“I said I’m going.” Froi pushed past Gargarin. Gargarin grabbed him by his tunic.
“Do you honestly think you can release the women and escape that cave with five of them surrounding you and no weapon? Because I can assure you that the guard standing outside will not allow you to enter with that sword, regardless of how worthless you think it is.”
“If they know I’m Lumateran, they will not kill me,” Froi hissed, wondering if Gargarin was hard of hearing or plain stupid. “They will ransom me instead. Your life as a Charynite, on the other hand, is worth much less and you know it.”
“I say we walk away,” Arjuro repeated. “You, you, and me,” he said, pointing to all three of them. “She’s not worth your lives. Neither of them is. The whole of Charyn will agree with me.”
“Do you know what my captain and his second-in-charge have told me over and over again?” Froi asked.
“Not interested,” Arjuro said.
“That if there is no means to an end, then buy time,” Froi continued. “Each moment you buy provides you with more of an opportunity. Someone makes a mistake. Some distraction occurs. The scenario changes.”
“Yes, from two corpses to three,” Gargarin said.
“Well, I could always go,” Arjuro said. “They’re not going to kill the last priestling.”
Gargarin stared at his brother as though noticing him for the first time. “Why aren’t you on the road to Osteria?”
“Because I’d like to die of natural causes and not of boredom, brother,” Arjuro responded.
Froi won the argument and made his way toward the stream to Gargarin’s cave. When he was within shouting distance, he stepped out of the clearing, both arms extended wide. The two palace riders stood to attention, and Froi watched one disappear to alert those inside.
A moment later, Froi found himself lying flat on the hard earth while his whole person was checked for weapons.
“Tell Zabat I want to speak to him. Tell him it’s Froi of Lumatere. He’ll know me better as Olivier of Sebastabol.”
He was dragged to his feet and pushed toward the cave. At the entrance, he was checked again and then dragged inside.
He noticed the walls first. Painted with grand images of the gods, strong and mighty.
On a filthy cot in the corner sat Quintana and Lirah. When Lirah saw him, she closed her eyes with what seemed bitter despair. Quintana’s eyes flashed with what he could only understand as some kind of victory.
Dorcas’s expression revealed nothing except slight irritation, which was nothing new when he was looking at Froi.
“Tell your guard to stay,” Zabat ordered Dorcas.
“Zabat?” Froi asked, pretending hurt. “Do you not trust me?”
Dorcas ignored them both and looked back toward the guard. “Did you disarm him?”
“He wasn’t armed, sir.”
Zabat’s expression was disbelieving. “Search him again. Be careful. He’ll go for your weapon.”
Froi held out his arms impassively as he was thoroughly searched for a second time, his eyes never leaving those of Rafuel’s traitorous messenger.
“I’m praying for your sake that you haven’t betrayed your brothers in the valley, Zabat,” he said.
“And why is that?”
“Because I’ll have to kill you. It’s part of my bond.”
Zabat had the good sense to look nervous.
“A smart man chooses the side with more might, but if it’s any consolation, we all work for the good of Charyn,” he said.
The fool looked to Dorcas and the two guards, pleased with his words. They ignored him.
“Leave,” Dorcas ordered Froi. “Take Lirah of Serker with you. We have no quarrel with Lumatere, if it is true that’s where you’re from. Tell your people to keep out of our affairs.”
“Why can’t I take her with me, Dorcas?” Froi said, pointing to Quintana. “She’s worthless.”
“My orders are to return the princess to Bestiano. It is imperative that she explains the truth of the curse after all these years of deceit, so the true last-born girls of Charyn can do what they were born to do. It is the role of the riders to keep Charyn secure.”
Dorcas spoke as if he were reciting the original order he had been given.
“Was it your sword that killed Tariq of Lascow?” Froi asked. “Did you follow the order to kill him? Kill all those innocent people in his compound?”
“If I was there, I would have followed orders,” Dorcas said. “But I was sent here. Regardless, I am comforted by the idea that Bestiano brought to justice those who were responsible for planning the murder of our king. The kills were said to be quick and clean.”
“You weren’t there because you’re nothing to them, Dorcas,” Froi said forcefully. “You’ve been assigned to run after a useless princess. You weren’t there because Bestiano and his riders don’t want you to know the truth. That according to the provincari, Bestiano killed the king.”
“The provincari have their own reasons to lie,” Dorcas snapped, and for once Froi saw his uncertainty.
“The riders murdered the rightful heir, Dorcas,” he continued. “The only man who could bring justice to Charyn. And you would have done the same because you’re a fool who doesn’t know how to do anything but follow orders.”
“Bonds? Orders? What’s the difference?” Zabat interrupted. “Your orders are the same, Lumateran.”
“In any case,” Dorcas snapped. “Bestiano’s fight is not with foreigners. It is with the men who planned the murder. So I ask you again to leave and take Lirah of Serker with you. We’re not the street lords. We have no intention of slaughtering without reason.”
“How will the seed be planted?” Quintana asked coldly from the cot.
Everyone turned to stare.
“So the true last-born girls of Charyn can do what they were born to do?” she repeated his words. “Who will fight to be the sire? Will it be Bestiano? Will the riders gather up the girls for him, Dorcas? Will you be reduced to that? Will you kill the fathers who fight to keep their daughters safe?”
Dorcas looked away, uncomfortable.
“Are you envious, Reginita?” Zabat spat out the words. “Isn’t that what you call yourself? Are you envious because your father did not fight for your safety?”
She shook her head. “Just dismayed that the lie we told these years past was futile.”
Zabat’s smile was of unpleasant satisfaction.
“So here is the truth. Was I not always right when no one else would believe me? The reginita, she claimed to be. The little queen.” He looked at Froi. “How many years did we waste listening to her tell the people that she was the only one among the last borns who could break the curse?”
Froi looked at Quintana. He didn’t know what to believe.
“Nothing in the curse said that I would give birth to the firstborn,” she said, her voice cool. “Just that it would be the last who would do so. But I made sure my father gave a royal decree that only the reginita and a last-born male would break the curse. Myself and Tariq, my betrothed, the rightful heir. Anyone else who dared try would be defying the gods. My father was forced to believe me. The king had offended the gods in two kingdoms by then, and no one feared them more than he did.”
“Why would you tell such a lie?” Dorcas asked.
“Why do you think, Dorcas?” she said sadly. “Because I grew up in the palace and had come to understand the baseness of a man’s heart. They branded the last-born girls on our thirteenth day of weeping. Tariq and I knew what that meant. My mother, Lirah, was sold in her thirteenth year. Do you honestly think the branding was for any other reason but to destroy the bodies and spirits of young girls destined to produce the first?”
Zabat’s expression was ugly.
“You made up a story to win your father’s attention. Because he despised his abomination,” Zabat said.
Lirah stood and glared at Zabat, who took a step back. She indicated Froi with a toss of
her head. “He will kill you, fool. Mark my words. I saw him maim four of De Lancey’s men in the godshouse in the blink of an eye.”
The second rider was nervous, staring from the women to Froi. Dorcas looked at Froi uneasily, a film of perspiration on his brow.
“Search him again,” he said.
“Let him go.” Quintana sighed, dismissing Froi with a wave of her hand. “He’s no threat to you or Bestiano. He was sent to end my life, not yours or my father’s. That is the truth. He admitted it to me himself.”
She stood, and the riders stepped toward her. Fear was in the room. Even in Quintana’s eyes. Froi saw it there, combined with fury, and it was directed his way.
“But I want to speak to him first,” she said. “To say that although you’ve betrayed me, Lumateran, I want you to know that those gifts you left me in that little treasure chest with the fan bird etched in its stone are ones that I will always carry in my heart.”
Froi fought hard to conceal every thought that ran through his mind. Every emotion. The thrill and satisfaction that came with the knowledge of what she was trying to tell him.
He looked at Dorcas. He needed to buy time.
“This is not my fight,” he said after a pause.
Dorcas nodded, pleased. Relieved.
“Good to hear. Don’t ever let me see you in these parts again, Lumateran.”
Froi turned to walk away and then stopped.
“Can I . . . ?” Froi looked down, pretending awkwardness. “Can I bid her farewell?” He leaned close to Dorcas. “I did share her bed,” he whispered, “and I did lose a bit of my heart to her. Or to one of those who live inside of her, anyway.”
Dorcas stared from Froi to Quintana and nodded. “Make it quick.”
Froi joined her where she stood beside the cot. He took her hands and felt where she had concealed the daggers he’d buried in the cave. He was impressed with the way the scabbards were perfectly placed.
“Did I ever call you useless?” he asked softly.
“Three times,” she said, her tone sour.
“Three times, you say?”
“Yes, we tend to count the amount of times we’re called useless by one person. Bestiano made mention of it thirty-seven times.”
“My, my, you do have a good memory for details.”
She nodded. “And I do believe you referred to me as worthless moments ago.”
He rubbed her palm intimately and then placed his hands on both her shoulders, feeling the scabbard across her shoulder.
“Their measurement of worth, Princess. Not mine.”
He leaned forward to press a kiss to her mouth. Regardless of the circumstances, she still moved her face slightly so his lips touched her cheek instead.
“You’ve lost that privilege,” she said coolly.
“Pity.”
Froi yanked the two daggers from her sleeve and hurled one at Zabat, catching him between the eyes, the other at the second rider’s thigh as he kicked the man’s sword from his hand and spun Quintana around to retrieve the short sword at her shoulders. He pushed her behind him, smashing Dorcas across the temple with the handle of the sword just as Lirah scrambled for a dagger. The third guard entered the cave, weapon raised, hesitating one moment too long as he stared at the body of the dead man and at Dorcas struggling to his feet. In an instant, Lirah had a sword pointed at the back of the man’s neck and Froi put a foot on Dorcas’s chest.
“I’m going to regret not killing you,” Froi said, looking down at him, “but it’s not in my bond to take your life.”
“And it was in your bond to take his?” Dorcas gasped, pointing to Zabat’s body.
“Zabat has brought war to the edge of my kingdom. My bond is to destroy anyone who is a threat to Lumatere.”
Satisfied that the three riders were tied up securely, Froi stepped outside to where Quintana and Lirah stood. He whistled softly and listened for the whistle in return. They heard it and he followed the sound along the stream and up a path. Arjuro’s head suddenly appeared behind a twisted knot of shrubbery that concealed a low narrow entrance to a cave. Froi gently pushed Lirah before him, then turned, only to see Quintana running.
From him.
Enraged, he tore after her, catching her on an incline, causing them both to tumble to the ground. He heard voices and held a hand over her mouth as they tried to control their ragged breaths. He knew by the sound of the footsteps that there were two others circling.
“Go check on Dorcas,” he heard the rider closest to them say.
A caterpillar found its way across the rider’s boot, and Froi watched Quintana’s finger reach out and softly brush its texture as if she’d never seen anything so strange before. Froi knew the moment she felt its sting, her eyes wide with shock. Forgetting his anger for a moment, he gripped her finger in his fist to soften the pain. When the riders walked away and they heard the last of their footsteps, Froi grabbed her hand and dragged her into the cave where the others hid.
When he was satisfied that the cave entrance was concealed by the shrubs and they were safe for the time being, he turned to where she sat huddled against the wall, her arms clasped around her knees, eyes fixed on Froi’s as if he were some fiend rather than the one who had saved her life.
“You could have got us killed,” he whispered with anger. “All of us. You never run from me again. Do you hear?”
Lirah crouched beside Quintana. “Try to sleep,” she murmured, but Quintana shook her head and whispered in Lirah’s ear, her eyes never leaving Froi’s the whole time.
“No,” Lirah said patiently, “I think you’re both safe for now.”
Through the night, Froi lay awake, listening for every snap of a twig or voice outside. He could see the outline of Quintana sitting up, felt her eyes boring into him. In the morning, when a little light entered the cave, he found her seated exactly as she had been the night before, her eyes fixed on where he was.
“I’m going to catch us something to eat,” he muttered, and before the others could argue against it, he was gone.
That day, the base of the gravina swarmed with more riders. Although it seemed dangerous to catch a hare and risk the Charynites following the scent of it roasting, Froi caught two all the same, figuring that they’d just have to eat them raw if they were hungry enough.
“They know we’re here,” he whispered to the others when he returned. “Their numbers seem to have doubled overnight.”
“Perhaps they’re just passing through on their way to Jidia,” Arjuro said.
“They’re here to stay,” Froi said flatly. “And so are we until they’re gone.”
“I’ve found something.” Gargarin’s voice came from the back of the cave, and Froi followed, squeezing into the nook beside him.
Gargarin took Froi’s hand in the dark and pressed it around a small opening in the stone.
“It could end the moment you crawl in, but it’s worth a try.”
“These caves are supposed to lead to the steps of Jidia, sir.” Quintana’s voice was suddenly there at his shoulders.
“The steps of Jidia are a myth,” Gargarin said.
Froi poked his head inside the space, relieved for once that he wasn’t the size of a Lumateran River man. He climbed in and began to crawl.
“Don’t go too far,” he heard Gargarin order, and the words echoed over and over again.
He didn’t have to. The tunnel led to another cave that was darker by far, but it was a safer place for them to hide.
In their new home, Arjuro built a small fire. Quintana had returned to her indignant self, except when Froi dared to look at her, which produced a savage snarl.
“Lirah mentioned that you managed to smuggle the assassin out of the palace all those years ago, Sir Gargarin,” she said at one point during the night when they were trying to get some sleep. “Rather than toss him into the gravina with my first mother, the oracle.”
It took Froi a moment to realize he was the assassin she was referrin
g to. There was an uneasy silence at the bluntness of her words.
“Who was it?” Arjuro asked Gargarin, when no one spoke. “The babe who died that day?”
“Later,” Gargarin muttered from his bedroll, turning away.
“Now,” Arjuro said. “It’s been too long. I need the truth. So does Lirah.”
“Now you need the truth?” Gargarin said bitterly. “Later, I said.” He stole a look at Quintana.
“Are you waiting for us to sleep before you speak of it, Sir Gargarin?” she asked indignantly. “Because we can’t, you know. Sleep, that is. Not with the assassin here, threatening us and the little king.”
“Us? The little king?” Froi said, looking at the others with disbelief. “Are you all hearing this?”
Lirah closed her eyes as though she had heard it one too many times.
“The Princess claims . . . believes,” she corrected herself, “that she carries the first.”
Quintana made a clicking sound of annoyance with her tongue. “I explained to you, Lirah. I’m actually the queen of Charyn. I was wed to King Tariq in his compound before they slaughtered him. When one is wed to the king, she is given the title of queen regardless of how powerless she remains. I do love a title.”
There was another uncomfortable silence. This time her attention was on Gargarin.
“Is it true you murdered my first mother, the oracle?” she persisted.
Answer her, Froi wanted to shout. So they didn’t have to hear her guileless voice speak of death and carnage.
When it was clear that there would be no sleep for any of them, Gargarin sat up.
“I was handed a child that night said to have been birthed by the oracle,” he said.
“It was the king who placed him in my arms. Told me that the babe would bring Charyn to its knees if he lived. That if I loved my king and believed in the gods, I would do as instructed. First, I was to toss the babe over the balconette into the gravina and then dispose of his dead mother in the same way. Better the people of the Citavita believe that the oracle plunged to her own death than know she was defiled by the Serkers and died giving birth to an abomination.”