Tesadora was pale. Saddened.
“There’s no more blood left, Phaedra,” Tesadora said, firmly but gently. “He’s gone.”
“Do you think he recognized Her Majesty from the time she arrived in the valley?” Cora asked Rafuel.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Jorja said. “Why wait all this time to act?”
“Could he have followed you, Rafuel?” Cora suggested.
Rafuel nodded. “Perhaps. Galvin wanted to prove his worth to Donashe. Let’s pray he kept all this to himself with the hope of dragging Her Majesty back to the valley tonight and declaring himself the mightier of us both. Let’s hope he didn’t tell Gies. All we need is for the fool to come sniffing around searching for his friend.”
“Gies!” Ginny cried out. “Does he know I’m here? Why hasn’t he come for me?”
Lucian and Rafuel exchanged a look. “All your men have been instructed to keep away,” Rafuel lied. Only Harker and Kasabian had been told to keep away. Rafuel had kept to their decision not to tell Gies about the women.
They traveled through the woods in silence. Rafuel stayed ahead for most of their journey. Lucian had a strange feeling that Tesadora and Rafuel were keeping something from him. About the bloodied scene they had come across.
“Doesn’t it concern you that the mother of your heir is so savage?” Lucian asked just before they reached Tesadora’s camp.
Rafuel stopped. He glanced at Tesadora, who looked away, her expression closed.
“Handy, of course,” Lucian mused. “But her actions were savage and not at all princesslike. I’m not condemning, by the way. Just remarking that she’s certainly her father’s daughter.”
“That’s condemning,” Rafuel bit out. “If you’re comparing her to the dead king, in my eyes that’s condemning!”
“Leave it,” Tesadora said. “Go back and find out if Galvin was working alone, Rafuel.”
Rafuel swallowed hard, and Lucian saw the despair in his expression.
The Charynite walked away but then turned back.
“Thank you,” he said to Lucian. “You didn’t have to be there tonight, Mont, but we were fortunate that you were in the valley all the same.” He held out a hand, and Lucian knew to shake it. Rafuel still didn’t walk away.
“She recognized him as the hangman, and she froze from the shock of it,” he said.
“Regardless, you saw what she did to him,” Lucian countered. “As I said, your princess knows how to look after herself.”
Rafuel and Tesadora exchanged another look, and then the Charynite was gone.
They reached the camp where Tesadora’s girls slept. Tesadora walked Lucian to his horse and waited as he mounted. Usually there were no good-byes, but tonight he sensed that she wanted to speak. He embraced her quickly.
“Lucian,” she said quietly as he mounted his horse.
When he looked down, he saw tears in her eyes.
“Quintana of Charyn didn’t kill the man,” she said. “Phaedra did.”
The days were long, and the boredom turned the Lasconian lads restless.
“We’ll run a race to see who’s fastest,” one of Florik’s lads said. “No one on the mountain has been able to beat Florik. So we choose him to race you, Lumateran.”
“What’s the prize?” Froi asked.
The lad who spoke for Florik shrugged. “There’s no need for a prize. It’s a friendly competition.”
“We run this wall,” Florik said. “Stand with your back to me, and then we’re off. Whoever returns to this point first is hailed the winner.”
It seemed too easy and didn’t involve a beating, and Froi could think of no better way to relieve the tedium on the watch at this time of the day.
“Count of three,” Florik’s lad said.
Florik was off at the count of two. Froi bolted in the opposite direction, and the more ground he covered, the more his pride demanded this victory. The only way to win against these lads was to show that their numbers weren’t enough to break him.
His was a straight run to begin with, but then parts of the route plunged down steep spiral steps and up again, and Froi took them, two at a time, heart hammering until its beat was a song that spurred him on, forcing him to fly the confines of this prison he had found himself in. He heard them chanting, “Florik! Florik! Florik!” and he shut his ears and kept his pace, stealing a look below to the flicker of movement in the bailey where he suspected the lads and the older men had come from the keep to watch the race. But Froi blocked their voices from his mind and reached the second turret, where he and Florik passed each other. Florik’s hand snaked out to hold him back, but Froi swiped at it with such force that he heard a grunt from the Lasconian as he pulled himself free, racing through a section of the walkway concealed from the grounds below. Froi raced through its tunnel, heard the sound of his own breathing, grunting, echoing harshly, then came out into the light again as if he were flying straight into the blue of this early spring sky. He could smell his victory. But suddenly as he rounded the final turret, he tripped over something wedged between the stone of the inner and outer wall. It was a short sword, there to do exactly what it had done, placed on so blind a corner that Froi could never have seen it coming. As he stumbled to his feet, he knew he had lost.
He heard the cheers for Florik as he neared the finishing place. Down below in the bailey, Dolyn and the elders were beckoning Florik to join them. Gargarin signaled, and Froi knew he was being instructed to come down and stand beside the winner.
“No man can outrun a Lasconian,” the elder said as Froi reached them. He and Florik stood side by side, Florik’s arm raised in victory. “The little king’s blood runs from our spring.”
Gargarin and Arjuro came to find Froi on watch late that night.
“Are you sulking because he won a race?” Gargarin asked.
Froi didn’t respond. He preferred not to see it as sulking.
“When you accomplish something, it should be for no one but yourself,” Arjuro said.
“Yes, yes. If we could all be as wise as both of you,” Froi said.
“Gods,” Arjuro muttered. “I wish I could go back to my youth and slap myself hard across the face for being as snarky as you are at times, Froi.”
“You were very annoying,” Gargarin said to his brother.
“You equally so.”
Arjuro held out his ration of food to Froi, who stared at the dry horse meat.
“If they go anywhere near Beast, I’ll kill them all.”
“They need to feed themselves,” Gargarin said.
“They should have thought of that before they holed themselves up in this place,” he hissed.
A shrill cry came from the darkness of the woodlands.
“Something’s happening out there,” Froi told them. “I’ve heard cries through the night. Humans and horses. Most of Bestiano’s army would have passed by now, heading north, but something in that woodlands is finishing off Nebia’s flanks.”
“Yes, but who?” Gargarin asked.
They were eerie sounds, eaten up by the space between the little woods and where they stood. By the time the sound reached them, all that remained was a distant echo.
“The sentinel in the tree hasn’t been there the whole day, and that could only mean there’s been some sort of attack,” Froi said. “I can take advantage of it. Venture out and see what’s happening.”
Gargarin shook his head. “I don’t want to take the chance,” he said. “Just say they’re lying in hiding, waiting for us to do just that. It could be a trap.”
“But we can’t stay here,” Froi said quietly, in case one of the Lasconians was listening. “Tariq’s people are idiots. They picked the worse place to set up camp. We might be protected by these walls, but we’re trapped and Bestiano knows we’re here. He wants you dead. For all he knows, Quintana is with us, and he wants her. We need to move.”
“But where?” Gargarin asked. “We’ll only end up wandering aimlessly, searching for her, Froi.
We have no idea which direction to turn.”
“We’ve run out of chances, Froi,” Arjuro said. “We’ve escaped death too many times. Gargarin. Me. You. I agree that we stay put. The next time, it could cost us our lives. Maybe Lirah’s.”
Froi looked away.
“Did you have an argument with her?” Gargarin asked quietly. “Lirah?”
“Why?”
“She doesn’t seem herself. She was angry and distant —”
“That is herself,” Froi interrupted.
“And hurt.”
Fine, now he was also to blame for Lirah’s feelings.
“If you really want to know,” Froi said, “the matter of not living in the palace has gotten to her. Where will her home be, Gargarin?”
“What?” Arjuro asked, hearing it for the first time. “Why wouldn’t Lirah live in the palace? She’s Quintana’s mother in the eyes of Charyn.”
Froi waited for Gargarin to explain, but he was silent, so Froi spoke.
“According to the provincari, she’s part of Charyn’s shameful past,” he said. “They want Gargarin in the palace but not her, and Gargarin threatened to not take up the position of the little king’s regent. They, of course, have a second and even third option.”
Arjuro looked at Gargarin.
“There is no other,” Arjuro said, fury in his voice. “And since when do the provincari make all the decisions? Is that what took place in Sebastabol?”
“Among other things, which is why it would help us to have the Lasconians in our favor,” Gargarin said.
Arjuro shook his head incredulously. “Those damned provincari. They have no right to tell Lirah she can’t live in the palace, and if they even try to take control of the godshouse, I’ll curse every single one of them. Hypocrites. Bastards.”
“And I think some of the lads and men here have said something to her,” Froi said quietly.
Arjuro’s eyes met Gargarin’s.
“I don’t like these people.”
“Oh, don’t you start, Arjuro!” Gargarin snapped. “First Froi, now you. What do you want me to do? Run a race around this wall and compete with them? They’re all we have. If we find Quintana, at least we have the numbers to get her into the palace safely. We need an army. This is the only one we have!”
“And De Lancey promised you no army?”
“Nothing,” Gargarin said with frustration. “Do you think we’d be here with this lot if we had Paladozza behind us? De Lancey was all secretive, and then he got on the defensive about both of us always ganging up on him.”
“Well, we actually did,” Arjuro said with a sigh.
“You know him better than anyone, Arjuro,” Froi said. “What could he be hiding?”
Arjuro shrugged. “I don’t know him anymore, despite our history. Before the day of weeping, he was a provincaro’s indulged son, bored and waiting to take over one day, so we were allowed to be as decadent and wild as we wanted to be. But he’s different now, and the De Lancey I got a glimpse of in both the Citavita and Paladozza is the type to have more than one plan up his sleeve.”
They heard more cries and shouting come from the little woods, and even the Lasconian lads gathered close by.
“What do you think’s going on out there, sir?” one of them asked Gargarin. As if he would know and not Froi.
“Either Bestiano’s army is killing one another or we have more visitors.”
Froi spent the rest of the night on watch with Perabo. The keeper of the caves had a disturbing way of staring at Froi and Gargarin and Arjuro as if he was going to reveal the truth about who he believed they all were to the Lasconians.
“Nothing good will come of this for you,” Perabo said quietly as the sun began to creep above the trees before them.
“What?”
“Regardless of our hope that she carries the first, and that she’s somehow safe, nothing good will come of this for you . . . personally . . . and you seem the person to take things personally.”
“You don’t know me, Perabo.”
“I saw it the first time in the caves in the Citavita, and then again the next two times. You want her. Not like other men want to control her, but you want to take care of her. Love her. Make her happy.” Perabo shook his head sadly. “And that will not happen. They will never give you an opportunity to be that man. The provincari and even Dolyn’s people will want a lord, a man of title. Quintana’s consort will be our showpiece to the rest of the land. ‘See. Look what we got. We might have a history of shame, but look what we managed to snare for our mad princess.’”
“Always pleasant to be on watch with you, Perabo.”
But all the keeper’s words did was make Froi yearn for her more. He missed Quintana’s voice in his ear. Sometimes he tried to recall those early months in the palace with her and the indignant reginita. But it wasn’t her voice he remembered. It was the clipped, cold voice of his ice princess. The one that could tear layers of skin from him by merely speaking. He had become used to listening to her words and not judging them by her tone.
“I wonder what I’ll say to the little king first,” she had murmured that last night in Paladozza.
“Maybe you should tell him you love him.”
“But what if I don’t?” she argued. “I don’t know him. How can I love one that I don’t know? I’m frightened to see him. I’ve never seen a little creature. How will I know he’s not all wrong?”
“And if he is all wrong, what will you do?” Froi had asked.
She thought for a moment. “I’ll hold him tight and tell him that we’ll be wrong for this world together.”
Perabo shoved Froi out of his memories and pointed. As early light began to stretch across the sky, they could see more movement through the trees of the little woods. During the night, whatever had taken place out there had inched closer to them. Froi heard Perabo’s intake of breath. Behind them, the first of the Lasconians were beginning to wake, but for now, only Perabo and Froi waited for whatever lay ahead to unleash itself.
And unleash itself it did. Horsemen appeared out of the little woods before Froi’s very eyes. What they lacked in numbers they made up for in strength and speed. If he didn’t know better, Froi would have sworn it was Trevanion leading them. No man looked more powerful than his captain on a horse.
“If this is part of the Nebian army, we don’t stand a chance,” he warned Perabo.
Perabo shouted out a command, and the Lasconian lads on the wall were suddenly awake.
“We’re under attack!”
Men scrambled for their weapons, and orders were bellowed from all corners of the bailey. Froi looked back at the battlements of the keep and saw Dolyn’s men ready with longbows.
“Take aim!” Perabo shouted.
Froi heard the order repeated over and over again until it reached the keep. He took aim. More and more men climbed up to the wall to stand beside them, watching the force approaching. The horsemen gained ground, their powerful mounts punishing the earth beneath them, riding at a speed beyond reckoning.
“Give the order!” one of the Lasconians shouted.
“Give the order,” a voice rang out again, but Perabo waited, and Froi’s hand shook to keep the bow so taut. He felt the perspiration trickle down his temple, but he kept his focus on the horsemen in the lead. Not one of the riders had raised a weapon, but their intent was obvious. They were going to enter the fortress regardless of how many soldiers stood on both battlements.
“Perabo! Give the order!” someone shouted.
And then, as the sun illuminated the clearing, Froi saw the truth.
“Stop!” he shouted. “Wait.”
“Wait!”
“Wait!”
He heard the order passed back to the battlements.
Yes, the voice inside him hissed. Or perhaps he did shout it aloud, because Perabo stared at him questioningly. Froi’s prayers had been answered in more ways than one.
“Who are they?” Perabo asked, as the ho
rsemen reached the gates.
“You mean what are they,” a lad beside them muttered.
Froi grinned. He looked at where Florik stood and felt a gleeful vengeance in his heart. The Lasconian lads were going to get a beating.
“Turlans.”
The Turlans rode into the fortress, splattered with blood, every fiber of their being pulsing with battle rage. Ariston gave his men the order to dismount, and they did so just as Gargarin entered the courtyard with Lirah and Arjuro. The Lasconians studied the Turlans, and they were studied in return. Two mountain clans, but different in so many ways.
Ariston and Gargarin embraced, and then the leader of the Turlans turned to Lirah and bowed.
Ariston then held out a hand to Arjuro. Froi remembered the tension between the men when they had first met and was relieved to see it all but gone.
“I thought you vowed you’d never come down that mountain,” Gargarin said.
Ariston grimaced. “My woman discovered that I failed to provide a safe place for our Quintana when we had the chance,” he said. “I’ve been banished from the bed until I find the girl.”
“Smart woman,” Gargarin said. He looked beyond Ariston and his men to where the Lasconians were watching carefully. “Does your wife know?” he added quietly. “About the oracle being a Turlan girl and the mother of the princess?”
Ariston nodded. “I don’t keep secrets from my woman. The Lascow lot may claim the future curse breaker as theirs, but we know that babe will belong to Turla on his mother’s side.”
Froi wanted to say more. That the future king belonged to Abroi. To Serker. To him.
“And your men?” Froi asked. “Do they know the truth? That Quintana belonged to a Turlan woman?”
Ariston shook his head regretfully.
“They follow me regardless of whom the little king belongs to.”
One of the Turlan lads approached and lifted Froi off the ground. Froi couldn’t help but laugh. He understood these lads, with their grunts and strutting about, more than he did the Lasconians. They reminded him of the Monts.
“My mob took a liking to our Quintana’s protector,” Ariston said, glancing at Froi.
The Turlan lads were invited to share the great hall with the Lasconians but chose the stables instead. Froi figured he’d endure the smell of horse shit rather than spend another night with Florik and his lot, and joined the Turlans.