The Bitter Kingdom

  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 tiny 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.

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  .....................................................................

  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.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does the stone speak to her at all?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Has it fallen out? Or does it still live in her belly?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I see the blow coming, but my dodge is weak and slow. The Invierno’s fist glances across my cheekbone, sending daggers of pain into my eye socket.

  “God despises liars,” the Invierno says.

  I blink to clear tears from that eye. It’s going to swell shut, but it’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before. I say, “Why would the queen share any of that with me? I’m just a guard.”

  “You must think I’m stupid. You’re the second-highest ranking military officer in the kingdom and a Quorum lord.”

  I shrug. “The queen is a very private person.”

  The Invierno raises his fist.

  “Hit me all you want,” I say. “Pummel me to death, in fact. My answers will not change.”

  The Invierno steps back, frowning. “You must love her very much,” he says, not unkindly.

  It’s hard to keep my face nonchalant. Because every time someone mentions her, I can’t help but consider the wondrous, new possibility that she might love me back.

  Be ready, she said. I’ll come for you.

  Oh, I’ll be ready. These traitors will be shocked at how ready. And then they’ll be dead.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  .....................................................................

  5

  BY the time Belén calls a halt, my legs and rear scream in pain. It’s as though all the muscle and sinew has been rubbed away, and my entire existence is bone grinding against my granite block of a saddle.

  Belén dismounts and reaches up to help me down. I try to lift my right foot from the stirrup, but my body won’t obey.

  “Elisa?” r />
  I grit my teeth. “Can’t . . . move.”

  He laughs. “Stand up in the stirrups first. Get as high on your toes as possible. It will return some movement to your muscles.”

  I do exactly as he says, and it seems to help. But just as I’m swinging my leg around, my thighs seize with cramps, and I topple into his arms.

  “See?” he says in my ear. “Not so bad.”

  I whimper.

  He helps me straighten up. “Walk around a bit. Maybe gather firewood. Then we’ll practice. Otherwise it will just be worse tomorrow.”

  Worse? I doubt such a thing is possible, but I nod and start limping away. I should learn how to mind the horse, how to rub her down and maintain the tack. Tomorrow, I tell myself. I’ll ask someone to teach me tomorrow.

  “I didn’t realize you were in such pain,” Mara says. She has leaped nimbly off her horse, unbothered by the lack of saddle. “You should have said something.”

  “We can’t afford any more delays!”

  She sighs. “Oh, Elisa.”

  “What?”

  Mara stares at me, a strange expression on her face. She opens her mouth, closes it.

  I raise an eyebrow. “Just say it.”

  She takes a deep breath. “Once only, and then I’ll never bring it up again.”

  I force my voice to remain calm. “You can say anything to me.”

  “Here it is, then.” Another deep breath. “You’re risking a lot. For a man. I know you love Hector. We all do. But he’s just one person.”

  If I hadn’t dismissed my nurse, Ximena, she would be right here in Mara’s place, saying the exact same thing. One of the hardest things about being queen has been learning when to disagree with the people I love most.

  “I’m not doing this for love,” I say. “I mean, yes, I love him. But I’ve loved and lost before. It’s awful, but it’s a survivable thing.” I scuff the toe of my boot through the dirt, uncovering pine needles and half-rotted leaves shed by the cottonwood looming over me. My dirt, I think. My land.

  “I desperately need that marriage alliance with him,” I tell her. “It will serve as a bond between our northern and southern regions. But mostly . . .” Here, I pause. The thought is still so nebulous in my mind, but I know it’s important. I know it the way I know the sun rises in the east each morning. “I need to see Invierne for myself. I need to learn more about it. Because something is wrong there.”

  Storm and Belén have been tending the horses, and as one they freeze in their ministrations and turn to stare at me. “What do you mean?” Belén asks.

  I start pacing. It hurts, but it feels good too, as if my body craves movement. “They are desperate for something. The sent an army of tens of thousands after me and my Godstone. When that didn’t work, they resorted to stealth and manipulation. Animagi martyred themselves to shake my country apart. So much loss of life. So much risk. And for what? Why?”

  “It’s simple,” Storm says. “They believe it is God’s will that they have you. They believe he’ll restore their power, the kind they had before your people came to this world and changed everything. The animagi could do so much more with living Godstones than with those cold, dead things they carry.”

  Mara gasps. It’s almost like a sob. “They burned down Brisadulce’s gate with ’those cold, dead things’! They killed King Alejandro. They . . .” She flattens her palm against her belly. “They burned me. You’re saying they could do more?”

  “Yes,” Storm says. “Oh, yes.”

  But I’m shaking my head. “That’s not it,” I say, and they all stare at me. “I mean, I’m sure that’s part of it. But there’s more. None of you were there the day the animagus burned himself alive at my birthday parade, but you heard about it, right? Read the reports?”

  They nod.

  “He said the Inviernos were more numerous than the stars in the sky. Is that true, Storm?”

  He regards me thoughtfully. “There are many more of us than there are of you.”

  “And that single declaration filled our whole country with panic and rage, because what if Invierne sends another army? Even larger than before? We would not survive another such onslaught. But what did he not say?”

  “Ah,” Belén says. “I see.”

  “What?” Mara says. “What do you see?”

  “The animagus did not say they would attack again.”

  I nod. “Inviernos only speak literal truth. But . . .” I look pointedly at Storm. “I have learned that they frequently deceive through omission.”

  Belén turns to the Invierno. “Is she right? Does Invierne have no intention of invading again?”

  Storm hangs his head. I made him dye his hair black so he wouldn’t stand out so much, but now his white-blond roots are growing out in a large skunk stripe along his part. “I don’t know,” he says wearily. “If my training as an animagus had been successful, I would have been inducted into the ruling council and thus privy to so much more. But I failed.”

  I stretch my arms high to work out the kinks, somewhat enjoying the burn this produces in my thighs and lower back. “So my next question is: Why not? If they are as numerous as they say, why don’t they invade? I think something is preventing them. And I want to find out what it is.”

  “Maybe they’ll invade after they have you and your Godstone,” Mara says. “Maybe that’s why they’re using Hector to lure you to them.”

  “Maybe.”

  “If they’re vulnerable in any way,” Belén says, “we should attack. Press our advantage.”

  Storm turns back to his horse, but not before I catch the flicker of sadness on his face. He is wholly mine now, subject to me in both fealty and friendship. But it can’t be easy to hear us discuss the conquest of his homeland.

  “I’ve thought of that,” I say softly. But if it’s true, it means that Invierne is like a desperate mother puma cornered in her den, and thus more dangerous than ever.

  We are still too near the village to risk a cooking fire, so we eat a cold meal of dates and jerky. Afterward, Storm sits cross-legged to meditate, and Mara practices a quick draw and pull with her bow and a quiver full of arrows.

  Belén and I find an open space to practice, and I learn to block an overhanded strike with a dagger. Belén shows me how to position myself so that my entire body absorbs the blow. We practice until my wrist and shoulder socket ache and my already wobbly legs are as weak as coconut pudding. Exhausted but feeling accomplished, I flip out my bedroll to finally get some rest. No tents—the night is warm enough, and we need to pack up and move out as quickly as possible at first light.

  Belén takes the first watch. I don’t bother to remove my boots before lying down. I’m asleep in moments.

  A chill at my belly drags me from sleep. I wake with a sword pointed at my throat.

  I start to roll away, but the sword presses deeper, pricking my flesh as the Godstone shoots ice through my veins. The villagers have found us. We’ll be hanged for thieves after all.

  But no. The man starting down the blade at me has a complexion as tough as tanned leather. His hair and beard are wild and matted, his clothes ragged and torn, and he reeks of old sweat.

  Highwaymen, then. We are being robbed. And murdered, if I don’t figure a way out of this.

  I move my eyes to place my companions. Mara and Storm are in equally tenuous positions, each trapped beneath a sword held by a ragged man. I can’t find Belén. Either he has already fallen, or he is hiding nearby. Please, God, let Belén be hiding.

  The man looming over me opens his mouth to speak, but I preempt him. “What did you do with the others?” I demand.

  He blinks. “Others? What others?”

  “Our companions. Five of them. They should have returned from scouting by now. If you have killed them, I’ll have your heads.” A knife is sheathed in my right boot. I’m not sure how to grab it without being obvious, but I have to try. I bend my knee slightly to bring my foot closer and reach, hoping the bedroll dis
guises my movements.

  “The girl is lying,” says the one who has trapped Mara. “They have supplies for four people, no more.” His accent is thick and gruff, as if speech comes rarely.

  “You’re certain? Wouldn’t do to have vengeance on our tail,” the third says.

  My fingertips have reached the top of my boot. “If you let us live, I promise no one will come after you.” Just a little farther . . .

  “An Invierno!” one yells. “Look at those eyes. Greener than an alpine meadow.”

  The sword at my neck wavers.

  I fling off the bedroll and leap to my feet, drawing my knife. Belén bursts from the bushes, screaming the Malficio war cry.

  My would-be captor swings his sword at me. I jump back, and the tip misses my belly by a finger’s breadth. We circle each other warily. Someone scuffles behind me, and I want more than anything to turn and make sure my companions are all right, but I don’t dare.

  “You’re a traitor, aren’t you, girl?” he says with a wicked grin that displays blackening teeth. “An enemy spy.”

  If Hector were here, he would tell me to run instead of fight. But maybe I can come up under his guard. Or jam his nose into his brain, or—why is he grinning?

  An arm wraps my neck and hot, sticky breath coats my neck as a knife pricks the skin just below my ear. “Best to drop your dagger, girl.”

  Oh, God. He must have dispatched one of my companions to come after me.

  I raise my heel and slam it into his instep, like Hector taught me. He screams as bones crunch, his grip releasing. I spin around and thrust my knife with all my strength. He is bent over in pain, so the knife plunges into the hollow of his throat, right above his sternum.

  I yank my knife back. Blood sprays, and I blink to clear my eyes as I whirl to face my original attacker.

  His eyes are wide with rage and terror, and he leaps at me, raising his sword. The blade flashes in the rising sun, and in this split second, I know I am not fast enough to avoid it.