“Are you with Father Matthias?” she asked with an air of quiet dignity. She was young but decidedly a woman, not a waif.
“Aye,” Damien answered, struggling to calm his raging pulse. Having recognized the attacker, he desperately wanted to chase down and finish off that brute, or at least send his mounted men to do it, but his first priority was his duty to the priest, which included protecting this young woman. “And you? What word do you bring from him?”
“I carry a message that must be taken posthaste to Vallhane,” she replied. “But we cannot linger here. That was the regent’s marshal. He will return, and the mountains will soon be crawling with soldiers.” Her voice dropped low as if each word pained her: “Father Matthias is imprisoned, maybe dead.”
His heart sank like a millstone at the news. Father Matthias had been their direct link to the throne, to the princess. A sharp fear stabbed him. If the priest was in prison and this servant chased down by the marshal, what had happened to the princess? Truly the stakes were rising, and he had no doubt the regent would send men to comb every rock, tree, and brush to end any threat to her claim on the throne.
The girl swayed a little. Pity moved him to act. He gestured to his horse waiting nearby. “Will you ride with us, good maid?”
A pause, then she nodded. “I accept your offer. And you are?”
He also paused, wondering if he should reveal his name. Clearly the priest had not seen fit to share it. Damien’s father had died in infamy—wrongly executed for the murder of the Raven King. Truth be told, Damien preferred anonymity; it allowed him to move without the hassle that came with being a margrave’s son. Or the spawn of a criminal.
“Father Matthias told me I could trust the man waiting at Avastaire Mountain. Are you that man or not?” Her voice came out sharp and her shadowed eyes narrowed, never leaving his face.
His mouth turned as dry as dust. This girl was no servant. A lady-in-waiting, perhaps, and a brave one. But was she loyal to the queen? The future of Tiborne may hinge on his choice. But if Father Mathias trusted this young woman, then so would he.
“You can rely on me,” he replied. “My name is Damien—”
She gave a visible start. “Atwood. Damien Atwood. All of Tiborne knows of the Atwood family.”
“Aye, that is my name,” he answered reluctantly. “But regardless of what you have heard, my lady, my father was no murderer. Nor am I.”
Who was this young woman? Had they met in the distant past? Unlikely, for she would have been a child then.
She drew another deep, shaking breath as if his statement had rattled something within her. To hide his shame, he whistled for Juniper and snatched at the reins, drawing the horse close, then opened one of his leather satchels and searched the bag until his fingers touched a small vial. He pulled it out and opened it, releasing the bitter smell of herbs mixed into an oily paste. The monks who’d given it to him during a prior trip called it yarrow root. He also grabbed a waterskin and uncorked it, then turned to her with both offerings.
“Your hands, my lady. If you will allow me?”
She regarded him for a moment as if bewildered that he would make such an offer, then held out her hands. He poured water over her slim fingers then offered the ointment for her to spread herself. Was this her only injury? No doubt she had sustained bruises, but he could hardly offer to treat them. When she returned the vial, he replaced it in his satchel.
Unwilling to remain longer within the clearing, Damien swung onto Juniper and motioned for James to assist the woman onto the horse behind him. Her seat on a perch of rolled blankets wouldn’t be comfortable, but his saddle wouldn’t hold two and, judging by the pallor of her face, riding solo on a packhouse wasn’t an option. James gave her a leg up, and she settled behind Damien, placing her arms loosely around him.
A wave of compassion flooded Damien. Who could blame her for not wanting to ride with a group of strange men after such a narrow escape? She was silent as he reined Juniper toward the mountains.
His men mounted up, ready to ride hard to Vallhane, all of them eager to deliver the message to King Victor Arundel. Damien had no choice but to take the messenger along with the message. Tales of the regent’s marshal, her right hand of vengeance, were well known throughout Tiborne. No woman deserved to be left to that monster’s mercy.
Chapter Two
Kara held onto the man in front her as he allowed his great bay horse to set a brisk yet sustainable pace. Grasping branches once more rushed past her face as the horse scrambled down a slope covered with the new growth of spring. The rider handled his mount with skill, never once faltering in his direction. He knew where he was headed—that was some comfort to her. But a new panic bubbled up inside, threatening to undo her.
Her stepmother had tried to have her assassinated and nearly succeeded.
She swallowed hard, again seeing Marius raise that knife and hearing him say, “I would have killed you quickly, Princess. But after this chase, you deserve no such mercy.”
Pressing one hand over her pounding heart, she shook her head to dispel the image. Beyond all hope, at the last possible moment, she’d been rescued, with no injury worse than scraped hands and a few bruises.
Rescued by Damien Atwood.
Never in her wildest imaginings would she have pictured her old playmate and friend as the messenger appointed to take her scroll to her uncle. She hadn’t recognized him, at least not at first, and he’d evidently taken her for a servant, though he now addressed her as a lady. The last time she saw Damien, he was but a youth. How had he vanished? How had he avoided the regent’s wrath?
Almost she had claimed her title before him—it had hovered on the tip of her tongue—but experience had taught her restraint. Too many within Ava’s court had been corrupted, and so few men or women were trustworthy anymore. At present she had little choice but to place her life in the hands of seven strangers, including a former childhood friend whose family name was tainted with murder. The murder of her own father.
Damien followed the river, the six other men riding behind him. They were as silent and grim as wraiths, their eyes constantly searching the towering trees and landscape around them. She no longer knew where she was, not since passing Mount Avastaire.
“My lady, there is a shallow point in the river. We will ford here.” Damien spoke over his shoulder as they crashed through the brush.
Thunder cracked above them, sounding all too close as it reverberated through the mountains. Damien halted his horse, pausing long enough to study the swirling sky. Kara felt and heard the animal puffing beneath her. The clouds were now a mottled grey, the color of an old bruise. A brisk wind swept the forest floor, stirring leaves and pine needles in its path. The other men reined in alongside Damien.
The thin blond man leaned over the pommel of his saddle, his features twisted into a grimace. “The river is not exactly shallow in the spring, it’s well over a hundred feet across here, and our horses are tired. Furthermore, I prefer to avoid water when a storm is brewing.”
Kara felt Damien tense as he turned to regard the blond man. “Aye, James, not so shallow, as you say, but we’ve crossed worse, and we cannot wait. Not with the marshal certain to follow.” His voice was low yet forceful. “Would you have us camp in the woods, exposed both to the elements and to attack? We need shelter soon, and I know of only one place that will hold all of us. Scarborough, what do you say?”
The tall man with the longbow nodded. “We must cross.” He cast a glance at Kara, his lean face stoic. “The caverns are the only option, and hopefully the storm will wash away our tracks.”
James shook his head. “The greater the danger, the better you like it, Scarborough.”
Scarborough smirked before turning his horse toward the river. “I’ll race you across.”
James snorted in reply.
“Where are these caverns?” Kara asked Damien. “I have lived in Tiborne all my life and never heard of such a thing.”
&nbs
p; “On the far side of the river, maybe a mile from here. No one knows how far the caves extend, and I know of only one entrance. Its location is a secret preserved by holy men who shared it with me.” He spoke while guiding his horse toward the river through brush and thickets until at last she could see the water.
The Tiborne River was quite wide at this spot, its rushing current carving out the red clay lining its shores. Long grasses swayed in the cool wind, and a few rebellious trees clung tenaciously to the steeper banks, their tangled roots exposed.
“I promise to tell no one,” Kara replied, wanting to ask more about these holy men. Her mind whirled with questions, but the answers would have to wait, for now the river demanded her full attention. It rolled past swiftly, not white-capped as in the tales Kara had heard, but looking deeper than she’d expected.
Damien’s horse edged into the water, as dainty as a courtier entering a dance. He headed it slightly upstream, the river’s pull evident as the horse drifted from a straight line.
“It’ll get deep enough to get your shoes wet,” he warned her. “Hold tight.”
Still feeling shy, she wrapped both arms around his body again, still loosely.
They had reached the middle of the river when lightning arced and sizzled in the darkening sky, sending long white tendrils deep into the mountain tops. A crack of thunder, this one right over her head, made her flinch. The horse whinnied and tried to rear. Kara held tight then, her hands clutching fistfuls of Damien’s leather tunic, her face pressed against his solid shoulder while the beast struggled to regain solid footing. When Kara opened her eyes, they were facing upstream. Damien leaned forward to stroke the bay’s neck, coaxing it with a calm yet firm voice.
Once the horse calmed, he got it moving again, and Kara felt the tension ease from Damien’s shoulders. By now, the water rose stirrup-high, soaking her boots just as Damien had promised. Kara glanced to her left, noting Scarborough and James and the other men guiding their mounts and the packhorses through the river. James wore a frown, but he managed to keep pace.
With mighty heaves and deep grunts of effort, Damien’s horse climbed the far bank then stood, its head low, its sides pumping like bellows. He dismounted and checked its legs and feet, leaving Kara perched behind the saddle, heaving her own sighs of relief. A drop of rain splattered against her cheek, tracing a path to her chin. Then another. And another.
“Not much time before the storm hits in earnest,” she heard Damien mutter. But the men allowed their exhausted horses time to catch their breath before moving on.
The ride from the river was even more treacherous, taking them on paths better suited to mountain goats. Small stones skidded beneath the horses’ hooves, yet Damien seemed comfortable at such heights. However, he turned to look back several times, down the trail to the river below and from there to the place where the marshal had tried to kill her.
No sign of the regent’s men. Not yet.
But evil was coming. Kara felt the danger in the air, heard it in the low moan of the wind as it rushed through the mountains and in the thunder crackling above. A tremor shook her beneath the coarse wool of her cape, now damp from splattering rain. Despite every effort on her part, her head dropped against Damien’s back, the swaying motion of the horse nearly lulling her to sleep.
“Almost there,” Damien murmured, turning his head slightly toward her. “A little longer, and then rest.”
If only she could truly rest. From this height, when they turned at a switchback she glimpsed what might be the sharp spires of Raven Castle in the distance, reminding her afresh of the regent’s treachery.
Chapter Three
When Damien reached the familiar site of the Avell Cavern, its entrance just large enough for riderless horses to pass through single file, he halted Juniper, eager to seek shelter within the inky depths.
James, who had swung off his horse, approached the girl and offered to help her down. She accepted quietly, then gripped his forearm with both hands while her legs remembered how to support her weight. Damien knew she must be exhausted, but now that they had reached the safety of the caves he hoped to obtain answers regarding Tiborne’s politics and the princess’s safety.
Constantine, one of the older men, approached. “Do you know who this messenger is?” he asked under his breath. A quick glance toward the girl revealed the older man’s hesitancy. “Did Father Matthias tell you anything about her?”
“Nay,” Damien admitted. Something about her triggered his memory, but he couldn’t quite place a finger on it.
“’Tis troubling to not know who we bring with us . . . or the contents of this document,” Constantine added as he removed a crossbow that had been strapped to his back. “Something bad has happened at Raven Castle—bad enough for the regent to send out her marshal. If that’s really who it was.”
A friend of Damien’s father and a military man, Constantine had proven himself invaluable to Damien many times over, training him in the ways of knighthood.
“It was Dupuis; his would be a hard face to forget. We have time yet. Let our guest eat and rest first,” Damien replied, unwilling to press the girl after her recent ordeal. But he, too, had many questions. Why had the marshal alone pursued her if the message she carried posed such a risk? What exactly had happened to the priest? Most important of all, what would happen to the princess now that her only ally, Father Matthias, was imprisoned . . . or worse?
While they spoke, James had unpacked a flint and kindling from a leather satchel and lighted a lantern provided by one of the other men. With the lantern in hand, he disappeared into the darkness, leading his horse. “I’ll have a fire started in no time,” he called over his shoulder.
The rain fell harder now, a sheet of water that would wash away evidence of their passage. Damien gestured to the girl to follow. “After you, my lady. Follow James.”
The girl entered the cavern, then lowered her hood. Her cloak was dark and heavy from rain, and she shivered in the damp air, her eyes wandering over the craggy surface of the rock walls. Damien walked close behind her, leading Juniper.
“You have often been here?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Yes, many times,” he answered, thinking of the wooden chests filled with supplies from previous journeys tucked away within a small crawlspace. Perhaps it was risky to bring this stranger to a rebel hideout, but he could no more abandon her on the mountainside than desert any of his men.
The echo of many hooves clopping against rock and the horses’ snorts and snuffles filled the silence. The smell of damp earth and rock was familiar to him. Welcome, even.
James held the lantern high, making shadows dance along the cavern walls. Damien watched the woman take in the veins of crystal sparkling along the surface. Water seeped in trickling ribbons along the walls then disappeared into thin cracks within the rock.
They stepped at last through a large opening into a rugged cathedral where the cave’s ceiling extended too high for James’s lantern to pierce the gloom. Even so, when he set the lantern on a rock ledge, its light revealed enough to take one’s breath away. The ceiling wept glittering stalactites, its cold tears ending in jagged points. Twisting, undulating rock had frozen over time into passageways leading in multiple directions, seemingly without end.
James had already dragged out one trunk and removed oilcloth-wrapped dried wood. Just as he promised, a fire soon crackled over the remains of cold ash from previous excursions. Lewis, the oldest of the men, brought out bundles of food—dried meats and fruit and hardtack.
“Lewis, will you feed our guest? And then we will discuss what to do next,” Damien said. “We must travel as soon as the storm ends to get a head start on the marshal.”
Damien couldn’t help noticing how the woman flinched at mention of the marshal. She sat near the fire, holding her hands toward the flames, but her frame began to shake as if she could not get warm enough.
Lewis stared at her for one long moment then moved as if in
a daze to offer her a waterskin. His hands trembled and his eyes fairly bulged as she took it from his hands, uncorked it, and drank a long draught.
“Your name, my lady . . . if you would be so kind?” Lewis’s voice quavered. “For just now I feel as if I have seen you before. Forgive me for being so bold, but it is uncanny . . . your likeness to . . . to . . .” His voice trailed into an uncertain whisper.
The men in the cavern paused. James and Scarborough turned from tending the horses, Constantine, Stewart, and David ceased their low conversation. Eyes narrowed, Damien met the girl’s questioning gaze. When she lifted her chin and glanced from him to Lewis and back again, he caught his breath in sudden recognition.
Her mouth pressed into a resolute line, and her next words made his hope certain:
“I am Kara Chaloner.”
Chapter Four
High in Raven Castle’s keep, Ava Chaloner watched the road from her private balcony, which provided a view of her castle courtyard bustling with activity as midday approached and, beyond its walls, of broad stretches of land reaching toward the mountains.
Her world was falling apart. Below in the courtyard, life continued as it always had. The steady clang of the blacksmith’s hammer striking hot metal jarred her every nerve.
Kara had escaped Raven Castle sometime before dawn, the hour at which the servant assigned to watch her screamed an alarm. Fearing retribution if she didn’t speak, the useless slattern admitted she had discovered a collection of rolled-up gowns hidden beneath a blanket in place of a sleeping princess. The servant’s ale-tainted breath revealed how Kara managed to slip past her unnoticed.
Ava had stormed to her stepdaughter’s bedchamber to see for herself. The small room was empty. Raw panic flooded her while the servant shrank against the wall. Ava immediately sent for her marshal, who packed his weapons and necessary supplies and set off into early-morning darkness, leaving her to discover how Kara had escaped the castle.
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