The cloth of the turban lifted, and she found herself facing the same gray eyes she had first witnessed inside a burning tent. “You believe this system could work?” His face had not changed, despite months of tragedy. His skin remained the same ageless brown as before. Those eyes were not empty.
“I have seen it work,” she replied. “In the Outer Realms, it is successful now.”
His gaze traveled between Aurelia and Robert. “This is your mission?”
“Yes,” they replied.
“And if someone else were chosen to define this role first, you would support that leader?”
“Yes.”
“And if you were chosen, you would accept the role?”
“Yes.”
“The future will hold you to that promise.” The Oracle stood in one long graceful movement. “Very well, Aurelia Lauzon. If this is your true mission, we will join you.”
Chapter Three
CONFESSION
Aurelia’s heart pounded at her first view of the horses. For a moment she forgot the city, now at her back. The high wall with its vigilant guards. The desert riders ringing the herd. And the silent guide whom the Oracle, only hours before after making his pledge, had assigned to escort her and Robert here, beyond the Darzai wall. To the sole remaining herd of the southern Geordian.
Her gaze took in the long necks, high withers, deep chests. Heads arched, eyes penetrating the approaching invaders. Tails flicked with rejection. Muscles burst into sudden speed, the mares circling in a wash of color: copper, bronze, gold as the late afternoon, black as the obsidian cliff above the river at their side, red as the crimson sand beneath their hooves.
Then a shrill whistle ripped through the air.
Robert’s hand gripped Aurelia’s arm. Tight.
A bay stallion burst from the herd. He reared, muscles rippling, his red-brown coat gleaming in the falling sunlight. Horizon. Aurelia had no doubt of his identity. Those hooves had saved her life, carried her through nightmare. And killed for her.
Another whistle—the tone shrilled through Robert’s fingers.
And upraised forelegs fell. Horizon launched into an approaching gallop. He bolted across the open stretch, sand flying from beneath his hooves.
Then a second horse broke free of the herd. A chestnut mare! Her legs sailed into flight just behind the stallion. Competing. She stretched her long neck forward as though to close the gap.
But the stallion gave no ground. He swept past Aurelia and Robert in a wide circle, sending their guide stumbling back for safety.
Horizon reared again, less than five feet away.
Robert pushed Aurelia behind him.
But she refused to stay hidden, her heart with the mare. Falcon—who was still trying to challenge, now nipping at the stallion’s hindquarters.
Horizon ignored her, his focus instead on his true rider.
Robert held out his hands.
And the stallion’s hooves dropped to the sand, then took a step. Another closed the space. Horizon tossed his head and snorted, as though voicing one final complaint. Then lowered his neck. And Robert’s arms were around it, his face in the red-brown coat, his back shuddering with sobs.
At once Aurelia felt like an intruder.
The mare thrust her way forward, trying to push into that unbreakable embrace. To no avail.
Neither Robert nor the stallion paid any heed.
Falcon backed away, then stomped the earth in protest.
And why not? Aurelia tried to quell her own jealousy. The mare had been hers only a couple of months. Was it any wonder Robert was the one her horse remembered? He had raised Falcon. Aurelia tried to murmur her horse’s name, but no sound exited. She raised her palms in an open gesture of helplessness.
The movement drew that pair of black eyes. Then bronze ears flicked toward her.
Aurelia felt her throat close.
Falcon edged forward, stretching her neck as far as it might reach to sniff Aurelia’s open hands. The nostrils flared, then swept forward, tracing Aurelia’s skin. Her arm, her shoulder, her face. And then a whicker of recognition stormed her heart. The nose pushed at her chest, demanding response. Her arms came around Falcon’s neck, and the mare whickered again, the muscles in her throat flexing. Strong.
Aurelia laughed, bordering on a sob. She had failed the refugees. Had failed the desert. Had feared she had failed this spirited competitor as well. But the warmth of the breath blowing on the back of her own neck proved otherwise.
I have not failed Falcon. Aurelia closed her eyes and let herself rest.
She had no idea how long she remained there in the incredible solace of the mare’s friendship. The tribesmen guarding the herd made no attempt to disturb her. Nor did the guide who must have joined them.
It was Horizon, or rather his snort, that at last led Aurelia to look up.
To find Robert grinning down at her from the height of his mount. “Care to race bareback?” he asked.
As though there was any chance she might refuse. She had filched a pair of his old riding trousers to wear beneath her skirt. Aurelia swung herself onto Falcon’s back, then wrapped her fingers in the mare’s red-brown mane. “How far?”
“Until we defeat you.” He leaned low and set off at a gallop west along the river’s edge.
Falcon did not await permission. The mare plunged forward into the sunset. The sky had joined the desert, a matching vibrant red. The sand, the air, and the reflective Fallchutes River all burned around her.
And Aurelia soared.
She did not bother to command. She knew Falcon would challenge Horizon as hard and fast as she could. The stallion would eventually win, but it did not matter. The attempt was what mattered. That and the spirit within the mare that made her crave the chance. The opportunity to challenge the odds. Despite the impossible.
Aurelia closed her eyes and gave herself up to flight.
Until Robert, long since lost amid that fiery future, circled back. “Enough?” he asked.
Falcon stamped her hooves and snorted.
“Never,” Aurelia laughed, but she smoothed her hands over her horse’s wild mane and sat upright, then reluctantly turned her mount back toward the city.
They had raced farther than Aurelia had fathomed. The herd was a mere blur in the wake of the crimson wall.
The return ride began in silence, her mind retracing the day: the fear that had consumed her first steps ashore, her horror at the sight of the injured refugees, and that terrifying precipice in the Oracle’s tent.
“Thank you,” she blurted to Robert.
He arched an eyebrow. “For putting an end to your crushing defeat?”
Defeat had been close but with much higher stakes. “For helping to convince the Oracle to support the frontier.”
Robert’s eyes met hers, wavered, and then looked away. “I did nothing.”
Which was like him. And so frustrating.
She brought the mare closer to the stallion. “The Oracle had already refused me.”
“You only needed to tell him the truth.” Robert straightened his shoulders. “Your argument convinced him.”
An argument I didn’t even remember to make.
He urged the stallion ahead of her. As though suddenly their return to the tribesmen and herd in the distance was of prompt import.
Don’t argue with him, she told herself. He’s the only one you have. She had checked her tongue with that thought a hundred times in the Outer Realms. Had skirted the truth in order to avoid any conflict that might risk the balance of their relationship.
But here, on Tyralian soil, the old chastisement lacked power. She called after him: “And thank you for supporting my return home.”
He pulled up sharp.
“Don’t thank me for that, Aurelia.” His tone was harsh, and he rode forward again.
Honestly! She wanted to demand that he accept the credit for something.
Why? her conscience scolded. So you can convince yours
elf he’s as flawed as you?
She knew he was better than her. He deserved better. But she could not risk losing him by voicing those truths, not any more than she could admit her doubts about the mission. So she unleashed her tongue. “What can I thank you for then, Robert? Your loyalty? I suppose someone else is to blame for that trait?”
He glanced back over his shoulder at her, his lips tight, and then turned away again.
“Or for keeping us alive?” she called. “Oh, no, I’m sure that’s not your fault either.”
He kept riding.
“Or for being the only human being in the world who really cares whether I live or die!” she shouted.
The stallion and rider whirled, spinning back to her.
“Grow up, Aurelia,” Robert said. “Everyone cares whether you live or die.”
“No.” She yanked the key out from beneath the neckline of her blouse. “They care whether the former crown princess of Tyralt lives or dies. They don’t even see me.” But she knew he did. He was the one person who had seen her torn apart. He knew her flaws and her temper and still had the guts to disagree with her.
Robert pointed toward the refugee camp above the city. “The man in that tent up there just pledged the remnants of his entire people to support you.”
“To support freedom,” she replied, dropping the key. There was a difference.
“Drew Fielding sailed all the way to the Outer Realms for you. And is headed back to the capital at the peril of his own life.”
“To undermine Melony.”
“Those men”—Robert gestured ahead of her to the distant riders circling the herd—“are going to war for you.”
“For the Oracle.”
He raised his face to the sky, then exhaled and ran his fingers through his hair.
She spoke again. “Just accept my thanks, Robert.”
“I don’t deserve your thanks for coming home!” His hands flew down with vehemence.
Falcon reared, and Aurelia had to secure her grip with her knees. She maintained her seat but struggled to understand. She had goaded him, true, but that did not explain the anguish on his face.
His left hand clenched into a fist and pressed against his forehead.
The mare calmed, taking a tentative step forward. And Aurelia softly asked, “Why not, Robert?”
“Because—” The fist fell. He paused as though struggling for breath, then continued. “If I’d been true to you, I would have argued. If I’d placed you first, I would have tried to convince you to stay in the Outer Realms. But I …” His eyes lifted, looking past her toward the sunset. And the frontier. “Aurelia, I didn’t come back for you.”
He came back for Tyralt.
A pure, inexplicable joy winged through her. For two years they had disagreed about one elemental thing: her safety. Whether her safety was more important than Tyralt. And now, he had chosen to place their country first.
Which meant she had won.
“Oh.” A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “I see.”
“Well, I don’t.” He whirled his stallion away.
And Aurelia grinned.
She had forgotten how wonderful it was to argue with Robert.
Chapter Four
DEPARTURE
Five hundred armed men awaited the signal for departure. Bows crisscrossed backs. Sabers at waists. Knife hilts alongside. Saddles bristled with arrows. Every man had a mount. Aurelia circled Falcon up against the city’s outer wall, dismounted, and gazed at the group assembled across the same stretch of sand she and Robert had raced upon only thirty-odd hours before. A hundred and fifty desert warriors. The rest: citizens of Darzai.
She had expected none of the latter—had made her plea to the city’s citizens the previous morning in the main plaza, but there had been no more than a dozen observers. No others had come. No one had asked questions. She had left the plaza with her chin raised in the face of defeat.
Yet at dawn, when she and the Oracle’s men had ridden out of the city, the Darzai Guard had followed. And behind them, riders had continued to flow: blacksmiths, tanners, clerks, merchants—men she would have expected to have had no training. But all had formed into ranks, the leaders already designated. Tribesmen on the left. The Darzai to her right. An invisible line between them.
Two men crossed that line. The Oracle, who like herself had paused to speak with as many people as possible. And Robert, checking supplies.
Every time she had looked for him since their argument, he had been busy: running supply trips, organizing the medical wagon, designating individuals to inspect horses and weapons for soundness. Avoiding her.
She doubted he had slept.
“Your man, he is different,” a female voice spoke from close behind her.
Aurelia whirled and found herself caught in Mirai’s critical gaze.
The Oracle’s daughter wore no veil. Her long robes hung in tatters. Her hair had been sliced off into short ebony tufts, less than an inch long. Two scars marred the toffee-brown skin of her left arm—the first a long, pale mark, the second an angry red wound, both too shallow to have come from an attack and too straight to have been inflicted by accident. “The men of the Geordian,” Mirai spoke again, “they do not permit their women to go to war.”
“Did you wish to fight?” Aurelia asked, squelching the desire to defend herself. This woman had lost her husband and a son. She had not—to Aurelia’s knowledge—left the birthing tent until now, when she was losing a father.
The critical eyes did not blink. “I am to remain here. To lead those of us who are left.”
“Then you too shall complete a task that women of the desert do not do.”
Mirai’s gaze turned toward the tribesmen. The defenders of her people. Did she, like her father, believe they had gathered to fight a war for a region that had betrayed their own? Did she believe the riches of the frontier had lured this open attack from the neighboring kingdom—the assault that had all but annihilated her own culture? Because it was in the way.
Aurelia shuddered. Her entire country was in Anthone’s way. The grain of the frontier, the furs of the Quartian Shelf, the orchards of the Central Valley. Tyralt City with its great port, the palace, and the crown. Edward of Anthone would covet all her country’s treasures, as he had the magnificent horses of the Geordian.
“These warriors are all that remain of my people’s strength,” Mirai continued. “They are sacrificing everything.”
As if I do not know. As if I am not aware of what I have asked. Perhaps Mirai—and Robert before her—had the right to challenge Aurelia. Who else would even consider making such a request of these men? Was that why Drew had come for her? Because only someone raised believing she deserved the crown would dare to ask so many people to risk so much?
But the warriors of the Geordian could not stay here, slumped in the shadows of refugee tents. These men sat their legendary mounts as though born for this purpose. She knew what they were risking. They all knew.
Silence stretched around settled hooves, strapped packs, secured canvas. The men had grown still. Watchful.
Then a sharp cry ripped through the silence. A warrior separated himself from the rest. His black steed swept into the gap between forces, then reared up on hind hooves. The rider ducked his head in the Oracle’s direction, then yanked his own bow from his back, spun toward Aurelia, and fired.
She had no time to scream.
The tip buried itself in the sand at Mirai’s feet. The scarred woman lifted the arrow. And sliced the point down her right arm.
Blood drained to the sand.
This time Aurelia’s scream vocalized, but it was buried by a hundred other cries. A call to arms. The riders set off, their wild voices drowning the sounds of slapping reins and pounding hooves.
Mirai had stepped away, smothering the blood with her tattered robes. She lifted the hand of her swathed arm, touched the fingertips to her forehead, and held them out in a gesture of salutation. Sacrifici
ng everything, she had said.
Aurelia wanted to argue with the statement. With the reckless gesture she had just witnessed. With the thought that blood should symbolize their departure. But ahead of her rode five hundred men. To face an entire army.
Yes, she thought as she swung up on Falcon’s back and joined the departure. We are.
• • •
Urgency burned within Aurelia’s chest as the forces rode for hours across the crimson sand. Obsidian cliffs towered above, and the high spring waters of the Fallchutes rolled with unharnessed power as though threatening to drag the riders backward. There was no way of knowing if they were already too late. If the Anthonian army had crushed whatever defense the people of the frontier had managed to assemble.
The key of Tyralt burned at her throat, the silver object a symbol of failure. And the need for redemption. If only I had been strong enough to hold the crown—
Aurelia sliced off the thought, her eyes searching reflexively for Robert. But he was lost amid hundreds of riders. She told herself his avoidance was not about her—that he was fighting himself, fighting the fact that he cared more about their country than his relationship with her. Futile, she knew, because she had lost the same battle a thousand times.
The sky turned blood red again that evening. Men gathered on the rocks, stretching fishing nets. And the scent of cooked trout permeated the air as true darkness fell over an array of pallets and a sprinkling of tents. Small fires flickered around the edge of camp, their light forming a massive ring and luring the men to their side. Including Robert, who at last emerged from the darkness, eluded her gaze, and seated himself across the smoke of the leaders’ campfire.
She had sat this night in the open space between the Oracle and the Captain of the Darzai Guard. For solidarity. There could be no gap between her forces. Tomorrow she would fill a space in another circle around a different campfire. Then another. And another.
The Oracle began to speak, his words rising with the flames. The Darzai captain, his lieutenants, and half a dozen desert warriors stilled to listen. The desert’s spiritual leader had chosen the language of the Geordian, but an interpreter translated, their voices twining with the themes of sacrifice, overcoming great odds, and magic.