Redemption

  Her fingers scrabbled for a canteen. Water doused the poison from her mouth, but not the knowledge that—for every mile of her journey thus far, another charred nightmare might exist. Her stomach lurched again, and again she was sick.

  She did not bother to hide her reaction from the men around her. Aurelia’s Forces, the words had poured off the lips of the displaced settlers swelling the trading post. Boys bearing rifles, girls wrangling younger siblings, mothers with infants clutched to their breasts. “Aurelia’s forces are here,” the voices had whispered, “to save us.” All her life, Aurelia had wished to be known as herself rather than a title, and now she knew the true heft of having a dream become reality. The faith in those voices had eclipsed any form of expectation she had ever faced as crown princess.

  “Our men are holed up under siege in Crossin’ Canyon,” the settlers had told her. “Hurry!” Their pleas of desperation for fathers, sons, and husbands echoed within her mind. She had no choice now but to continue toward that canyon. There was nothing else she or the men with her—many of whom no doubt relived their own nightmares—could do for victims with graves already dug.

  Was loss the same as love?

  She would not think about love now. Five hundred men rode at her back, but no one at her side. She had counted on Robert’s flaws to protect her—his faulty insistence that she came first when there was so much of greater importance to defend. But he had not returned to Tyralt for her. And his admission of that truth had dissolved a barrier guarding her heart.

  Twice more in the following twenty-four hours, she and her forces rode through acres of ash. A farm. And then a settlement. She had been here before—remembered the blacksmith’s shop, the general store, the livery. All gone. She tried not to think what the ashes signified—what they meant for Mary and Brian Vantauge, who had taken her in and given her the best memories of her life. Or of what the ashes would mean to Robert. If he lived. If—

  She could not think about Robert now—could only plunge headfirst into fire. Due north. Toward the darkest center of the haze.

  Another day’s journey.

  Then a galloping horse and its rider came out of that darkness.

  Around her, the desert men yanked bows off their backs. Fingers fitted arrows, pulling strings taught. The Oracle rode up along Falcon’s side. He raised his hand, restraining the men from firing.

  Aurelia took note of the approaching horse: its tall, rangy body, the white halo within the gray face, and there!—a pronounced white blanket with gray spots across the hips, a pattern unique to the mustangs of the frontier.

  The rider ignored the arrows and rode straight toward her. Tanned leather trousers hugged the mustang’s sides, and a matching coat bunched around the man’s stocky shoulders. No sign of rank decorated his frontier garb as he pulled up before her. Dirt stained his dark face, and his chest heaved. “How many?” he gasped. “How many men?”

  He must be a scout. Who else would ask for numbers in the face of all those arrows?

  She gave him the exact count Robert had completed after their first day’s ride. “Five hundred and twenty.”

  “No.” The scout lifted in his seat, craning his neck as though to look past the entire force. “How many comin’? How many in all?”

  “Th-these are all,” she stuttered.

  Horror cracked the dirt on his face. “Five hundred?” he whispered. “We heard fifteen.”

  Fifteen hundred men? She recognized the culprit. Rumor. Half the people at the trading post had claimed to have expected her for weeks. Impossible unless Drew had spilled his own imaginings before ever setting sail. But she knew more likely Robert had been correct when he had told her that the point of her survival in exile was hope. The frontiersmen had been trapped, heard of her sister’s refusal to come, and needed to believe in someone. That help would come from somewhere.

  Aurelia shook her head.

  “But we’ve started the fight”—the scout’s voice vibrated as he tugged at a feathered talisman around his throat—“left the canyon and gave up our location. We’d heard word of one thousand five hundred—”

  Her heart skidded along her ribs. “How far?” she asked him. “How far to the canyon?”

  He twisted his torso back toward the smoke. “Half a mile. They’ve been layin’ us siege for nigh a month. We’ve been watchin’ fer reinforcements. Lookin’ fer riders in this direction. When one of the scouts spotted ya this mornin’, blokes went crazy shoutin’ and hollerin’. Captain ordered an offensive. Figgered a bit a chaos would help disguise yer arrival.”

  She realized if Anthone’s army had spotted her forces first, then lain in wait inside the darkened haze, it could have been slaughter.

  It could still be slaughter.

  The Oracle turned to the desert men, lifting his voice in two languages as he gave commands.

  She kept her focus on the scout. “How many frontiersmen?” she demanded.

  “Lost most afore the siege. Nigh six hundred left.” He spun his horse back toward the canyon.

  She lifted her reins. “And how many soldiers from Anthone?”

  “Maybe five thousand.”

  The leather bit into her palm. Riders jostled past her. High knees. Whipping hands. Hooves thundering north. Eleven hundred men against a force of five thousand.

  We will all die, Aurelia thought.

  And for the first time she was grateful the young man usually at her side was not.

  • • •

  Robert would never know how long he knelt at his parents’ graves. There was nothing beyond the ash and the names carved in the wooden markers. Nothing but the bleak gray haze of memory. His parents were dead. His mother who had defined love. Who had never harmed a human being in her entire life. And had taught him that every soul—every heart—was precious. He could not imagine a world without her. Or without his father. Brian Vantauge had always been the voice inside: warning of danger, imparting advice, and demanding that his son live up to his conscience.

  The sound of hooves, not Horizon’s, approached from behind. Robert did not lift his head. He carried no weapon. Had slipped from his stallion’s back to the graves with no thought of self-defense. Neither vengeance nor blood held a place in his vision. If he died now, he deserved his fate. He should have been here. Should have tried to convince his parents to leave. Should have stayed at their sides when they refused and helped them defend this land they loved.

  “It’s yers, ya know,” a frontier accent broke the silence.

  Zhensen. The voice peeled through damp layers of grief.

  “Yer father didn’t think ya’d want it,” the neighbor continued. “But it’s yers all the same.”

  The man’s statement made no sense. Nor did his presence.

  Robert buried his head in his arms. Nothing should make sense now.

  “Saw yer tracks down by the creek,” the neighbor added. An awkward thud sounded, then a hand closed on Robert’s shoulder. “It happened early. Blokes were just formin’ up. There were those as wanted yer father to take on the leadership a’ the whole defense. Reckon he wouldn’t a’ been a bad choice. Had a reputation fer keepin’ his head.”

  My father never led anyone.

  “Folks called it a patchwork assault,” Zhensen continued. “Enemy burned out a place every twenty miles. Must’ve thought they’d scare us out a’ tryin’ to fight. But when yer parents were killed, that put an end to any talk a’ surrender. Whole region joined up. And the rest a’ the frontier went with her.”

  Robert raised his gaze again to his parents’ names. “My father would never have left my mother.”

  “He never did.” A knotted crutch plunged into the charred earth beside the graves.

  And Robert realized that the neighbor now had only one leg. Shock might have registered on another day. This man had fought. And come back.

  Zhensen leaned on the crutch, then added, “We talked once, yer father and I, ’bout if there were any messages we ought to shar
e with family … if things didn’t go as we’d wish.”

  Robert had a vague memory of seeking advice. Clarity.

  “Yer father loved ya,” Zhensen relayed. “He knew ya knew that but wanted to be sure ya also knew he was proud. Said he’d’ve chosen an easier path fer ya than the one yer on, but he reckoned ya have yer mother’s heart.”

  Which meant what?

  The neighbor turned toward his horse and unstrapped an object from behind the saddle. “He said if ya ever want the land, it’s yers. And if ya don’t, well, he left this.”

  Steel. The man unsheathed the symbol of death and guilt and failure Robert had tried to outrun. He forced himself to face the weapon. The sculpted hilt. The Vantauge crest. The narrow blade.

  His father had chosen not to fight. And died anyway. Did that mean the choice was wrong?

  No. Because he died with my mother. He chose not to leave her.

  Numbly, Robert accepted his father’s sword.

  • • •

  A fog of smoke and gunpowder obscured Aurelia’s vision.

  Boom! Cannon roared in the haze. Falcon reared, shoulders rising, then twisting. Aurelia clung to her mount, fingers clutching the mare’s neck, her knees hugging the horse’s sides. Hooves came down, slamming the ground, then slamming again.

  Aurelia lost the reins. Curse it! She had no sense of direction—knew only that the canyon’s edge was somewhere in front of her. Or perhaps behind if the mare had turned around.

  Someone clutched at the mare’s bridle. An arm reached for Aurelia’s waist.

  No. She thrust the arm away. She could not become unseated—could not lose her horse in this melee.

  Shouts rose through a lull in the cannon fire. “Not far enough!”

  “Can’t find the captain!”

  “Caught beneath the guns!”

  None of the voices was recognizable. How had she lost track of the desert riders? What had happened to the Oracle? But, of course, he must lead his men.

  I am supposed to lead, came her next ludicrous thought. As if she would know where to go. As if she had any idea how to wage a battle. She had been trained in a classroom where war was only about taking the next hill on the map. Terrain; she remembered the emphasis from her studies. Commanders were supposed to take into account their terrain. But how was she supposed to do that? How could anyone when they could not even see?

  Somehow she had imagined war like a scene in the giant paintings that had decorated the palace. Paintings in which the leader always rode ahead on a magnificent steed and raised a sword as though pointing the way. As though the sight of that commander had given the army the strength they had needed to win the battle. No one would have bought a painting of what she saw now: a gray fog, her horse’s neck, and the hindquarters of another horse.

  Spots. There were spots on those hindquarters. Aurelia blinked, squeezing the sting of soot from her eyes; yet those spots remained.

  Rifles fired ahead of her.

  Falcon tried to break away, but the mare’s attempt failed.

  Because someone still had hold of the bridle. The rider ahead must be the scout. They were moving. He was leading Aurelia somewhere. Had she imagined it or had Falcon just lurched downward?

  A wall rose on the right. Jagged rocks, eroded earth, defiant sage. The canyon. There must be some form of ledge beneath the mare’s hooves. And beneath that—nothing. Aurelia had no sense of height. Her gaze clung to the wall. No control.

  Gunfire echoed. Close? Or far away? She could not tell.

  And then the wall was gone.

  A cry hurled into the emptiness.

  Her voice rebounded back at her.

  Boom! Again the cannon roared. Falcon reared. And Aurelia clutched at the mare’s neck. Don’t fall. Please don’t fall. She pictured the mare’s hooves writhing over air, then tumbling down, down into nothing.

  Suddenly the scout stood in the fog below her. He was shouting something—words she couldn’t discern beyond the reverberation of the cannon. He was motioning now, gesturing for Aurelia to dismount alongside him.

  Then Falcon lowered her hooves—and did not fall. Her sides heaved, her breath blowing fast.

  Aurelia eased to solid earth. Her fingers sought the bridle and secured the reins.

  A brusque grip clutched at her elbow, and the scout directed her into hollow stone. A cave. Its mouth large enough for the mare as well.

  Curved walls captured the man’s voice. “Stay here!” he shouted. “Until someone comes.”

  What if no one came? Who would know to come if the scout died? And what right did she have to be afraid when he and those other men were facing that cannon? Retreat, she wanted to tell them; but what did she know? Perhaps the Anthonian army would follow into the canyon, herding Tyralt’s forces to bloody death. Though, otherwise, wouldn’t her forces still die a bloody death out in the open?

  “Don’t worry, yer Highness. They’ll know, when they come, who ya are.”

  Who would know?

  The answer came with the echoes of gunfire. The enemy. She had thought of the members of the Anthonian army as only soldiers. Men ordered to complete a task. But in this canyon, amid the fog and the noise, those men were the enemy. And when they came—as they would once the battle was lost—scouring the canyon’s caves for any remaining survivors, the enemy would find her. The scout might assume that if they knew who she was, they would ransom her; but Aurelia knew otherwise. She was worth more to Edward dead than alive.

  The scout’s form slid away. He maneuvered around her mare, then remounted his mustang.

  And was gone.

  She was left alone to listen.

  The cannon boomed in her stomach, the weapons’ power intensified a thousand times by isolation. Her hearing seemed to block out all her other senses. She could not tell if the air was damp or dry, if she was thirsty or tired, if she felt safer inside the cave or out.

  She hovered at its edge, her own uselessness binding her in. She could not fire a bow or rifle. Had made some headway with a knife in weapons practice, but remained hopeless with a sword. Her capture in the battle above would cost the frontiersmen far more than she could offer.

  At last she trekked deeper into the cave’s mouth until Falcon could go no farther. Aurelia did not dare leave the mare, not when the horse still shuddered at every shot of the cannon. Aurelia sank to the stone floor, wrapped her arms around her knees, and tried to block out the screams assaulting her mind. Not the real cries from the battle. She was too distant to hear those. But she had heard death before, in the desert. The memory of those screams was multiplied a thousand times into the voices of all who had been lost since then and all who were dying now.

  Then a new sound. High-pitched.

  Followed by gunfire even more explosive than that which had come before. The cracks of muskets and rifles seemed to penetrate the veins in the cave walls. She buried her face in her knees, her head in her arms, and told herself the fighting meant the frontier had not yet faced defeat.

  Boom! Cannon fired again. Boom! Her grip on her knees tightened.

  Time had dissipated. She knew only sound and fear and darkness.

  She tried to think about Tyralt. About her reasons for coming home. The mission. The people of the desert, Darzai, the Asyan, the capital, the frontier. Her belief that this country and its people deserved freedom. A freedom neither she nor any of the men now fighting for Tyralt was ever likely to see.

  “Yer Highness?”

  She jerked at the voice of the scout.

  He crouched at her side. “D’ya hear me, Highness? Yer reinforcements are here.”

  Was he alive or a ghost? Was that why she had failed to hear his approach? “I-I came with them,” she stammered.

  “No—that is, yes, those desert fighters’ve been here. Looks like they’ve taken Viper Ridge too. But the reinforcements—the rest of the numbers we were expectin’. They’ve arrived. Attacked the left flank. Opened this whole fight! Seem to be carryi
n’ whistles.”

  “Whistles?”

  “Yes, Yer Highness. Didn’t ya hear? Screecha whistles. Maybe a thousand!”

  A thousand. Aurelia’s heart raced.

  But they were not her men—her reinforcements. Because there were none.

  “Brought their leader to ya,” the scout added.

  And at that moment, another figure arrived in the cave. A man in a long, dark coat.

  He went down on one knee at her feet and despite the dismal light, she recognized him. Could visualize in his silhouette a man she had met once before.

  The Heir of Valshone.

  He clutched his fist to his chest. “At your service, Your Majesty.”

  Chapter Seven

  THE VULTURE

  As morning light struggled to pierce the thinning haze, Aurelia forged her way up the final stretch of the canyon’s north ridge. The fighting had stopped, though the air had yet to clear. Her steps, and Falcon’s behind her, wound through a scattering of ragged frontiersmen. They sat as partners, back to back, shoulders propped against each other. Half of each pair slouched beneath the shield of sleep; the other half stared as though blind, rifle in hand, eyes ringed in shadow. In the distance, a blur of still-mounted desert riders lined what she assumed must be Viper Ridge. What they saw below, she could not yet fathom.

  Victory smelled of death. Rotten meat, emptied bowels, the remnants of smoke. Ravens circled in the gray sky, their black wings slicing through the fading haze. And Aurelia’s chest.

  “Your Majesty …” the Heir’s voice dragged at her heels. “This is no place for royalty.”

  Who more than royalty holds the blame for war?

  She crested the slope and forced herself to confront the battlefield. Thousands clogged the space. A sea of Anthonian gray, their ranks suspended from firing. The Valshone, garbed in black, ringed the entire field like a noose—holding the stalled gray army, the wounded from both sides, and the dead. Corpses of men were slumped over oxcarts, gun carriages, and deceased horses. Human bodies had been stripped, burned, defaced. Heaped in piles as though stacked to form ramparts. The voices of the wounded drifted upward. Not the screams of mindless agony she had imagined the night before, but words, begging for bullets to stop the pain.