“They will have the question answered soon.”
“If there is a future in Lumatere and you weren’t called upon to be Balthazar’s First Man,” she asked, her mood lightening, “what would you want to do with the rest of your life?”
“First,” he said, brushing a fly off her nose, “if there is a future in Lumatere, I will be in my father’s Guard. And second, Sir Topher will be Balthazar’s First Man.”
“First, it is not your father’s Guard. It belongs to the king. And secondly, Sir Topher would want you with him, advising Balthazar.”
He imitated the cross expression on her face, and she giggled. “So if I were a mere mortal in Lumatere?” He looked around the meadow, pondering. “I would put my name down for ten acres on the Flatlands. I would build a cottage there, and with my bride I would —”
“Where would you find this bride?” she interrupted.
“A novice from the cloister of Lagrami would do me fine,” he said in a pompous tone. “Obedient. Biddable.”
“And with the ability to bore you to tears, according to Lady Abian.”
“Not a problem. I will be so tired by the end of the day that sleep will be the only thing on my mind.”
She gave a snort. “You?”
He laughed at her expression. “Your meaning?”
“Last night you lay pressed against me, Finnikin. I could . . . feel that sleep was the last thing on your mind.”
“How unladylike of you to mention such a thing,” he said.
She touched the lines around his mouth. “You look lovely when you laugh.”
“Lovely? Just the way a man wants to be described.” He grinned. “I hope for the day that someone describes me the way they do my father.”
“All right, silent dark bear with angry frown, tell me more about your land.”
He settled back down, picturing it. “I would tend to our land from the moment the sun rose to when it set and then you . . . she would tend to me.”
He laughed at her expression again. The world of exile camps and the Valley felt very far away, and he wanted to lie there forever.
“Let me tell you about your bride,” she said, propping herself up on her elbows. “Both of you would cultivate the land. You would hold the plow, and she would walk alongside you with the ox, coaxing and singing it forward. A stick in her hand, of course, for she would need to keep both the ox and you in line.”
“What would we . . . that is, my bride and I, grow?”
“Wheat and barley.”
“And marigolds.”
Her nose crinkled questioningly.
“I would pick them when they bloomed,” he said. “And when she called me home for supper, I’d place them in her hair and the contrast would take my breath away.”
“How would she call you? From your cottage? Would she bellow, ‘Finnikin!’?”
“I’d teach her the whistle. One for day and one for night.”
“Ah, the whistle, of course. I’d forgotten the whistle.”
He practiced it with her, laughing at her early attempts until she could mimic it perfectly. Froi came running up to them, a frown on his face.
“Captain said to fetch you. We leave.”
“Speak Lumateran, Froi. You’re not from Sarnak!” Evanjalin ordered, getting to her feet. “And you haven’t returned my father’s ring.”
He scowled. “Fort you said it was mine.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, vexed. “Only because I thought I would die. You’ll have to give it back.” She ran ahead of them, jumping over the tall grass and daffodils, her legs tangling at times, causing her to stumble.
“Hope she falls,” Froi muttered. “Meanest girl I ever know.”
“I’ve met meaner,” Finnikin mused. “The Lumateran girls from the Rock are quite frightening, and you never turn your back on a girl from the River. And Princess Isaboe? Used to tell everyone she could mend her cat’s broken limbs, which she could, of course. But no one knew that she’d break them first.”
When they reached the barn, they joined the others in preparing their horses.
“Perri? Is there something wrong?” Finnikin heard Evanjalin ask in a quiet voice.
Perri was silent, and the question seemed to be forgotten. Or so Finnikin thought until he glanced over to Evanjalin and found her eyes locked on Perri’s.
“Perri?” Finnikin prompted.
Perri’s stare was loaded with controlled hostility. “She lied,” he said curtly.
There was confusion on Evanjalin’s face.
“Perri, leave the girl alone,” Trevanion murmured, grabbing the leg of his horse by the fetlock and holding the weight of its hoof on his knee.
There was no malice in Perri’s face. Just cold certainty.
“She could not have walked the sleep two nights past. She spoke of walking the sleep in Pietrodore. It’s not her time to bleed again.”
Suddenly everyone turned in her direction. Evanjalin’s face flushed with color.
“It’s not important how —” she began.
“What else have you lied about?” Perri interrupted.
This time she stayed silent.
“Did you lie about Lady Beatriss?” Perri persisted. “And Tesadora? Did you lie about the young girls of Lumatere?” The priest-king and Froi looked on anxiously. Trevanion put his horse’s leg to the ground and walked over.
“Answer him,” Finnikin said quietly, wanting her to put an end to Perri’s suspicions.
But she refused to speak, not taking her eyes off Finnikin.
“Answer him,” he said more forcefully.
She shook her head sadly. “There’s always doubt in your eyes, Finnikin. How can you lead us home with so much doubt?”
“I’m not here to lead us home. Balthazar is,” he replied.
The fear that ran through his body when she cast her eyes down chilled him.
“Did you lie about Balthazar, Evanjalin?” he said, his throat dry. It was strange how calmly he asked the question. But he knew that if he shouted at her, it would only mean he believed she was capable of such deception. So he waited for her to deny it, to explain the sleep to them again so he could tell Perri to shut his mouth and then convince her that there was no doubt in his eyes. Just a desperate need for answers.
But there was no denial from Evanjalin.
“Did you lie about the return of the king?” Perri asked, his tone level. Finnikin realized that he had never heard Perri shout. Never seen him lose control. Froi and the priest-king stood waiting quietly, as if willing Evanjalin to provide the right answer.
“Say no, Evanjalin,” Froi blurted.
“Answer him, Evanjalin,” Trevanion said.
Finnikin saw it in her eyes before she responded. He saw it because she chose to look directly at him. There was no plea for understanding.
“Balthazar is dead.”
He felt his stomach revolt, his knees buckling beneath him. But still she refused to look away.
“You would never have come this far if you thought he was dead,” she said calmly. “All of you. The exiles. The Guard. No one.”
“You lied all this time?” He could hardly recognize his own voice.
“You wanted a king,” she said quietly.
“You lied.”
“I gave you a king. I gave you what you wanted.”
“You. Lied.”
“Stop saying that!” she shouted, and the others flinched at the fury in her voice. “There are worse things than a lie and there are better things than the truth!”
He stared at her in bewilderment. “Who are you?”
“Who do you want me to be, Finnikin?” There were tears in her eyes, and he wanted to tear at his own so he didn’t have to see her. Didn’t have to witness her deceit.
“I once asked you to trust me.”
He shook his head with disbelief. “Do you belong to the Charynites?” She clenched her fists as he stepped forward. “Or are you one of Sagrami’s d
ark worshippers, bent on more destruction?”
“If I am, then burn me at the stake, Finnikin,” she cried. “As they did the last time they found out a king was dead in Lumatere. Someone had to be blamed. Someone had to die. Because that’s what happens when logical men can’t explain why an old woman has the blood of an innocent on her hands, or why another can walk through the sleep of our people. What you can’t understand, you destroy.”
Perri made a sound of disgust, and she turned to stare at him. “It’s what your kin did to Tesadora and her people all those years, Perri. How your people taught you to hate. Your father made you watch. Made you take her hand and place it in that furnace and watch it burn. And you did, with tears in your eyes because you were a child and you believed what your father had to say. It’s what made you a savage.”
“You lied about the king!” Finnikin shouted. “What is there to understand? We have people waiting outside the kingdom. For their king.”
Trevanion placed a hand on his arm to calm him, but Finnikin pulled away, his eyes wild. “If harm comes to those people, with the power appointed to me as Sir Topher’s First Man, I will charge you with sedition,” Finnikin threatened bitterly, swinging onto his horse. “Curse your existence if we’ve led the entire kingdom-in-exile to a mass grave in the Valley.”
When they reached the crossroads, Finnikin felt Froi tremble as the thief held on to him. Perri and Trevanion drew up alongside, and he saw the grief and hopelessness on their faces. North pointed to Lumatere, the word he had rewritten not five days past. But five days past the world had been different and a prophecy promising the return of the king had been possible to fulfill.
He had sensed Evanjalin’s stare for the length of their journey as she rode behind him on Trevanion’s mount. He turned to look at her now, and she held his gaze as she slipped off the horse and untied her bedroll. She looked small and vulnerable where she stood, surrounded by all five of them, and then she pointed east, her hand shaking.
“Get back on the horse, Evanjalin,” Trevanion said wearily.
She shook her head. “I go east,” she said.
No one moved or spoke.
“We go north to the Valley,” Finnikin said firmly. “And you don’t have a choice. Get on the horse, Evanjalin.”
She shook her head again. “If it’s sedition you accuse me of, stop me with a dagger. If not, I go east. The gods whisper words to me as I sleep, telling us to take a path that makes sense only to them. But I trust it.”
“Ah, the privilege of the gods whispering in your ears,” he mocked. “Did you have to bleed for that, Evanjalin?”
The pain in her eyes was real. “The gods whispered to you once, Finnikin. And you listened. But they are proud and refuse to speak to those who do not believe that there is something out there mightier than the minds and intellect of mortals.”
But his heart could not be moved, and he turned his back on her. He could hear the crunch of the leaves as she walked and he dared not move until the sound faded away.
Froi slipped off Finnikin’s horse, quietly looking up at him and then the others before turning in the direction Evanjalin had taken. He removed his bedroll from the saddle and placed it on his shoulder.
“She and me? We the same in some fings. We live. The others, those orphan kids, they dead. Because she and me, we want to live and we do anyfing to make that happen. That’s the difference between us and others. I seen them. I seen Lumaterans die, and you know what I do to live? Anyfing. Do you hear me? I do anyfing. Just like her.”
Froi turned and followed Evanjalin, and this time it seemed he understood exactly which path he was taking.
One mile from their homeland, Finnikin stopped. In front of him stood the ridge. From there, it would be possible to see the Valley of Tranquillity, which had once seemed like a carpet of lushness leading to Lumatere’s main gate. He imagined what it would be like to see inside the kingdom, all the way to the rock of three wonders, where once he made a pledge with his two friends, believing in their omnipotence. That they could save their world. His scar throbbed with pain as if the blood they had sacrificed ten years ago had seeped into the earth and was welcoming him home.
Home.
“Finn? It’s just over the ridge,” Trevanion said.
Finnikin swung off his horse and stared up at the last place he had ever worshipped his goddess. “Take the priest-king,” he said quietly. “Our people need him in the Valley.”
“And you?” Trevanion asked.
Finnikin shook his head. “I just want to sit for a while.”
Trevanion walked up beside him. “I’ll sit with you.”
“No.” He shook his head emphatically. “The people will want to see the captain of the Guard. They need that hope if they have already returned.”
Finnikin turned to the priest-king, who sat astride Perri’s horse. There was a look of intense sadness on the old man’s face. “Blessed Barakah, what does the word resurdus mean in the ancient language?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“King,” the old man replied.
Finnikin nodded.
Trevanion mounted his horse again. “Climb your rock, Finn,” he said firmly. “When you return, I’ll be waiting here.”
Finnikin walked toward the ridge, then stopped as Perri spoke.
“Warrior. Guide.”
Finnikin turned and met Perri’s eyes.
“I had a . . . friend once who knew the language of the ancients,” he said, his face impassive. “I asked her what the word for ‘warrior’ was. It was the only word I cared to learn. Resurdus. In the time when the gods walked the earth, a king was a warrior. But in other dialects it meant guide.”
Finnikin stared after them as they rode away. Then he began to climb. He had promised the goddess a sacrifice if she allowed Evanjalin to live, and there on the ridge he pierced his old wound and watched it bleed, his mind growing light.
Dark will guide the light, and our resurdus will rise.
He made a pledge to honor the prophecy that may have always been meant for him.
But there were no visions, and no sense of peace or euphoria.
The goddess was angry.
Her message was clear.
It was not enough.
It was almost dark when he climbed down from the ridge. Waiting with his father were Perri and Moss and Sir Topher. Finnikin swung onto his horse. Without speaking, he turned its head away from the Valley of Tranquillity and took the path the priest-king had said would be their salvation paved with blood.
The path to the novice Evanjalin.
And without questioning his decision, the others followed.
They traveled through the night and by sunrise reached the tunnel that separated Belegonia from neighboring Osteria. It was a pass carved inside one of the mountains, hacked out of the granite over the centuries. Finnikin was the first to lead his horse through the low narrow entrance, placing his hands on the stone around his head to guide him. The ground was littered with fallen rocks, and his ankle twisted continuously on its awkward angles. When the light hit his eyes on the other side, the pain was intense, but he gulped the air with a hunger that came from a profound sense of relief.
The Osterian capital was the closest to Lumatere. The two kingdoms were the smallest in the land and less than a day’s ride from each other. As they rode over the hills from the west, Finnikin caught sight of the turrets of the Osterian palace in the distance. The small palace lay in a valley in the center of the kingdom, encircled by sixteen hills, which served to protect it from Belegonia to its west, Sorel to its south, and Charyn to its north and east. Finnikin knew the Osterian hills were home to several ethnic communities that had enjoyed autonomy since the time of the gods. They were watched over by a number of sentinels whose job it was to keep peace within the land, but Finnikin suspected that the sentinels were also there to keep an eye on Charyn, which lay beyond a narrow river to the north.
“So where can you be, Evanjal
in?” Sir Topher asked as they rested their horses in one of the valleys. Finnikin had been surprised to find his mentor waiting with Trevanion, Perri, and Moss the previous evening. As the new leader of Lumatere, he would be better protected in the Valley under the watch of the Guard. But Sir Topher had been determined to find Evanjalin and Froi, and at times during their short journey to Osteria, Finnikin had seen the censure in his mentor’s eyes.
“She lied about the king,” Finnikin said quietly as the other men separated to see what they could discover beyond the northern hills.
Sir Topher did not speak for a moment. So much had changed since they climbed the rock to the cloister in Sendecane months before. Too much had happened, more emotions than they had felt between them in the last ten years.
“You wanted Balthazar to be alive, Finnikin,” he said gently. “He was a beloved friend, and in the mind of the child you were at the time, he seemed a mighty warrior who could conquer anything.”
Finnikin felt naive and foolish. “I know it doesn’t seem possible that one so young could have lived through such terrible events, Sir Topher. But Evanjalin and Froi and even I have been in situations of grave danger, and we lived. So I believed that he would too. That somehow he endured what took place in the Forest of Lumatere that night.”
“Do you know what I think?” Sir Topher asked, tears in his eyes. “I think Prince Balthazar made a decision that night. I think he was a warrior of the gods. You wanted him to live for all the right reasons, my boy. But more than anything, you needed him to live because you feared the inevitable.”
Finnikin was silent as Trevanion and his men returned. He could tell from the grimness of his father’s expression that their surveillance from the top of the hills had provided them with more than just a scenic view of Osteria.
“Tell us good news, Trevanion,” Sir Topher implored.
Trevanion shook his head, his mouth a straight line. “From our vantage point we had a clear view of the river and into Charyn. There are soldiers there. At least fifteen. Swords in hand. Exiles at their feet.”