with Queen Cosmé now.”
He flinches to hear the name of our former traveling companion—and his former betrothed. “It only takes one, Mara.”
They all turn to me for the final decision.
“Storm, can you ride injured?” I ask.
“More easily than I can run with these cursed manacles,” he says.
“Then we go.”
As we’re mounting up, Mara leans over and says, “I hit a pigsty. With my arrows. None of the hutas burned down, I swear it.”
Belén sidles over and adds, “And I did not set the stable on fire. A little banging on the stalls did the trick just fine.”
A quick look of understanding passes between the two of them. “Thank you,” I whisper. “Thank you so much.”
Belén leads us to the east end of the tiny canyon and a narrow opening there. We travel single file through a dry arroyo, then up onto another ridge, where we pick up the pace. Galloping, I learn quickly, is a lot smoother and less frightening than trotting, and my lazy mare grudgingly keeps pace so long as Mara’s mount nips at her heels.
I allow myself a secret smile. We did it. We became horse thieves. Now we’ll be able to cover twice the distance each day.
We’re coming, Hector.
4
HECTOR
WHEN I was fifteen, Alejandro released me from service for a summer, to crew on my older brother’s ship. Felix made me learn two dozen sailor’s knots. So I know the one binding my wrists is a type of clove hitch, designed to tighten my bonds if I strain against them.
I’ve tried to keep my wrists relaxed, but the rocking gait of my horse tightens them anyway, leaving my skin bloody and my fingers numb. If by some miracle I escaped, I wouldn’t be able to grasp a sword to fight my way free.
Even so, I am not helpless.
The true power of a Royal Guardsman lies in observation, and they have not thought to blindfold me. Overconfident fools.
Our path leads deep into the Sierra Sangre at a steady incline. Sage and juniper have surrendered to taller pines that block out the sun. I like their tart, lemony smell. I close my eyes and breathe deep of that smell—the sharpness cuts through the pain and helps me stay alert, though I’m careful not to reveal it.
The pine trees have other uses too. Every morning, my captors make tea from pine needles. And last night, one of them peeled back the bark, exposing fleshy white pulp that he scraped into the campfire pot to thicken our soup. Now I’ll be able to survive in the forest, even if I’m unable to escape with provisions.
We ride single file, with me lodged in the middle. We left Selvarica a full company of fifty men, far too many for me to slip away from. But most of the others have peeled off, called by Conde Eduardo to other tasks. Now only twenty remain. Of those, ten are my countrymen. No, not countrymen. Traitors.
I
understand the traitors enough to elude them. I know their training. I can use it against them. But the other ten are a puzzle.
They are Inviernos, though they have unusually dark coloring for Inviernos, with burnished skin and black hair. Spies who have passed as Joyans for many years. But now that I’ve seen them up close, I’ll never mistake them again. They are too beautiful and too forthright to be anything but our ancient enemy.
Nor will I underestimate them.
Franco, the leader of this expedition, rides ahead of me. He carries himself like a warrior, as if barely holding himself in check, ready to explode into movement at a moment’s notice. He spied in the palace for more than a year and is as versed in Joyan court politics as he is the art of assassination. He almost succeeded in killing Elisa.
My jaw clenches tight. I’m determined not to think about her. Sometimes it’s a good thing, like when I need a memory to warm myself to sleep, or a reminder of my resolve. But it’s too great an indulgence when I’m deliberating, planning, observing.
Instead I focus on Franco’s neck, imagining my hands wrapped around it, my thumbs crushing the life from his spine and windpipe.
As the sun drops below the tree line, the thin air frosts. Two of my captors help me dismount. They drag me by the armpits to a nearby pine tree and tie me down.
It’s the perfect place from which to observe their camp. The traitor Joyans and enemy Inviernos are supposed to be allies on this mission, but they skirt one another with care. Every night the Joyan tents end up clumped together, apart from the others, and their eyes narrow and shoulders stiffen each time they follow one of Franco’s orders.
It’s an angry, resentful alliance that could burst into conflict at the slightest provocation. I haven’t figured out how yet, but I plan to be the provocation.
Once camp is set up, they send a different interrogator to me than usual, but the questions are the same as always.
“Has the queen learned to call God’s fire with her stone?” he asks. He’s the shortest Invierno I’ve ever seen, with round, childish features and a wide-eyed gaze. I know better than to believe him harmless.