Endure

by Sara B. Larson

  I am rambling and must close this pointless letter, as General D’agnen has assembled everyone from the palace to begin our long journey to Lóngshnd, the capital city of Blevon. But, you wouldn’t know — I made Deron the new general over all my armies and have promoted Rylan to captain of my personal guard. At least you were successful in your mission. You saved Rylan. Only to be taken captive yourself, and most likely killed by now.

  No, I refuse to lose hope. If you do return to find the palace empty, come to me in Blevon.

  Eternally Yours,

  Damian, King of Antion

  The words of his letter blurred through my tears. Deron had been made general. Rylan had survived — he’d returned to Damian. He must have given Damian my warning and convinced him to retreat to Blevon as I’d said, to join forces with King Osgand, despite the declaration of war. But they all believed me dead. Even though Damian had left the ring and this letter behind, I could hear the desperation behind his attempt at retaining hope.

  He, too, thought I was lost.

  My hands trembled as I picked up the ring and shakily slid it onto my finger. I picked up the letter to read it once more, but this time I noticed a second letter beneath it, this one written in a different language — Blevonese. I couldn’t understand any of it, except for who it was addressed to, Damian, and part of the signature:

  Osgand.

  The king of Blevon had written Damian personally.

  When I returned to the stable, still wearing my ring, and with Damian’s letter tucked into the leather satchel at my side, Nia was standing with her head lifted and ears cocked. I unwrapped her reins from the bar and led her outside, where the storm had wound down, only sprinkling little flecks of water toward the earth, barely enough to do more than mist the air. I’d managed to scrounge up a bow and a quiver of arrows, as well as an old sword. It wasn’t the sharpest blade I’d ever used, but it was better than nothing. I also had a knapsack packed with every little bit of food I could find that had been left behind. I attached it to the saddle, to the very metal ring that I had been tied to for so long, and then put my foot in the stirrup and swung up and over Nia’s back.

  As we trotted back out the gate toward the main road that would take us away from Tubatse and continue on toward Blevon, I glanced over my shoulder at the palace one more time. It rose into the roiling clouds, a massive, sprawling sentinel that had stood for centuries, housing the kings and queens of Antion until the day Hector and Armando had killed them and placed a Dansiian on the throne. Though I hated them for what they’d done, and all the deaths and suffering they’d caused, I had to acknowledge that without Hector’s atrocities, there never would have been a Prince Damian for me to guard and eventually fall in love with. And this had been his home, too.

  For some reason, as I stared up at the empty windows a dark foreboding washed over me — a feeling that I would never see the palace again.

  For days we rushed toward Blevon without a sign of human life — though we ran into plenty of other life, including birds, monkeys, an unfortunate scare with a massive snake winding its way across the road, and the sound of a jaguar’s throaty roar much too close for comfort, but luckily without any situations in which I had to use either of the weapons I carried. Though there weren’t any boot prints left, there were some indicators that a large group of people had passed through Antion by way of this road recently: trampled bushes on either side of the path, broken branches, and trees stripped bare of their fruits, making it so that I had to trek farther away from the road, deeper into the jungle, to find any food for Nia and me once the few supplies I’d managed to scrounge up in the raided kitchen were gone.

  I only stopped to eat a couple of times a day and forced Nia to keep going long into the darkness of the nights, until I was so exhausted I couldn’t stay upright in the saddle any longer. Then I would finally pull Nia to a stop and allow myself to sleep, my arms wrapped through her reins, hoping she would wake me if she sensed any danger.

  As we neared the border between Blevon and Antion, I grew increasingly anxious and determined to keep moving quickly. So far, I’d managed to outpace King Armando and his massive army, but every morning I jerked awake at first light — sometimes even before dawn — my heart racing and my nightmares making my skin cold with sweat, expecting to open my eyes to a sea of flames, or worse, to Armando leaning over me with a sword to my throat.

  Finally, the jungle began to thin out and the tall grasses and sparser trees of Blevon took its place, but the road I’d been following also narrowed and turned into little more than a cart path after a day of traveling through Blevon. I hadn’t seen any towns yet, but I wasn’t sure what I would do when I reached one, since I didn’t speak their language. Was Antion still considered an enemy? I desperately wondered what the letter from Osgand had contained. I didn’t know where I was, or how to get to the capital city of Blevon, where King Osgand lived, but I was easily able to pick out the path the people of Antion had left — a wide swath of trampled grass and broken bushes. I was even able to find where they’d made camps from the mounds where fires had been built and the flattened grass where tents had been erected.

  For four more days, I followed their trail, which wound over the hills and through the strange, thin trees I remembered from my last trek into Blevon, but never once spotted a single town. I wondered if Damian had someone helping him avoid them on purpose, or if they were just hoping they were heading in the right direction. Eljin could have guided him, but he had come with me. And now he was gone forever.

  The deeper into the kingdom Nia and I traveled, the cooler the temperatures grew, especially at night. The ground also grew harder and drier, but not in the hot, parched way of Dansii’s. Blevon was a wilder kingdom, with thin grasses and tall trees that clumped together in bunches, most of their strange and brightly colored leaves littering the ground, rather than staying attached to the trees. I remembered Eljin’s story — that Blevon had been cursed because of Prince Delun’s atrocities in becoming a black sorcerer and attacking his brother to try and take his throne — and wondered if that was why it was so cold at night, and why the soil was like a massive, unending rock beneath Nia’s hooves the farther we traveled through the kingdom. It also led me to wonder if the even harsher climate of Dansii was yet another curse — an even more powerful one, because of their horrific, ongoing atrocities.

  The hills that had started out as rolling, grassy knolls grew larger and larger with each passing day, turning into steep, rocky inclines that would suddenly pitch down again toward wide, gaping valleys where small streams gathered into paltry lakes that reflected cloudless skies. And surrounding the lakes were towns.

  Towns that were abandoned — completely empty. We rode past silently as I fought a chill of dread. What had happened to make all these people — Antionese and Blevonese alike — leave their homes and flee to King Osgand?

  A massive mountain range had begun to take form on the horizon a few days into our trek through Blevon, and I quickly realized the path I was following in the wake of the Antionese exodus was heading straight for them. I knew I was traveling somewhat northwest, and that made me wonder if the peaks I could see jutting up into the sky in the far distance were part of the Naswais Mountains, which divided the border of Blevon and Dansii, or if these were an entirely different range.

  The path we were on turned into more of a rocky trail the closer we got to the massive mountains, and though the ground continued to rise and fall into peaks and valleys, we seemed to be moving up a steady incline. I imagined it would have been difficult to get such a large group of people and animals to move as quickly on the narrower road — I could only hope it would slow King Armando down. I was continually looking back, searching the sky for smoke or dust or any sign that he was getting close, but so far, there had been no sign of him gaining on me and Nia.

  After six or seven days in Blevon, with food options growing scarcer and scarcer, I could feel myself weakening again. I neede
d to hunt, but I didn’t dare take the time, too afraid of King Armando drawing closer. Nia bravely pushed on, but we were no longer galloping. Instead, Nia plodded up the steep inclines and then braced herself as her hooves threatened to skid down the declines on the other side of the summits we traversed.

  The night of the seventh day, the air was bitingly cold. My fingers were almost numb as I clutched the reins, and Nia’s breath plumed into clouds in front of her face as she huffed her way up yet another steep incline. The mountain peaks were close now, so close; if I’d had to guess, I was fairly certain we would reach them in two days’ time.

  Assuming I survived that long.

  I’d found a stream for Nia to drink from earlier in the day, and I’d replenished my flagon, but though Nia had found some dried-up leaves to munch on and a little bit of thin grass, there had been nothing for me to eat, except a few shriveled mushrooms at the base of a tree and a couple of hard, round nuts of some sort that seemed to have fallen from the tree itself. I was nervous to eat the mushrooms, not sure if they would be safe or not, but finally desperation won out, and I bit into one. It didn’t taste harmful, so I quickly ate the rest. But within a few hours, my stomach began to cramp, and I ended up stopping Nia so I could lean over and vomit my meager lunch back up again.

  “Keep going, girl,” I murmured to her, half to keep myself from slipping into sleep and half to force my frozen lips to move. The cold was so intense; I’d never felt anything like it, not even on the coldest night in Dansii. The air had a crystalline feel to it, and the slate clouds that hung low in the sky, concealing the peaks of the mountain range in the distance, were different from any other clouds I’d seen before. I’d heard of snow, but I’d never seen it in person, except from a distance on the tops of the Naswais Mountains. I had a sinking feeling I was going to get firsthand experience with it very soon.

  Nia dipped her head down as she reached the summit of one of the rolling hills, and I pulled back on her reins to let her pause and rest for a moment before continuing on to find somewhere we could sleep for the night. But when I looked down into the massive valley below us, my heart suddenly leaped into my throat, choking the breath out of me.

  Hundreds of fires dotted the darkness with light. And in the distance, spreading across the far hills to the north of where Nia stood — hills that rose up into the massive mountain range — a huge city sprawled. It was a city full of people, judging from the tiny specks of glowing windows that gave the buildings a golden hue beneath the cloud cover. And rising above it all, built on an outcropping that jutted straight out from the base of the tallest mountain, stood a huge castle, its pearlescent walls so white, it was visible even in the darkness, even from all the way across the valley.

  “Damian,” I whispered. Tears stung my eyes as I squeezed my ice-cold legs against Nia’s sides, urging her to hurry down the hill.

  We’d made it. Somehow I’d done it. I’d escaped; I’d lived. And I’d made it back to him.

  “Damian,” I repeated as Nia struggled down the steep, rocky path toward the valley below. Her hooves slid through the shale and rock, but she kept her footing and continued her stiff-legged descent toward the glowing fires and the thousands of tents that filled the valley.

  I clutched the reins, sitting tall in the saddle and searching the darkness, straining to see if I could spot him, even though I knew it was irrational to hope that he would be staying on the outskirts of this tent city.

  Nia picked up the pace the moment the trail began to level out slightly, as if she could sense my urgency, and trotted toward the massive camp.

  It was so late, the fires were all burning low, and only a few shadowy bodies milled about while everyone else slept.

  As soon as we reached the bottom of the trail, Nia broke into a full gallop, racing toward the tents.

  A shout of alarm went up, but I didn’t care; I urged her to go even faster.

  “Damian,” I cried out, quietly at first, then louder and louder, my voice rough with desperation. “Damian!”

  The tents were only a few strides away when a Blevonese soldier on horseback rode into our path, lifting his sword, and shouted, “Halt!” in heavily accented Antionese.

  I didn’t recognize him, so I wheeled Nia to the right and kicked my heels into her sides, leaning forward to knead my hands along her neck, urging her to go as fast as her legs would carry her. Let the soldier come after me; I didn’t care. If he was a sorcerer, he could try to stop me, but at least I knew he wouldn’t be flinging fire at my back.

  “Damian!” I shouted, the wind tearing my voice away as Nia plunged in between two tents and we began to race our way through the makeshift city, toward the actual city rising on the hills above what suddenly seemed to be a never-ending valley.

  There were more shouts, and I glanced over my shoulder to see three men in pursuit of me now — but this time, I did recognize one of them.

  I sawed back on Nia’s reins, and she ground to a sudden halt, dirt clods kicking up in the air from her hooves digging into the ground.

  “Mateo! Mateo, it’s me!” I shouted out to them as they barreled down upon us, even though I’d stopped.

  When he heard his name he leaned forward, and then he jerked back in his saddle, yanking on the reins of his horse as his eyes widened in shock. He lifted one hand to wave some sort of signal to the other men, and they all pulled their mounts back to a slow trot before stopping a few feet away from me.

  “Alexa?” Mateo was still gaping at me. “It can’t be…. Rylan said … you …”

  “Where is he?” I cut him off, urgency burning through my blood.

  “Wh —”

  “Where is Damian? Where is he?” My voice grew frantic.

  “He’s over there — we just got here and we haven’t made it all the way to —”

  I didn’t wait to hear the rest of whatever reason there was that Damian wasn’t at the castle in the distance yet. I spurred Nia into a gallop again, heading in the direction Mateo had pointed.

  “Damian!” I shouted, heedless of all the people sleeping in tents as Nia charged through the camp. “DAMIAN!”

  “Alexa?” When I heard his responding shout, my heart nearly stopped.

  “Damian.” His name turned into a strangled sob as he burst out of a tent just ahead of us, barefoot, wearing only his pants and a loose tunic.

  “Alexa!” His eyes went wide with astonishment when he saw me, and for a split second he stood frozen. But then he broke into a run, racing toward us. I pulled on Nia’s reins, but didn’t even wait for her to completely stop before throwing myself off the saddle and into his arms, just as he reached her side.

  “Damian,” I cried out hoarsely as he grabbed me to him, squeezing me so tightly I could scarcely breathe. But I didn’t care. It was him. It was Damian — holding me in his arms again. Tears blinded me, rushing down my face as I clung to him.

  “Alexa,” he choked out. His mouth pressed to the groove where my neck met my shoulder. He hadn’t even let my feet touch the ground yet. “You’re alive. You’re alive.” His voice cracked and he broke down into sobs, his whole body shaking violently beneath my arms.

  I reached up to grasp his hair, holding his head against my body. “I promised I’d come back to you. I promised.” I couldn’t stop crying, taking great, heaving gulps of air as we clung to each other, hardly able to believe this was real.

  Suddenly, he pulled back to stare into my face, finally setting me down on the hard ground. His eyes were still full of tears and his cheeks were wet. “I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “I can’t believe you’re really here. You’re alive. You’re alive.” He kept repeating it as he stroked my hair back from my face, over and over.

  And then he bent down, crushing his mouth to mine, his arms encircling my body once more, pulling me in to his chest. I pressed myself in to him, winding my arms around his back and clutching his tunic as his lips moved on mine. Desperation, love, and grief melded together into a t
ide of emotions that consumed me — body and soul.

  “I love you,” Damian said against my mouth. “I love you, I love you.” He pulled back just an inch or two, so that his forehead rested against mine, his eyes squeezed shut. “I’m going to tell you every minute of every day until we both die.”

  “As much as I enjoy hearing you say it, I’m not sure everyone else would care for hearing it thousands of times for the rest of our lives,” I teased gently, smiling for the first time in weeks — maybe even months.

  “I don’t care what anyone else thinks,” he responded gruffly. “You died. Rylan was sure you’d been killed. I lost you, Alexa. I’ve been mourning your loss this whole time, ever since Rylan showed up at the palace, sick and injured and alone.” He leaned back so that his piercing blue eyes could meet mine — so similar to his uncle’s and yet so very, very different. “What did they do to you in Dansii? How did you ever escape?”

  Images of the dungeons, of The Summoner and Akio and Eljin and King Armando and more began to fill my mind until I shook my head, swallowing everything down, deep into the depths of me. I didn’t want to talk about it, not now. Maybe not ever. “I can’t,” was all I managed to force out.

  Damian’s arms tightened around me, and his gaze darkened slightly, but he responded, “It’s all right. You don’t have to talk about it. You’re here now. I can’t believe it’s true, but you are.”

  “I promised,” I whispered, trying to hold myself together, to keep everything locked inside of me. My only thought had been to find him, to keep my word. And somehow, against all odds, I’d done it. But now that I had, everything I’d been holding in for so long threatened to shatter me into a million pieces.

  “I should have had more faith, but after Rylan explained what he’d been through and overheard, it just didn’t seem possible….” He trailed off with a shake of his head. “I’ve never felt pain like that in my entire life — not even when my mother died, because I could have saved you. Instead, I ignored my instincts, and I let you leave and go to your death. When Rylan told me what had happened when you tried to escape, I didn’t want to go on; I didn’t want to fight. But I love my people, too, and I know my duty. So I planned; I led them here, all the while hardly able to force myself to eat anything or get up each morning.” He reached up to cup my face, his fierce expression softening. “But then, I heard you shout my name. I thought I was dreaming. I thought perhaps I had finally died. But I’m not dead, and somehow my prayers were answered — because you’re here. And if I want to tell you I love you every minute of every day for the rest of our lives, no one is going to stop me. Least of all you.”