by Natalie Mae
A grunt is his answer, a puff of air by my ear.
“I’m really certain that’s a rule,” I say. “If you do anything to me before—”
“It would be a waste of energy to harm you now,” he says. “As long as you don’t do anything foolish.”
“Like try to reason with you or be understanding. Got it.”
“Like speak out of turn.”
I swallow at the threat but remind myself where silence got me the first time I held back with him, and press on. “Can I at least have something to eat?”
The Healer curses. Kasta draws up on the reins, and the stallion sighs beneath us. I shift, eager to dismount, but Kasta catches my shoulder.
“Stay here. Christos will assist you.”
The Healer drops to the ground, rubbing his eyes and muttering under his breath. Without him, his gelding dances to the side, eyes wide, where he can better watch the Shifter.
Demon, he’s thinking. Stay back.
Calm, thinks Kasta’s stallion. She’s controlled.
Controlled. The gelding snorts, pinning his ears. You not carrying Tira’s skin.
The horse skin. Discomfort pricks my neck as I wonder how new it is, since the horses know its name.
“Food is a waste of limited space,” Kasta says when the Healer asks for my hand. “Especially when you have a resource who can produce the same results with a mere touch.”
The Healer’s jaw clenches, and he glares at Kasta but says nothing. I stare at his palm, beetles crawling my skin as I realize why he’s so exhausted.
“You’re having him sate your hunger?” I ask. “He’s generating the energy your body needs?”
“If you’re tired or sore, he can heal that as well. We won’t be stopping to sleep.”
“But that’s an enormous amount of magic.” I look to the Shifter, who needed true healing, and the horses, who’ve probably run much of these three days without stopping, without sleeping. It’s cruel. Christos’s magic will exhaust his body as if he’d personally run those kilometers, and normally he’d have to sleep and recover, unless he uses his magic to heal himself, a feat that demands twice as much effort as usual.
This journey will take years off his life. I remember Jet saying one of Kasta’s early experiments was to research how to prevent this, and my heart twists for what the Mestrah’s discouragement has cost.
“It does seem unfair,” Kasta muses. “But then, so is the reason he has so much more magic than his peers. Remind me, Christos, how old was that girl you let die? Seven?”
I jerk my gaze to Christos. The Healer swallows but doesn’t refute it.
“One of the strongest powers in our world,” Kasta says, his words edged. “And he would dare to resent it.”
His older age. His lack of amulets. Suddenly it all makes sense, and a hot coal burns in my stomach. I know the price of Christos’s magic is high. But it’s one thing to use it as little as possible; another to let someone die in doing so. Fara and I couldn’t afford a Healer for my mother, but if we could have, and we’d put all our hope in him—
Christos is still waiting for my hand.
I shiver against the flickering thought that he deserves this. Kasta is definitely merciless when it comes to people he thinks have wronged him—but it seems he’s just as merciless with people who’ve wronged someone else. I quickly shake the thought from my mind. I’m supposed to be convincing Kasta that getting revenge on people like this is wrong, not agreeing with him.
“Forget it,” I say. “I’m not that hungry.”
“Suit yourself.” Kasta presses his heels into the stallion’s sides, and we lurch forward. “In a few days it won’t matter what you did.”
Over my shoulder, the Healer’s still standing with his hand outstretched, watching me. He shakes his head as we move farther, and finally mounts up to follow.
I turn this newest revelation over in my mind.
“You realize you can actually be upset with someone without dooming them to their death,” I say.
Kasta adjusts his grip on the reins. “Don’t be so reductive. I chose him for a purpose, not for revenge. He’ll still be alive at the end.”
“Yes, except he’ll resent you for it. I agree what he did was awful, but if you let him rest—”
“And risk my entire future for his sake?” Kasta shakes his head. “No. I’d rather claim my crown.”
“Assuming you get that far.”
He scoffs. “And who will catch me? It will take Jet’s Healer an hour to neutralize the poison from Maia’s fangs. Sakira is too busy parading to notice what’s happening, and both of them will soon be long behind us.”
I shrug. “That’s assuming your team continues to cooperate.”
“They will. Maia is bound to me, and Christos won’t dare betray me with her as my guard.”
“I wasn’t talking about them.”
I’m insulted by how long he takes to think about that, wondering who else I could mean.
He laughs. “And what have I to fear from you?”
I try to steel my voice, to make myself believe it as much as him. “Magic isn’t the only thing that holds power.”
“Perhaps you intend to annoy me to death.”
“I only mean, a binding spell is all that holds your team together,” I say, straightening. “They’d follow me as easily as you, because you’ve given them no reason to favor you. The same will hold true when you’re king, but your enemies will be much worse than me.”
This time his silence is satisfying.
“Are you threatening me?” he growls in my ear. “Or giving me advice?”
I clench my teeth at his closeness, resolved not to move. “I’m warning you that in all the stories I’ve heard, it’s the kind kings who prosper. The tyrants meet early ends.”
“Tyrant.” He snorts, but the sound is sad. “You give too much weight to Jet’s lies. I love this country more than he’s loved anything in his life. I will do everything to see it prosper.”
“Then start with its people.” I turn to look at him, hope flickering in my chest. Is it possible this might work? “Send your Shifter to hunt. Let us rest without your Healer’s magic. And let me go.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because this is the only way.” His eyes come alive, burning with how thoroughly he believes it. “This is bigger than this race. Than Christos’s life. Than yours. I’ve come too far to turn back now.”
“But you’ve already proven the gods allow exceptions. If you freed me—”
“Then you’d have power over me beyond measure. I’d have too much to answer for if I claimed to have killed you, and someone saw you alive. The questions they’d have—”
“Then don’t claim it at all. Let Orkena see you spared me. That you showed a mercy no other Crossing victor has shown.”
“Orkena does not want mercy,” he says, and the horse stops, tossing his head as Kasta’s grip tightens on the reins. “It wants a king who makes sacrifices for the greater good. If the court thought I valued you above my duties . . .” He shakes his head. “It’s a waste of air to explain it to you. You’d never understand.”
“I’m telling you there’s another way to do this. You said you wanted to be better. Did you mean it?”
He searches my face, and for a moment a crease appears between his eyes, a glimpse of the prince beneath the darkness, uncertain and listening. He opens his mouth—and the wall builds up again, hardening his jaw.
He smiles like he’s thwarted a trap. “I can see why Jet chose you. He knew exactly what I’d—” His gaze shifts to the horizon. “This discussion is over.”
“For the millionth time, Jet and I are not—”
He grips my neck, fingers pinching, and this time the world tips. One moment I’m gazing at an impo
ssible expanse of silver desert and twilit sky, and then it’s spinning, spinning . . .
And then it’s black.
XX
TIME passes in ribbons. A flash of silken sand, a twirl of satin sunrise. Cold eyes lined with velvet. Rough hands against my shoulders, against my neck. Numet rises and the ribbons turn hot and gold, but a chill clings to my bones that I can no more shake than my dreams.
When I finally wake, it’s to the sound of someone snoring and the feel of gritty sand beneath my cheek. A lump of gray clothing I recognize as the Healer slumbers to the side. Beyond his hooded head, the shallow mouth of a cave opens to the orange sea of the desert, the shadows long against the grass. Heat curls the rocks forming the opening, battling the cool trapped at my back. It’s late afternoon, maybe. It feels too hot to be morning.
How long have I been out?
The black stallion and the brown gelding stand within view, scavenging for desert grass. I don’t see the Shifter. I don’t see Kasta, either, and I jerk upright, hope springing through me that the Healer somehow freed us, when rough fingers close around my arm.
“Easy,” Kasta says, from where he’s seated on my other side. “Don’t make me regret letting you wake.”
I still, not daring to breathe until his grip loosens and he releases me. I draw slowly to a sitting position, edging away from him in the process. But the cave isn’t large, and Christos blocks a third of it.
I still don’t see the Shifter. I look past the horses to a skeletal tree, where a hawk sits motionless on a branch. I assume that must be her, until the bird tucks its head under one wing and the thoughts that reach me are low in pitch.
Rest, it thinks. Then hunt.
The horses are relaxed. The desert is quiet, save for the occasional call of birds and Christos’s snores. The Shifter is not here.
“She’s scouting,” Kasta says, taking up his dagger and lifting a thick piece of wood from the sand. He’s carving something, but it’s too soon to say what it is. I can only remember how he used that knife to carve into me, and I pull my hands around my arms.
“Are we near a bandit camp?” I ask, trying not to sound too hopeful. Clearly things have gone wrong if I’m hoping to be held for ransom over my current situation, but honestly anything that slows Kasta at this point is fine by me.
Kasta makes a long cut in the wood, his eyes on his work.
“Or the first checkpoint?”
This, I’m hoping, will tell me how long I was asleep. If we haven’t crossed the checkpoint yet, then it’s day four of the contest, and Kasta is running out of time.
But again, Kasta says nothing. I snicker, bitterly, and push my heel into the dirt. “Why did you wake me if you’re just going to ignore me?”
Kasta pauses, his thumb between the knife and a thin shaving, and for a moment it looks like even he would like the answer to that. He glances at the Healer, and the knife moves again. “It was too quiet.”
He leaves it at that. I watch him work a moment more, his movements careful and precise. It’s taken me this long to notice he’s changed from his tergus to a white tunic belted with rope, an outfit suited more for traders than princes. A loose hood covers his head and he’s cleared the kohl from his eyes, leaving them bare. He’s still too striking to pass for a commoner, but it’s the closest I’ve ever seen to him looking normal, and it’s several moments before I realize I’m staring.
Sapphire eyes meet mine, and I look quickly away.
“We are near the checkpoint, aren’t we?” I say.
No answer. Of course.
“Why are you dressed like you don’t want to be seen?”
The knife stops again. “Do you ever stop asking questions?”
“You’re the one who said it was too quiet. Is it because of Sakira? You’re afraid she’ll take me from you?”
He looks over, and I know from the flash in his eyes I’ve hit on something he can’t ignore. I grip the sides of my tunic. I need to press him just enough to get him talking, not to be put under again.
“No one will be taking you from me,” he says.
I shiver at the conviction in his voice. “Then why go in disguise? Why not parade for support like she is?”
He glances out of the cave. Now that I’m looking, I can see the hazy silhouette of a city in the distance.
Kasta goes back to his carving. I’m thinking nothing I do will be enough to get him talking when he says, “The first checkpoint is not just a way to mark our progress. It’s a test of the people’s favor.” He turns the carving in his hands. The piece is starting to taper at one end like the head of a rattlesnake. “My parading would not attract the same attention.”
I remember Marcus asking if Jet’s attackers were some of Sakira’s “fanatics” and consider the city again. Only someone confident in her people’s support would go in so boldly . . . and only someone worried about it would try to hide.
And suddenly I realize . . . Kasta is nervous. The carving in his hands. Stopping to send the Shifter ahead. Waking me. His hands are steady as he works, but I see the restlessness in his fingers now, the twitch of irritation before he decides on a new line. Meeting with a group of Sakira’s supporters, with the complete lack of his own, is just as dangerous for him as meeting bandits.
I want to ask if he’s starting to see the value in allies, but I think that will get me put to sleep, and I remember him claiming Jet had turned everyone against him, anyway. I know only part of that’s true now, especially since Jet stopped challenging him a while ago, and Kasta’s paranoia is the bigger obstacle keeping people at bay. And yet, he woke me. He’s letting the Healer sleep, he’s pausing to rest . . . he listened to me.
Something he wouldn’t have dared do if he fully believed I was against him.
I exhale at the realization and straighten against the wall. “Do you still think I’m working with your brother?”
The knife pauses. Uncertain. “You were on his horse.”
“As the human sacrifice, if you’ll recall.”
“Perhaps you are far too forgiving.”
“Perhaps you’re not forgiving enough.”
Kasta looks over, and back to his carving. “Who a king trusts is the difference between life and death.”
I trace the dirt beneath me. “Says the boy who told a stranger she was his equal.”
A muscle works in Kasta’s jaw. The knife moves over the wood, but the cuts are slower, deeper.
“You told me you’d hoped to finally have an ally.” I wait for him to deny it, but when he doesn’t, I go on. “How long has it been since you’ve let anyone help you?”
“I’m starting to regret waking you.”
“Because you think I have some nefarious motive?” I challenge. “Or because you’re afraid I don’t?”
His glare cuts to me. His fingers clench the carving as though he might put it down, a tiger flexing its claws, but he stays seated. “Your motive is easy,” he says, relaxing. “You want to live; you think if you play innocent, my guilt will spur me into letting you go.”
My heart lurches. “Because you would let me go, if you knew you’d made a mistake?”
The knife pauses. His expression echoes the one he wore when I asked why he woke me, but he doesn’t answer. I shift and decide to leave it at that, for now. I don’t want to push too hard, and it doesn’t help my case anyway to simply ask for freedom.
I try something else. “I don’t think your reputation is as bad as you think it is.”
His jaw tenses, but his focus is back on his work. He’s carving the smaller section into a curved point. Now it looks like a hawk, and I realize he’s not glancing at the city outside, but at the bird.
“I’m serious,” I say. “My best friend has dirt on everyone, and all she told me about you was that you keep to yourself. People don’t know much about you, but I
don’t think that means they’d attack on sight, either.”
He flicks another shaving from the carving.
“So if it’s them you’re worried about, you still have a chance to change their minds.”
He drops his hands into his lap. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I don’t know, because I have a conscience?” Maybe not the most strategic thing to say, Zahru. “And because I think you should know.”
Well, I certainly have his attention again, though I’m sure he’s contemplating why in the gods’ names he woke me, not when it might be convenient to free me. But he’s confirmed my suspicions thus far. I’ve stepped well beyond the appropriate boundaries, and he’s let me speak my mind. I know it could mean nothing. I know I need to be careful even if he does start to listen. But I can’t help but think that only someone who feels guilty about what he did would put up with my nettling for this long.
He doesn’t quite look like he believes me. But he doesn’t tell me that, either.
A screech breaks his gaze. The hawk bolts from the tree as an eagle lands outside in a puff of sand, the horses screaming as her feathered body seizes and contorts. Black boots form from her claws, and from her wings, tattooed fingers push out from fingerless gloves, the ink white and glowing against the warm beige of her skin. The Shifter stretches up, up before us on two legs, every bit of her covered in elaborate armor, notched metal as black and shining as a beetle’s shell. It hums with power; with the subtle, shadowy runes that protect and bind her.
She pulls the eagle pelt from her head, where black silk hoods a masked face. A strip in the mask reveals the bridge of a slender nose and eyes that are venomously, piercingly yellow.
Those eyes hitch on me in confusion before sliding to Kasta. He ignores the question in them as he tosses the half-finished carving and sheathes the dagger.
“Well?” he says.
She jerks a cased scroll from her belt. I suppose her curse means she’s not even allowed to speak with royalty. Kasta uncaps the case and slides the parchment from inside.
“Of course she is,” he mutters, eyes shifting across the page. “Wake him,” he tells me. “We’re leaving.”