Finnikin waited, thinking of all the things he had to tell her. That perhaps he was the resurdus of Seranonna’s prophecy, the one to break the spell at the main gate. And that she, Evanjalin, was the light of his sometimes very dark heart who would lead him.
Then he heard the crunch of footsteps and she was there and he opened his coat and wrapped her inside, holding her tight until the beat of their hearts slowed to the same pace and her lips were against the base of his throat. When he stepped back, he could see that she was wild-eyed and exhausted.
“Back to the tree,” Perri ordered.
Lucian made room for them as they squashed in together. The Mont took off his cap and gently placed it on Evanjalin’s head. She stared at him for a moment, and Finnikin saw her shudder. He sat her in the crook of his body, keeping her warm.
“I watched the barracks from a distance last night and through today and tonight,” she whispered. “There’s a courtyard with three men guarding it. One dog tied up. High walls. The rest of the men are sleeping inside the barracks. I believe that’s where they are keeping Froi.”
“What happened, Evanjalin? How was he caught?” Trevanion asked.
“We both were,” she said, her voice small. “We’d just arrived, and were walking through the woods early yesterday evening. We crossed the river to catch some food, and the Charynites found us. It was clear that they were going to kill us, for no other reason than we were Lumateran. I heard them say so, but I didn’t let on.” She stared up at them, shaking her head with anguish. “I told Froi I would make up some lie to create a diversion, and in the confusion, he was to run and not stop running. I ordered him. His bond was to me. To listen to every word I said.” She began to shiver again, and Finnikin held her closer to him.
“And he looked at me and told me . . . told me that people with magic need to live. He told me he was dispensable. He speaks our language like an idiot,” she spat out through her tears, “yet he knows the word dispensable. He still had my ruby ring, and before I could stop him, he was shouting out that he was the heir, Balthazar.”
“But they would have known he was too young,” Perri said.
“Everything happened too quickly. Froi waved the ruby ring in the air and yelled, ‘Run! Run!’ and then, ‘Balthazar, Balthazar, Balthazar,’ repeating that he was Balthazar, heir to the throne of Lumatere.”
Finnikin felt Lucian flinch each time his dead cousin’s name was spoken.
“So I ran and hid in a ditch until it was safe to climb a tree. And I watched them. Today the soldiers went out, and when they returned, they threw punches at each other and kicked the poor dog. Repeatedly.”
“That’s why they rounded up the exiles,” Lucian murmured. “They would have known the boy was lying and probably suspected that the true heir was with the exiles on the river.”
Evanjalin turned at the sound of Lucian’s voice. “I told you the Monts were here,” she said to Finnikin.
“No, you didn’t,” Finnikin accused gently. “You just pointed and said, ‘I’m going east.’”
Lucian stared at her. “Definitely a Mont. Yata and my father will be distraught that we did leave one behind.”
Evanjalin reached over and took Lucian’s hand in hers. “Yata,” she said in a trembling voice.
Finnikin watched as Lucian kept ahold of her hand, and then the Mont’s fingers traveled up her arm and Finnikin saw him shudder. “Lucian!” he warned gruffly.
Lucian sighed, not letting go. “My father and Yata will be very angry when they see what you have done, Evanjalin. To have cut yourself to bleed and walk the sleep.”
Finnikin could not make out his father’s and Perri’s reactions, but he felt deep shame as he reached over to reveal the horrific scars that not even the pale light of the moon could hide.
“You humble me, Evanjalin,” Perri muttered, and then he was on his feet. “Let’s go get our boy.”
They made their way to the tree where Evanjalin had spent the night and day hiding.
“Stay,” Perri said, disappearing up into its branches.
Trevanion took charge. “Perri and I go over the wall. Finn and Lucian, you climb the tree and cover us. The moment you see that Froi is safe, shoot anything that moves. The moment he’s outside the walls of the courtyard, you run at the speed of the gods. Evanjalin, you stay here on the ground.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he stopped her. “You stay here on the ground.”
Perri dropped quietly in front of them.
“Three guards and one dog tied up?” Trevanion asked.
Perri shook his head. “It’s not a dog,” he said flatly, and then he and Trevanion were gone.
“Stay,” Finnikin repeated to Evanjalin before he scrambled up the tree with Lucian and straddled a branch that gave him a good vantage point and room to move with his bow. He watched Perri and Trevanion scale the wall of the barracks, glance down for a moment, and then disappear over the side. The courtyard was lit with oil lamps, which made it easy to see what was taking place within. Finnikin realized why Trevanion wanted Evanjalin to stay on the ground as soon as he saw the quick movement of a blade against the throat of the first soldier. So effortless. So cold in its execution. Soldiers kill, he reminded himself. It’s what they are trained to do. He wondered what was going through his father’s and Perri’s minds. Was it satisfaction? Did it soothe their blood or make them sick to the stomach?
“Three down. Too easy,” Lucian whispered. “Perri is untying the boy she mistook for a dog. Why is your father going inside the barracks?”
Because his father was a soldier, Finnikin thought, and his blood ran hot with the need to avenge every one of their exiles who had died by the sword.
“Don’t ask questions. The moment Perri’s out with Froi, jump and take Evanjalin. I’ll cover the barracks until Trevanion’s out.”
“That’s not what they said,” Lucian hissed. “The moment Perri’s out with the boy, we both run. I don’t go without you.”
Finnikin kept his aim on the entrance of the barracks. “Would you follow their orders if Saro was in there?”
Lucian muttered a curse, and they watched as Perri lifted Froi in his arms and raced to the gates.
“They’re out!” Lucian began scrambling down the tree. With relief, Finnikin saw his father emerge from the entrance. Whatever Trevanion had done, it had been silent, for nobody followed.
Finnikin waited for his father to leave the courtyard. Waited . . . waited . . . waited . . . and then Trevanion was out and Finnikin climbed down, leaping from the last branch to the ground, and fell at Evanjalin’s feet. The three of them grabbed at each other and sprinted through the woods. They were barely aware of Perri’s approach, and then Trevanion was upon them and they ran, their boots pounding the earth, their blood pounding in their brains, needing to breathe, needing to get to the river with Froi in their arms and Evanjalin between them. To take them home.
When they had crossed to the Osterian side of the river, they stopped for a moment.
“Sagrami,” Perri cursed, dropping to his knees with Froi still in his arms. Finnikin watched Lucian flinch when he saw what the soldiers had done to Froi’s face.
“My father has alerted the Osterian soldiers, so I doubt the Charynites will cross, but I know a place to stop and rest before we get to the foothills,” Lucian said.
They followed the Mont through the cluster of trees. As Finnikin had suspected, he knew his territory and navigated easily through the wooded gully. Before long, he stopped at an overhanging rock and they crawled underneath it.
“Froi, speak,” Evanjalin said firmly.
He seemed to croak. His face was a mass of bruises, and blood was caked around his nose and mouth and ears.
“You never do anything stupid like that again,” she whispered with fury. “You could have been killed, you idiot boy. It’s part of your bond that I give instructions, not you.”
Froi mumbled, and Perri leaned closer to listen. “That’s very rude, Fr
oi. And quite impossible for her to do with a bond.”
Finnikin and Lucian laughed in relief. Trevanion reached out to Evanjalin and pressed something into her hand. She stared at it for a long while before looking up at him. The ring.
“I lied about it, you know,” she said quietly.
“Why, Evanjalin, I can’t believe you would ever tell a lie,” Trevanion said, almost smiling.
She smiled for him. “It was in the exile camp, more than two years ago. I was watching a card game. There was a thief there, full of remorse now that the king was dead. He had stolen the ring one day while the king and queen and their children traveled from the Mountains to the Flatlands, years before the days of the unspeakable. But despite the remorse, there was a boast in his voice. So I challenged him to a game of cards. The winner kept the ring. I was fifteen years old and a girl, so nobody took me seriously and they let me join.”
“What did you have to offer?” Finnikin asked.
“I had been there for almost a year, and each night I would watch one of the women bury twenty silver pieces in a pouch near the trunk of a tree. So I borrowed it for the night.”
They heard Froi snort. “And I’m s’pposed to be the feef.”
“Wouldn’t you have felt guilty if you lost?” Lucian asked.
“I knew I would win,” she said pragmatically.
“But —”
“Lucian,” Finnikin warned. “Trust me. Her gambles pay off.”
“But you did return the twenty silver pieces?” Lucian pushed.
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
Lucian looked disappointed. Monts weren’t thieves. It was the worst thing to be accused of.
“I didn’t have time,” she said quietly. “The next morning, a group of Sarnak hunters surrounded our camp.”
Lucian swallowed. “Sarnak? My father and a few of his men traveled there, once we heard. To see if there was anyone left alive.”
“That night, I walked through the sleep of Lady Beatriss,” Evanjalin continued. “She dreamed of the cloister of Lagrami in Sendecane, and I knew it was a sign that I should go there. That after eight years I should stop traveling from one kingdom to another. I was tired and sick at heart, and for the first time since I was eight, I lost hope. But in the cloister of Lagrami, Finnikin came searching for me.”
“Because the priestess sent a messenger,” Finnikin said. “The messenger woke me and whispered Balthazar’s name.”
She shook her head. “There was no messenger, Finnikin. Someone whispered your name to me in my sleep. Telling me you would come. I told the High Priestess, ‘Finnikin of the Rock will come for me.’ To guide me.” Evanjalin smiled, and it was a look of pure joy. “To my people.”
“Let’s keep moving,” Perri said.
Finnikin grabbed his father’s arm as the others ran ahead. “She’s wrong. It was a messenger,” he said forcefully. “I know it was. I remember it well. I remember because I was dreaming of Beatriss and I was angry to be woken from such a dream.”
“What were you dreaming?” Trevanion asked.
“That you placed your babe in Beatriss’s arms and she held her to the breast, feeding her with so much love, and that . . . that . . .” Finnikin felt stunned, remembering things he had long forgotten.
Trevanion stopped, gripping his wrist. “Tell me more.” It was almost a plea.
“Beatriss had the child to her breast,” Finnikin went on, “and you were teasing her about the cloister of Lagrami, and Beatriss said, ‘Little Finch, what say you? Will we give her to the cloister of Lagrami to keep her safe? As you pledged? As you pledged?’ She kept repeating it.” Finnikin shook his head, trying to make sense of his thoughts. “And now it seems that Evanjalin or Beatriss or someone else called me to the cloister of Lagrami in Sendecane that night.”
Trevanion was silent for a moment. “Did she . . . seem happy?” he asked quietly. “In the dream?”
Finnikin knew he was speaking of Beatriss. “As happy as she always was when you were by her side,” he said honestly. “So happy that it made me travel to the end of the earth without questioning where it would lead me.”
When they stumbled into the foothills where the exiles slept, Trevanion called out an acknowledgment to the Monts who stood guard.
“Stay awhile,” he told Finnikin and Lucian. “Sleep first, and then in the morning take Evanjalin and Froi up to your people, Lucian. Perri and I need to return to the Valley tonight. Saro will know to follow soon.”
Lucian nodded, and Finnikin waited as Trevanion and Perri mounted their horses.
“Rest, Finn,” his father said. “I fear there will be much for you to do when you reach the Valley of Tranquillity.”
And with one last look at Finnikin, Trevanion and Perri headed west, where their exiled people waited.
At the edge of the camp, Finnikin and Lucian lay near one of the fires to dry their damp clothing. Evanjalin and Froi were already asleep, and Finnikin covered them with the fleece-lined coats.
“He was my hero. Balthazar,” Lucian said quietly, looking at Finnikin over the small blaze.
“I think you were his,” Finnikin acknowledged.
“No. I think half of him wanted to be Trevanion of the River and the other half Finnikin of the Rock.” Lucian laughed. “I, of course, wanted to be Perri the Savage, although after tonight I’m not sure I have the stomach for it.”
“There’s more to our Perri.”
Lucian leaned forward. “Anyway, I’m not sure Balthazar would have made the finest of kings.”
“Why do you say such a thing?” Finnikin asked.
“Perhaps better than his father, but not like his mother. My family says the queen married beneath herself.”
Finnikin snorted, careful not to wake Froi and Evanjalin. “Only you mountain goats would believe you’re better than royalty.”
“It’s not conceit,” Lucian said. “She had grit. She had a thirst for knowledge and a ruthlessness, passed on to her daughters, that any Mont would envy. The oldest princess, Cousin Vestie, would have been a great leader. Yata always said she had strength much like her mother, the queen. The king was . . . soft, especially with his cousin. So it was no shock to us that that scum beneath our boots found his way back into Lumatere as the impostor king.”
“The impostor king was a pawn who was placed there by the king of Charyn in an attempt to use Lumatere as a road to invade Belegonia.”
Lucian shrugged. “The king was weak with Charyn. He should have sent in the army the moment Charyn first stopped the goods wagons from the north.”
He looked over at Froi and Evanjalin. “Do you know why I was certain Balthazar had died that night?” he asked.
Finnikin sighed, wanting to sleep. “Perhaps because you think you know everything?”
Lucian was in no mood for humor. “Does your wound weep? The one from the pledge?”
Finnikin nodded.
“So does mine, and that’s how I know he’s dead and has been from that night.”
Finnikin said nothing.
“The wound lives because the pledge was real. It worked.”
“Lucian . . .”
“What did we pledge that day on the rock of three wonders, Finnikin?” he whispered urgently.
Still Finnikin didn’t respond. There was something about Lucian’s tone that was causing his heart to hammer against his chest.
“Balthazar pledged to die protecting the royal house of Lumatere,” Lucian said. “You pledged to be their guide. I pledged to be their beacon. And ten years later we are all here.”
“Not all of us.”
Lucian moved closer toward him. “Balthazar’s pledge was that he would die protecting the royal house of Lumatere,” he repeated, tears in his eyes. “Three witnesses saw him running through the Forest that night.” Lucian shook his head in disbelief. “Not possible. Balthazar would never have allowed himself to live that night if Isaboe died. That’s the difference between the king’s son and
the queen’s daughters. The king’s first priority was the survival of his wife and children. But the queen’s? Survival of the people. Because the people were Lumatere.”
“What are you saying?” Finnikin asked.
“Balthazar took from his father,” Lucian said with force. “We all honored our pledge. And Seranonna of the Forest Dwellers and two others, who had no reason to lie, claimed to have seen a child running from the Forest that night. The child who stamped bloody handprints on the kingdom walls. I saw those handprints. All the Monts saw them that week we stayed in the Valley of Tranquillity. My father and his brothers had to drag my yata away from them.”
Finnikin could hardly form words. Lucian looked slightly crazed as he pointed at the figure lying beside Finnikin.
“Balthazar protected her. You were her guide. You brought her here because she sensed her people. I was the beacon.”
“Isaboe?” Finnikin said, his voice hoarse with shock. He stared at her sleeping figure as Lucian stood and drew his sword from its scabbard. Instantly the Mont was on guard, but Finnikin could not move. Isaboe. Why would he not have known? How could he not have recognized her? Worse still, he wondered with hurt and rage, why had she not trusted him? After all this time, when they had walked side by side? Yet he leaped to his feet beside Lucian. To do what he was born to do. Protect the royal house of their kingdom.
“You started this when you forced us to cut flesh from our bodies, Finnikin,” Lucian whispered. “But I would do it a thousand times over to see our queen lead us back home to Lumatere.”
When the sun appeared in the sky, Finnikin woke her with shaking hands. The exiles had left for the Valley with Saro’s men at dawn. Still exhausted, Froi and Evanjalin begged for more sleep, but Finnikin shook his head. There was desperation in him, in Lucian too. To take her to Yata.
“It’s only a short walk,” he said quietly.
A few feet away, Saro of the Monts was talking with some of his men. He seemed surprised to see Lucian and Finnikin in the foothills and approached them with a questioning look on his face. Until he saw her.