“Send the others over the side.” I move past Ror, slashing the ropes binding the machines to the ledge. Ror hurries behind me, hurling the contraptions, some even larger than the one we’ve chosen, over the side with surprising strength. But then fear makes everyone a little stronger, a little faster.
I pray it will make us fast enough.
I help Ror hurl the last glider into the gorge, and in a few minutes we’ve cleared the ledge, ensuring none of the exiles will be follow us off of it.
“Take a seat, I’ll push off,” I say, sheathing my sword as I jog back to the remaining glider, relieved to see the archway leading to the stairs still empty.
“No,” Ror says. “We have to—”
“Enough arguing!” I turn back to him, my scowl digging into my face like claws. “Do you want to die here?”
“No, but I don’t want to die on that thing, either!” He shoves his staff into its harness and reaches for the rope tying the glider to the ground, glaring at me as he tugs it free. “You don’t sit on it, you lie on your stomach to keep the weight balanced and give you access to the controls.”
“You’ve steered one before?” I ask, anger vanishing in a wave of relief.
“Not one so large.” He motions for me to help him lift the machine by the bar above the seat. “But the mountain Fey have gliders they use to travel from mountaintop to mountaintop. I’ve watched one being steered more than twice.”
“Watched?” I ask, backing up with Ror as he steps away from the ledge.
“Watched closely.”
“How closely?” I ask, pulse speeding.
“Closely enough … I think,” he says, blowing a breath out between pursed lips. “We’ll need to get a running start and then—”
Footsteps sound from the archway. The exiles are on the stairs, and we’re out of time.
“Run!” I shout, forcing myself to charge toward the edge.
Ror launches into motion beside me. “Reach for the lever on your side after we jump,” he pants. “The levers control the wings. I’ll tell you when to shift yours.”
I glance up, finding not one but two levers below the bar we’re holding. But before I can ask Ror what the extra lever is for, we’re taking our last step on solid ground and hurtling out into the breathless void.
I land on my stomach with a sizzle of nerves, like lightning skittering across water. My belly pitches and my throat squeezes tight, and then our momentum runs out and we begin to fall. The nose of the machine tilts down, down, aiming into the gorge while my muscles scream and my heart punches my chest like a fist. My mind’s eye flashes on the man Ror killed—bloodied lips peeled into a smile as he reaches dead arms out to greet me—and my vision swims, terror twisting my insides so fiercely I forget how to breathe.
“Pull the lever!” Ror slaps my hand, and I reach for the lever, yanking it toward me, sending us into an even steeper dive,
down,
down,
down, so fast the wind stings my cheeks as the glider picks up speed, hurtling toward the rocks below, and I know it’s over, all over, and Ror and I are dead and there’s nothing left to do but pray to—
“Put it back and pull the other one! The other one!” Ror screams, straining to reach past me. “Pull it, Niklaas!”
I reach for the controls, but my hands are stupid with fear, my fingers shot through with aging stiffness and bound in winter mittens. It takes an eternity to shift the lower lever back into its previous position, and a second eternity to drag the upper level down, sending the glider soaring up and over the gorge.
Up, by all the merciful gods, up. I’m so grateful I can taste it, feel it stinging up my throat and into my nose, making my eyes water with relief.
As my heart lifts and my stomach shudders, I look down, expecting to see the treetops brushing my dangling legs, but the trees are still far below. We lost less than a field in the dive and are now sailing briskly along on an updraft, the nose of our glider aimed at the opening between two mountains.
“This one is different,” Ror says, sounding as breathless as I feel. “Your levers are up and down. Mine are left and right.” He adjusts one and the glider shifts to the left, centering us on the passage between the mountains. “We’ll be all right. We’ll be fine from here on out,” he says, though I’m not sure who he’s trying to comfort—me or himself.
“The ogre queen will have you!” Lord Heven’s shout carries clearly through the cold air, lifting the hairs on my neck. “She will, child. One way or another! Return and make your capture worth something to your people!”
“Go sit on a flaming pole and burn,” Ror mutters, but he doesn’t turn to look at the man who would have bartered his prince’s life for a kingdom of his own.
“How long will we stay up?” I risk a glance over my shoulder to where Lord Heven stands on the ledge, surrounded by armed men. One exile pulls an arrow into his bow, but Heven stops him with a hand, confirming that the queen must want Ror taken alive.
“I don’t know,” Ror says. “It depends on the wind.”
“They aren’t shooting at us,” I say. “But I’m betting they’ll be sending a party through the mountains to meet us. The farther we get on this thing, the better.”
“Well … we’ll definitely get farther than we would have on foot.”
“Yes, we will.” I silently send up a thank-you to whichever god is responsible for our get away. “We were lucky.”
“About time,” Ror mumbles beneath his breath.
I sigh in agreement. It is about time. Until a few moments ago, this quest has seemed as cursed as all my father’s sons. “How lucky depends on how far we fly,” I say, willing the wind to hold strong. “We’ll need a generous head start to make up for the fact that the exiles will be on horseback and know the secret ways through the mountains.”
“I’m sorry,” Ror says. “I’ll get Alama back for you. If I can.”
“The horses are the least of our worries.” I know it’s true, but I can’t help the pang of grief that tightens my chest when I realize I will never see Alama again. Since Usio was transformed, Alama has been my oldest friend.
“The fate reader said I would lose Button and need money for another horse,” Ror says. “I hate to lose such good animals, but at least we have enough gold to purchase new ones, though we may have to go without saddles if we can’t make a tight bargain.”
“What else did she say?” I ask, shivering. I tell myself it’s the crisp air blowing down the neck of my shirt that’s responsible, but I can’t help thinking of the reader’s rheumy eye and the black scabs pocking her skin. She was in communion with dark forces, and a part of me fears what it means for her predictions to be coming true.
“She said I would be safe in green hills,” Ror says. “By a bewitched stream.”
I grunt. “Obviously, she was wrong. Or lying through her rotten teeth.”
“I don’t think so. You said the exile’s waterfall was controlled by a lever. It was an invention. Men made it. Bewitching is the work of magic, not men.”
“Crimsin said her aunt was a magic-worker. We’ll have to see if the hills are green and the streams bewitched in Beschuttz.”
Ror sighs. “I suppose we have no choice but to seek refuge there.”
“Crimsin saved your life, so … Beschuttz seems like the most logical course.”
For you, anyway. The most logical course for me would be to demand Ror tell me where Aurora is hidden and start seeking the princess as soon as we land. My time grows too short to be swept up in anyone’s quest but my own.
But I’m already part of Ror’s quest, and obligated to protect him, at least from the dangers I’m responsible for introducing into his life. I knew better than to take him to the Feeding Hills, and I know better than to think he’ll last long without me watching his back. He’s like a headstrong little brother to me now. I could no more run off and leave him than I could have abandoned Usio to face sunrise on his eighteenth birthday al
one.
“You’re right,” Ror says. “It’s just getting so hard to trust … anything.”
“You can trust me,” I say, hoping I’m telling the truth, and that I will continue to make honorable choices when I can count the days I have left to live on one hand.
Perhaps Ror can sense my doubt, because he doesn’t respond, he only pulls in a breath and holds it as we drift between the two mountains and come out the other side, sailing over a wide valley with more giant trees shooting up from the ground like whale spray rising above the ocean.
“Pretty,” I whisper.
“Beautiful,” Ror agrees. “Though I doubt we’ll find it pretty after being lost in it for days.”
“We won’t be lost. See that mountain?” I point to the tallest of the Feeding Hills, a behemoth already covered in a dusting of snow. “That’s Mount Ever. I had a view of it from my guest room while visiting Pennly’s princesses in their summer home last Sunstyne. If we head straight for it, then around the left side, we won’t lose our way.”
“How many days until we reach Beschuttz?” Ror adjusts one of the levers on his side, aiming the glider for Mount Ever’s left flank.
“We’ll make it through the hills in two days, three at the most.” I gauge the distance between our glider and the mountain with a critical eye, knowing distances appear shorter when viewed from above. “From there it will be another day to the borders of Pennly, and we should be in Frysk a day after that. I’m not sure where Beschuttz is, but the country is small. We should find it fairly quickly.”
“That’s assuming we’re on foot the entire time,” Ror says. “We can purchase horses in Pennly. If you have friends there, maybe we—”
“I didn’t say I have friends there.” King Thewen would welcome me back with a stint in his dungeon if he knew I’d returned against his orders. “In fact, it’s best if I’m not seen in Pennly.”
“Why’s that?”
“The king’s daughters cared more for me than he would have cared for them to. We parted on … less than friendly terms,” I say. “I was advised to leave his lands and never return. The twins cried for a week afterward. Or so I heard.”
“Twins?” Ror snorts. “Did you ravish both his poor darlings?”
“Of course not,” I say, offended, though I suppose I shouldn’t be. I’ve done my share of ravishing, but never sisters. And certainly never twins. The thought is vaguely repellent, in fact. “I was trying to convince the firstborn, the one named to inherit, to marry me, but her sister couldn’t seem to help falling for me right along with Priscelle.”
“But Papa didn’t approve of the match.”
“To put it mildly.”
“Because of your father?” Ror asks, his tone softening. “Because of what he does to his sons?”
“He didn’t know about that. I was surprised Crimsin did,” I say, uncomfortable again. I hate the pity in Ror’s voice when he mentions my father. “No, King Thewen was still angry that Kanvasola refused to come to his aid during the war.” I shrug. “It doesn’t matter. I’m glad it didn’t work out. If I’d married Priscelle, I wouldn’t have met you or enjoyed all these wonderful adventures.”
Ror snorts again. “At least the dinner in Goreman was good.”
“It was. And Priscelle and I weren’t a good match. She smelled of vinegar, refused to ride a horse, and had an unnatural love of cats.”
“Cats?”
“She had six. Kept them in her bedroom,” I say with a mock shudder. “Long-haired cats, short-haired cats, even a bald bastard with wrinkly gray skin and yellow fangs.” I smile as Ror laughs. “Scariest thing I’ve seen in years. I never would have slept easy with that thing curled at the end of the bed like a goblin escaped from the Pit.”
Ror’s laugh becomes a giggle that reminds me that—no matter how determined or skilled a fighter he is—he is still so young. Now perhaps he’ll have the sense to go back into hiding until he has the chance to grow up.
“I’m sorry,” I say, watching his profile in the pale light of the half-moon. “I know you had high hopes for the Feeding Hills.”
“It’s all right.” Ror stares down at the trees drifting by beneath us. “Surely one of the rulers of Herth will be willing to aid an enemy of Ekeeta’s.”
I pause, momentarily speechless. “You’re joking.”
Ror glances up, his gray eyes silver in the moonlight. “No. There’s still time. I can’t give up.”
“And what about the ogre queen?” I struggle to keep my anger in check. “Do you think she’s going to stand back and let you roam around Herth hunting an army?”
“I know it will be difficult, but—”
“It will be impossible. You’ll be captured within a week,” I snap. “Your only hope is to find a place to hide, whether that’s in Frysk or back on that island you came from or wherever else the Fey can find to conceal you.”
“I can’t hide forever,” Ror says. “My friend—”
“Your friend will have to die.”
“Don’t say that,” Ror whispers, expression darkening.
I curse beneath my breath, amazed that he can still shock me with his stubbornness. “You’re out of your mind! I can’t believe the fairies let you out of their sight in the first place.”
“They didn’t. I crept out when they weren’t watching,” Ror says, heat in his tone. “And I’m not out of my mind. What if it were your sister in Ekeeta’s dungeon? Would you give up on her so easily?”
“It’s not my sister. And it’s not yours, either.” I pause as a terrible suspicion worms its way into my mind. “Or were you lying to me? Is Aurora—”
“No, it’s not Aurora,” Ror says, but there is something coiled behind the denial, a secret lurking like a rat in the flour.
“Then tell me where she is,” I say. “You owe me an answer. I honored my half of our bargain. Now it’s time for you to honor yours.”
“Are you ready to go our separate ways, then?” Ror asks, voice trembling.
“I’ll see you to Beschuttz, but I want to know where your sister is hiding. I’ve earned the truth from you.”
“All right.” Ror’s hands tighten around the wooden bar. “I’ll tell you tonight. As soon as we find a place to rest.”
A part of me wants to keep pushing, but the wiser part advises to bide my time. What’s a few hours? I’ve waited a week, I can wait a little longer.
Ror and I fall silent except for the occasional word when a lever needs to be pulled, and after a time I find myself enjoying the flight. The vast expanse of trees is soothing, like a calm ocean stretching before the prow of a ship, and the sharp, herbal smell of the Feeding Trees refreshing. We drift long enough that our sail takes us a day closer to Mount Ever, when the wind gives out and the glider drifts toward the ground.
“We should put down on that lake.” Ror points to a horseshoe-shaped patch of black ahead. “We could make it farther, but we’ll risk being ripped apart by the trees when we land.”
The foliage surrounding the lake is thick, and the moon too low to light the surface of the water. The thought of landing in that inky black isn’t much more appealing than taking our chances with the treetops, but Ror is right. Wrestling a Feeding Tree would be a good way to break a bone or three, and we can’t risk it. We have to be ready to keep moving as soon as we hit the ground.
“Can you reach my pack?” Ror asks. “I’d rather be wearing it when we land.”
“I’ll wear it.” I grab the pack and swing it over one arm. “I was born on the coast and practically raised in the water.”
“I was raised on an island and swim almost as fast as I run.” Ror sounds crankier than he has in days. “Drop the lower lever a few fingers when you’re ready.”
“Aye, aye, little man.”
“You know, it’s good we’ll be together a little longer,” Ror says, ignoring my jab. “I’ll be able to protect you for a few more days.”
“You protect me?” I ask, nerves vanishing a
s I laugh. “I think you’ve forgotten who fetched your wee ass from its sling tonight.”
“I think you’ve forgotten who taught you to steer a glider.”
“And you’ve forgotten who told you not to go to the flaming Feeding Hills in the first place,” I say, my words ending in a gulp as the surface of the lake grows close enough to smell the mineral and moss scent of the water.
“We’ll be all right,” Ror says. “Get out from under the wings and swim for shore. Dump the pack if you have to. You’re worth more than the gold inside it.”
I realize Ror has paid me a compliment—and was likely provoking me to keep my mind off our landing—and then the lake is thirteen … ten … two hands away and we hit. We hit, toes sliding across the ice-cold surface for half a field before the last of our forward momentum runs out and we sink like knives through rotten fruit.
I hear Ror gasp as the water soaks into his clothes and then we are both under and I’m shocked still, paralyzed by snow-fed water so cold it stops every thought in my brain. My head throbs and my blood slows and for a moment I forget where I am, forget everything but the cold chilling my skin and bones, creeping icy fingers in to wrap around my heart.
But finally, after who knows how many frozen seconds, a stinging, aching, burning in my chest reminds me I have arms and legs and ought to be doing something with them. Fighting the sluggish feeling in my limbs, I kick for the surface, struggling against the added weight of the pack, my boots, and my sword tugging at my waist, breaking through just as my lungs are turning inside out with the need for breath.
I suck in air and cough through teeth that clack like hooves on cobblestones, echoing across the otherwise silent lake.
“R-r-ror?” I shove at the water, fighting to stay warm. “Ror? Ror, where—”
His gasp as he breaks through the surface is positively girlish, and his voice when he calls my name is an octave too high. “Niklaas?”