Hunted

  “No,” the singer said. He glanced urgently at Lord MacDonnell, who was engaged in conversation at the raised table at the end of the hall. “No one is supposed to stand higher than the lord of the castle. It’s the law.”

  Rollan thought all laws were stupid, but this one was stupider than most. He said, “But I won’t be standing. I’m freeing a bird and then coming right down.”

  The musicians conferred among themselves.

  “No,” the harpist said finally. “I’ll go free her. You’re a guest. You shouldn’t have to risk it.”

  “Risk it?” echoed Rollan. The sight of Essix flapping was making him feel even more uneasy. “She has to be freed! What if she’s hurt? If I’m not supposed to be up there, is he going to do it himself?”

  This made all the musicians glance anxiously at Lord MacDonnell.

  “I’ll just go,” the harpist said. Her voice was brave, but her face looked sick. The other musicians placed their hands on her shoulders and nodded. She moved down the wall to a small door. When she opened it, Rollan saw the steep stairs that led up to the balcony. She disappeared inside.

  The other musicians muttered, twisting their hands. Rollan didn’t get it.

  The harpist reappeared on the balcony above them.

  The musicians kept fretting.

  In just a moment, Essix flapped free of whatever had trapped her on the balcony.

  It was barely a minute. No time at all.

  The harpist moved back toward the staircase at the wall.

  Just then, Lord MacDonnell looked up sharply from his gilded chair. His eyes went right to the balcony. The harpist’s face was pale as the moon.

  Without taking his gaze from her, Lord MacDonnell clapped. Just once.

  Immediately, all sound ceased.

  Lord MacDonnell said, “Do my people not know my law?”

  The hall was quiet.

  “Scribe, what is the sixteenth rule of the hall?”

  A squirrelly boy at the end of the raised table spoke up. “No one shall sit higher than the lord of the castle.”

  Everyone’s eyes were now on the harpist on the elevated balcony.

  “Oh, my lord, I didn’t mean it as a dishonor!” she cried. “I was just trying to —”

  “My castle,” said Lord MacDonnell. “My law.”

  “Please —”

  “Demoted!” Lord MacDonnell shouted. “You are no longer the court harpist. Ten years in the kitchen, then beg for my forgiveness.”

  “My lord,” begged the harpist as the guards approached the doorway to the balcony. “That harp was made by my father.”

  “And you will destroy it right now,” Lord MacDonnell ordered.

  “My lord —”

  “Did you know my law?”

  The harpist hung her head. As Rollan’s heart charged in his chest, she stood there until guards climbed the stairs to fetch her. Limply, she accompanied them and stood before the harp.

  “My castle,” repeated Lord MacDonnell. “My law.”

  Rollan didn’t need Essix’s supernatural eyesight to see how much the instrument meant to the harpist. He couldn’t bear that she’d known this might happen, and risked it anyway for Essix and him.

  Swiftly, Rollan stepped in front of the high table, his hands burning with anger and guilt. He held his chin up high. “It was my fault. She climbed there to free Essix for me.”

  Lord MacDonnell raised a dark eyebrow. “Ah, it is the boy who walks by himself.” He didn’t say anything for a moment, and then he said, “There are three true things in this place: love, death, and the Law of Glengavin. Her punishment remains. But for your bravery in taking responsibility, join me here at the knights’ table. Glengavin is a home to heroes and I see that you are becoming one.”

  Rollan gritted his teeth. The last thing he wanted was to accept a reward for his stupidity. This was all his fault.

  But Meilin, seated at one of the other tables, found his gaze. Her eyes flashed. It was the visual equivalent of her pinching him before. It meant Just do it!

  She was probably right. A nobleman who just ruined a girl’s life for climbing onto a balcony probably could think of something worse for an orphan who refused to sit at his table.

  Rollan looked over his shoulder at the slump-shouldered singer. His blood was starting to boil, but he tamped it down. One day, he thought, nobles won’t be able to do this to us.

  But until then, he sat at Lord MacDonnell’s right hand, three seats away from him. Directly next to the noble was his son, Culloden, eating quietly. And then was Shanna, making shapes in her potatoes. Then Rollan.

  In front of them, the guards stood by as the harpist smashed her own harp. Tears ran down her face and the splinters of the instrument cut her hands, but she didn’t complain anymore.

  Then, as she was led away to the kitchen with slumped shoulders and bloody hands, Lord MacDonnell muttered, as if to himself, “My castle. My law.”

  11: Window

  THAT NIGHT, IN THE WEIRD QUIET OF A BEAUTIFUL, VAST guest room in Glengavin, Conor dreamed of falling out the window into the garden. He heard the tune the musicians had been playing right before Lord MacDonnell had punished the harpist. The song turned discordant and suddenly he saw an animal moving between the manicured perfection of the green gardens. A boar. It was huge and terrifying, all bristles and tusks. When it looked over its shoulder at him, Conor instinctively knew it was no ordinary boar.

  “Rumfuss!” he called. “I need to talk to you!”

  The boar immediately ran through the bushes and into the brushy wild outside of the gardens. The landscape here was scruffy and rocky, with lots of nooks and crannies for smaller animals to hide in. But Rumfuss didn’t seem interested in hiding. Instead, the boar broke into an ungainly gallop and led Conor in a lopsided figure eight, past part of the castle.

  “Wait!” Conor called again.

  Suddenly another animal darted in front of him, through a curtain of purple wisteria. It was an enormous hare — even in the dream it felt familiar, as if Conor had dreamed it before. Its powerful hind legs propelled it one way and then the other. It was running away from Glengavin. When Conor turned back to Rumfuss, the boar was gone.

  “Wolf boy, wake up!”

  It took Conor a moment to realize the hissed voice came from Rollan in the next bed over. He blinked in the darkness.

  “Are you awake?” Rollan whispered. “There’s something outside the window.”

  Conor quietly rolled over to listen. Rollan’s eyes glistened in the faint light from outside. Heavy curtains blocked most of the light and all the landscape, but the other boy was right. Something was shuffling outside the window. It couldn’t be anything good — their room was four stories above the ground and there was no balcony.

  Sliding out of bed, Conor gestured to Briggan. The wolf climbed to his feet and faced the window. His hackles prickled as another scraping sound came from outside.

  The window was cracked and the curtains moved slightly.

  Rollan swung his feet silently over the edge of his bed and pulled a dagger from under his pillow. He held up five fingers, then four, then three. Counting down.

  When he got to one, both he and Conor grabbed a curtain and pulled them open.

  A figure stood on the sill, wild-haired and ferocious. Wind tore at the person’s clothing. The figure balanced precariously on the window ledge. There was nothing behind but dozens of feet of open air.

  Conor gasped, “Meilin?”

  Because it was Meilin. She swayed on the edge of the window. Her eyes were fast shut, her mouth moving. Tears coursed down her cheeks. She barely looked like herself.

  “She’s sleepwalking!” Conor exclaimed, horrified. “Grab her!”

  Rollan and Conor each seized an arm, pulling her into the room. When she landed on the floor with an unceremonious crash, she moaned and shook her head.

  “Wake up,” Conor said gently, shaking her shoulder.

  It was strange to see
her face with tears on it. It must be difficult to know your father was missing and your home city was destroyed. To belong somewhere, and then suddenly to not.

  Rollan leaned over her too, concern written on his face. But when he caught Conor looking, Rollan quickly slapped a smirk on his face and quipped, “Yep, wakey wakey.”

  Retrieving a pitcher of water from beside his bed, he dumped it over her. With a muffled shriek, Meilin leaped from the ground. She pinned Rollan against the wall, her hand against his throat, her hair dripping.

  “I was awake,” she snapped. “Conor woke me.”

  Rollan grinned saucily. “I know.”

  She slapped him. Then, to Conor, she said, “Thank you for pulling me inside.”

  “Hey, I helped,” Rollan protested, but she ignored him.

  “What happened?” Conor asked uncertainly. “What were you doing out there?”

  Meilin stoked the fireplace to give them some more light, and then returned to the window. Now that she was inside, she seemed a little undone by the dizzying height. She gestured to the next window over. “Our room is over there. I must have been sleepwalking. I was dreaming . . .”

  “Were you dreaming of being a spider?” Rollan asked. He joined them at the window, Meilin’s slap mark bright on his cheek. “Because you must have had sticky feet to get from there to here.”

  “No, there’s a tiny ledge,” Conor pointed out. “You’re lucky you didn’t fall, Meilin. I can’t believe you did that while asleep.” He didn’t want to remark on the tear marks still visible on her face, because the idea of pointing them out seemed embarrassing to both him and her. But he was certain that Meilin would never cry while awake.

  Rollan opened his mouth and then shut it again. Meilin’s furious face dared him to say anything.

  “I am going back to my bed,” Rollan said, “because it is good and true and would never lie to me. You two can do what you like.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Meilin said as he climbed back into his bed. “Tomorrow we have a long day ahead of us, looking for Rumfuss.” She placed her hand on the doorknob.

  “Be careful,” Conor warned.

  Rollan jerked his blanket down from his chin. “Are you sure you don’t want to crawl back out of the window?”

  Meilin gave him a withering look and slipped back out into the hall.

  Rollan disappeared back down into his pillows. He muttered, “My castle, my law.”

  12: Voices

  THE FIRST THING ABEKE NOTICED WHEN SHE WOKE UP WAS that it was not quite morning. The room was still blue-edged and black-shadowed, though birds sang thinly outside. The second thing she noticed was that the door was cracked open, and what looked like Uraza’s tail was disappearing through it. Presumably following the rest of Uraza.

  As Abeke pushed herself up and blinked, trying to decide if she had seen the leopard leave, she heard a faint pad-pad-pad-pad and saw Kunaya’s dark form trot out into the hall too.

  “Uraza!” hissed Abeke, shooting a glance at the lump that was Meilin’s sleeping form. This was not the place to go wandering. But the leopard didn’t return.

  “Mwuwuh?” Meilin asked the room sleepily.

  “Uraza’s in the hall,” Abeke replied in a hushed whisper. “I’m going to get her.”

  “Mwuf. Need help?” Even half-asleep, Meilin sounded a little suspicious of Abeke creeping out of the room so early.

  “I am all right!”

  “Mwufay.” The other girl turned back into her pillow.

  Abeke headed down the hall. She could smell the faint scent of bread baking — the bakers up early. Maybe that was what had lured the big cat out of the room. It took her a moment to glimpse the forms of the two cats disappearing around a corner.

  “Uraza!” she hissed once more. But she didn’t dare to do it again. If there was a law against leaving your bedroom door open, surely there was a law against sneaking around while no one else was up. She had no choice but to slink after the two cats.

  Closed doors lined the high-ceilinged hall, and every few yards was an alcove containing something unexpected and magical: a delicate water fountain trailing water over carvings, a cage of sleeping canaries, a pillowed chair with lion’s paws, a tree covered with white blossoms.

  Uraza paused at the next corner, her lavender eyes keen. She wanted the girl to know that she wasn’t trying to be disobedient. This was no helter-skelter chase through a castle. This time, Uraza was leading her.

  Crouching low, Abeke silently caught up to Uraza. Together, the two cats and the girl made their way past the black rectangles of closed doors. From the way the leopard stalked — pausing every few steps — it seemed she wasn’t quite sure where she was going or what she was looking for.

  The hall grew lighter. Gradually Abeke realized she could hear the dull murmur of voices coming from inside one of these many rooms. From the thrashing of Uraza’s tail, this was what she had been looking for. They scouted back and forth, trying to get closer, until Abeke found a long, skinny room full of washbasins. Morning light came in a large window at the end, suddenly strong and bright. One wall was lined with animal-headed fountains, each faucet carved with a different species. Cloths, perfumes, and draping robes sat on a long shelf opposite.

  Abeke pressed her ear to the washbasin wall, and suddenly the voices came into focus.

  “Look,” said a familiar voice, “clearly Lord MacDonnell is a little crazy. But we aren’t going to be here long. All we need to do is find Rumfuss and then find the girl and get out of here before he does any more of his crazy ‘my castle, my law’ stuff.”

  “How will we persuade Rumfuss to give up his talisman?” asked another voice. This one also sounded familiar, and had a Niloan accent. Suddenly Abeke knew who they were — and why Uraza had been so intent on finding them. Devin and Karmo!

  “Give up?” Devin scoffed. “Look at our beasts! We’ll take it.”

  They must have made it to Glengavin in the night! Abeke leaped back from the wall and out of the washroom. She needed to tell the others immediately.

  But as she rounded the corner back to the hall, she was brought up short. She stood face-to-face with Devin Trunswick. Uraza stood nose-to-nose with his black panther, Elda. Behind him stood tall, dark Karmo, and beside him was his huge hammerkop stork, Impundulu. The bird’s head and beak were nearly as long as Karmo’s arm.

  In just a second, Abeke had snatched a large glass bottle of perfume from the table beside her. Makeshift weapon. She had been paying attention in the training room back at Greenhaven.

  “Ah, Abeke,” Devin said with a clever smile that he seemed to have learned from Zerif. He didn’t seem at all concerned by the prospect of getting hit over the head with a perfume bottle. “I don’t intend to murder you. We were just talking about you.”

  “How did you get in here?” Abeke demanded.

  “Glengavin is a hall for heroes,” Devin boomed, clearly mocking Lord MacDonnell. He gestured to his spirit animal, who thrashed her tail. “Elda makes me very popular in Eura.”

  “Not in this particular corridor,” Abeke replied. She jerked her chin toward Karmo. “Who is he?”

  “This is my friend Karmo,” Devin said. “He’s from Nilo too.”

  I know, thought Abeke, with a pang of homesickness. I heard.

  Karmo’s eyes were narrowed, as if Devin and he weren’t particularly friendly. He said, “I’ve come to see if I can change your mind. Come back to us. Come back to Nilo. Our people need us to be beacons of hope.”

  Taken by surprise, she blinked. Was she the girl she had heard them talking about? “What? I am not coming back. I have seen enough to know who fights for what I believe in. The Greencloaks are the good guys.”

  Karmo raised a dark, handsome eyebrow. He was the sort of boy that her sister, Soama, would have been silly over back home. “Are they?”

  Abeke nodded. “I am very fortunate that they allowed me to switch sides. They understand the value of mercy, unlike your mast
er, Zerif.”

  Devin scoffed. “They would not have killed you, Abeke. You know that. You walk with Uraza. The Greencloaks want you alive.”

  Abeke didn’t like this conversation. There wasn’t any chance that she would fight with the Conquerors again, but it awoke all kinds of unpleasant tangled feelings inside her. For a pained moment she thought of Shane, the friend she’d had to leave behind. “You won’t convince me, Devin. My spirit animal chooses the Greencloaks.”

  “But is she right?” Karmo broke in gently.

  “Of course she is! She’s a Great Beast!” The fierceness of Abeke’s reply made Uraza growl beside her. Abeke could feel the power of Uraza seeping into her, preparing her for a fight. Her nerves danced. Next to Devin, Elda dropped down, tail thrashing even harder, her black fur scuffed up threateningly. Impundulu clawed the floor with one foot. The atmosphere felt charged and dangerous.

  “The Great Beasts aren’t always right,” Karmo said. “They may mean well, but just like humans, their decisions are fallible. After all, aren’t you and I here in search of a Great Beast who flees us both?”

  Abeke didn’t want to admit that he was right. But Uraza was not like Rumfuss. She’d died standing up for what she believed in.

  “Abeke, I came to bring you back so that you and I could lead Nilo to a better future,” Karmo said. He held out a hand. “Come with me?”

  He asked in such a mild, kind way. Not at all as if his hammerkop stood threateningly beside him, one foot raised, giant beak parted.

  “I have chosen my side,” Abeke said harshly.

  Devin shrugged. “Well, you’re coming with us either way. Karmo?”

  Abeke swung the perfume bottle just as Uraza sprang at Elda. Devin let out a muffled cry as he blocked the blow. Karmo stood by quite calmly. As Abeke reached up to swing again, Impundulu flapped its wings. Lifting from the ground, the bird punched its legs into Abeke’s abdomen.

  There was an arcing flash of light as the bird’s feet touched Abeke. The contact was more than a blow — it was a jolt. Her limbs suddenly went numb. Karmo was on her in a moment, pinning her arms behind her. Kunaya had appeared from nowhere and she wound around Abeke’s legs, mewing piteously. Uraza and Elda fought in the hall, making soft thumps when their bodies hit the walls. Elda was larger, but Uraza was greater. She would win a battle against the black panther . . . but then what? There were still two humans against Abeke, and another spirit animal with strange abilities.