Froi got to his feet, but Arjuro grabbed the cuff of his trousers and dragged him down to sit again.
“If she births this child and they allow her to live, the best plan is that the provincari allow her to stay in the palace to raise the little king herself. She will be wed to one chosen by the provincari, and it won’t be you, Froi. It won’t be the son of the king’s Serker whore. It won’t be the Lumateran exile who has found himself in these parts. Charyn won’t care who the father of the child is, as long as there is a child. But they will care who brings up the future king. And it won’t be the grandson of a pig farmer from Abroi.”
Froi looked away, but Arjuro grabbed his face between his hands. “You are better than anything my brother and I could have imagined,” he said fiercely. “Better than anything Lirah of Serker dreamed of in her boy. Walk away from Quintana, Froi. For her sake and yours. Fall in love with another girl and be a king in your own home.”
Chapter 33
From the carnage in the valley came some kind of order in the mountains for Lucian. Despite the fact that Phaedra chose to continue her work among the camp dwellers, Lucian insisted that she live with the Monts and travel down to her people with Jory as her personal guard. On the first day after the slaughter, Lucian rode down with them to see how the cave dwellers were faring. He found the Charynites silent and grieving, frightened by the stories coming out of the Citavita. There was also rumor of plague in the north.
“It’s just talk,” Kasabian said as they watched one of the cutthroats steer a cart of bodies toward the road to Alonso. “Every once in a while they bring up the plague to frighten us, as though there’s not enough in this kingdom to do that.”
“Well, it’s working,” Harker said. He was the husband of Jorja and the father of Florenza, who had escaped through the sewers.
Lucian noticed that Harker and Kasabian and even Cora treated him differently today, as though compared to those who had savagely cut down Rafuel’s men, Lucian had lost his place at the top of their list of enemies.
“Where do you think they’re taking the bodies?” Lucian asked, looking up to where the leader of the cutthroats emerged from one of the caves. The man held up a hand of acknowledgment, walking toward them as though Lucian was an old friend.
“Who is this Rafuel of Sebastabol?” Kasabian whispered to Lucian. “I don’t remember there ever being any other than the seven.”
“They’ve … they’d,” Cora corrected herself, “always kept private, those lads did.”
The leader reached them, extending a hand to Lucian.
“We didn’t get a chance to introduce ourselves yesterday. My name is Donashe of the Citavita,” he said, an easy manner to his voice so unlike the deadness in his eyes. Lucian ignored the hand. When Donashe of the Citavita saw the Mont archers in the trees, he shook his head with regret.
“You insult us, Mont. We are no threat to you and your people. Why would we risk a battle with Lumatere?”
“I will remind you of this one more time,” Lucian said coldly. “You had my wife and the women of this camp on their knees. You killed seven defenseless men.”
Lucian watched as Phaedra approached. He sent her away with a toss of his head, wanting her nowhere near these men.
“Apart from your wife,” Donashe said, “we have the right to do what we want with our people.”
“And if any harm against your people or mine is committed on Lumateran land,” Lucian said, “then I have the right to do what I want with you.”
Each night on the mountain, Lucian and Phaedra sat around Lucian’s table, speaking of the day’s events. Rafuel, Tesadora, Jory, and Yael would join them.
“Today,” Phaedra said, pouring a hot brew into their mugs from over their shoulders, “they separated the men and the women.”
“Never a good sign,” Tesadora said flatly.
“In each cave there are at least five or six people, although these numbers will swell because of the new arrivals from the Citavita,” Phaedra continued.
She had a gift for switching between the two languages with ease although it was less necessary now that Rafuel’s Lumateran had improved.
“Are they really palace riders?” Yael asked.
“No,” she said. “They’re said to be street lords from the Citavita.”
“Gods,” Rafuel muttered. Lucian watched the Charynite make room for Phaedra to sit.
“Street lords are obviously not men of title in your eyes,” Lucian said to the Charynite.
“Only titled with the words thug and brigand,” Rafuel said bitterly. “The gods only know what state the Citavita is in.”
Tesadora paled, and Lucian knew she was thinking of Froi. They had not heard a word from him since he left at the end of summer, and with the slaughter in the valley suggesting a traitor among Rafuel’s contacts, they were beginning to fear for their lad’s life.
“Do you have an idea why these men have chosen to stay in the valley?” Lucian asked Phaedra.
She nodded. “I think someone from the palace has told them to be his eyes and ears out here in the west and that they’ll be rewarded for any information they can find. Their leader, Donashe, was betrayed by one of his men in the Citavita. He trusts no one and has allegiance only to those in power who will pay him well.”
“Blessed Sagrami,” Tesadora muttered.
“I have an idea,” Phaedra said, looking at Rafuel, as though he was in charge and not Lucian.
“About having another spy in the camp with me.”
“You’re not a spy,” Lucian pointed out.
She looked up at him, almost vexed. “I’m overhearing conversations and retelling them back to you,” she said. “In Charyn, that’s called spying, Luci-en.”
“Yes, Luci-en,” Tesadora mocked. “I believe it goes by the same name in Lumatere.”
“Don’t even suggest that Tesadora and the girls come down with you,” Lucian said. “Isaboe and Finnikin have forbidden it.”
“Yes, well, forbidding always works on me,” Tesadora murmured.
“Go on with your idea,” Rafuel instructed Phaedra. Lucian bristled.
“I heard Donashe complaining that they cannot get any of our men to assist them with keeping order,” she continued. “His men may be armed, but there are too few of them, and sooner or later, there’ll be too many of us.”
“How can they possibly believe any of your men would act as guards against their own people?” Yael asked.
“With you Monts in the trees, they know they can’t use force,” Phaedra said. “What they need is for a newcomer to arrive and put up his hand for the work.”
“A Mont spy,” Jory said excitedly.
“Monts speak Charyn like fools, Jor-ee,” she said. “Not possible.”
Phaedra pointed to Rafuel. “He would be perfect.”
Rafuel was the only one who thought it was a good idea.
“They don’t know who I am,” the Charynite argued. “No one does. The other valley dwellers would not have seen me with …” He swallowed hard. “With my lads,” he said huskily. “Let me befriend the murdering bastards. Find out the truth of what’s going on in the Citavita and the rest of Charyn. Then, when I have their trust, I can escape. Perhaps try to get to Sebastabol. Find out the fate of your assassin.”
“No,” Lucian said.
“What am I doing here?” Rafuel asked, rage and grief in his eyes. “Nothing. Your lad Froi is out there, who knows where, and I’m hiding on your mountain while they’re slaughtering the finest minds in Charyn!”
“It’s not my decision to make,” Lucian said. “I’ll take it to the queen and Finnikin.”
Rafuel shoved back his chair and left the cottage. Lucian knew exactly where the Charynite was heading, as though he was a guest and not a prisoner. He spoke of it with Tesadora later as they stood outside after the others had left.
“Talk to Japhra, Tesadora,” he said. “Her sharing his bed is madness.”
“I can’t
stop her any more than you can. She was sharing his bed long before now. Even before he took a knife to her throat.”
She secured the shawl around her shoulders, staring out into the darkness. Lucian had underestimated how hard she had taken the death of the Charynites. She’d been quiet these last days, more fragile. He had no idea what to do with a fragile Tesadora. He was even thinking of sending for Perri, but Lucian knew the guard was escorting Lady Celie to Belegonia, where she would spend time in the royal court.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he persisted. “Japhra and Rafuel.”
“Why should it make sense, Lucian?” Tesadora argued, irritated.
“Because Japhra was dragged out of her home and violated by his people.”
“By one of our people,” she said fiercely. “The impostor king was half Lumateran. I think we all forget that sometimes.”
“But why choose a filthy Charynite?”
Tesadora looked over his shoulder, and he knew that Phaedra stood there at his cottage door.
“Good night,” Tesadora said, walking toward Yata’s home.
Inside, Phaedra was preparing her bed.
“You still speak of us as if we’re animals,” she said quietly.
“You were listening to a conversation that had nothing to do with you,” he said, his voice cool, placing more logs on the fire.
“I’m one of those filthy Charynites,” she said. “In what way has it nothing to do with me?”
Later, they lay in the dark, Lucian in his bed and Phaedra on her cot on the floor. He wanted to speak. Perhaps tell her that of course he didn’t see her as a filthy Charynite.
“Japhra told me,” she said quietly, as though she had waited half the night to speak. “That Rafuel is the first person — the first man she’s encountered who doesn’t see her as broken. He sees her as gifted. In Charyn we call the gifted ones gods’ blessed. Lumaterans seem frightened by the gods’ touched, but Rafuel is in awe of her.”
Lucian was beginning to get used to hearing Phaedra’s small observations at night. Whether Lumateran or Charynite, people revealed things to her that they told no other. More than anything, he realized that he liked her voice in the dark. It made him feel less lonely. Only last night he had spoken to her about life in exile and had found himself recalling memories cast aside since his father’s death.
And then there was cousin Jory, who was experiencing a bout of puppy love for Phaedra that irritated Lucian.
“Off home now, Jory,” Lucian said for the fourth night in a row when everyone else had left.
“We’re still talking, Phaedra and I,” Jory said. “Don’t let us keep you up, Lucian.”
“Go,” Lucian ordered. “Home.”
Jory rolled his eyes. “We’ll talk tomorrow, Phaedra,” he said.
Lucian shut the door behind the lad. “If he’s annoying you, tell him so,” he said gruffly.
“He’s very sweet,” she said, standing to push aside the table where her bed was to be laid out. Lucian ushered her away and placed the table against the wall.
“Without a word from me the other day, I heard him make his apologies to Cora and some of the other women about his past behavior.” Phaedra laughed. “Except he decided to actually use the word for the body part he exposed, which I think horrified the women even more.”
“What was the word?” he asked.
She whispered it and he laughed, wincing.
“The idiot. They’re a bit raw, our lads.”
One night when Perri was in the mountains, Phaedra came home from the valley, flushed with excitement.
“I overheard a story today,” she told Lucian and the others. “About the events that took place in the Citavita after the king was murdered.”
“Was this Donashe in the capital then?” Rafuel asked, his hands clenched. Lucian had noticed that the Charynite spent his day brooding with fury, wanting nothing more than to kill the men who slaughtered his lads.
“Indeed he was there. They say he was one of the leaders of the street lords who stormed the palace,” Phaedra said.
“Who does he answer to?” Cousin Yael asked. But Lucian could think only of Froi.
“Have they seen our lad?” he demanded.
“And the princess?” Rafuel said.
“Let her finish the story,” Tesadora snapped at them all, nodding to Phaedra to continue.
“It’s hard to believe any of them,” Phaedra said, “but those closest to the king were hanged one by one each day in front of the Citavitans. On the last day, the princess Quintana was dragged out to the podium. A noose was placed around her neck and the princess’s body did indeed swing.”
Tesadora shuddered. After watching her mother burn at the stake, Lucian imagined that any public execution horrified her, regardless of whether it was the enemy or not. Rafuel buried his head in his hands.
“But listen,” Phaedra continued. “They say a barrage of arrows flew from one of the trees above, maiming the street lords who stood guard. Then a lad charged through the air, capturing Quintana’s body and freeing it from its noose.”
Phaedra stared around at them all, a feverish excitement in her eyes. “Both the princess and her rescuer have not been seen since.”
“Froi!” they all spoke at once and then laughed when they realized they had.
“But why would Froi waste his time saving the life of someone whose father he was sent to assassinate?” Lucian asked.
“I think most people were trapped inside the Citavita after the street lords took over,” Phaedra explained.
Perri was not convinced. “I know the lad. It would have to be something powerful to trap him there.”
“Or someone,” Tesadora said with a sigh. “They must have formed a bond. Our idiot boy and the princess. What’s he gotten himself into?”
Perri shook his head. “Not possible. Froi has a bond to his queen.”
Rafuel made a rude sound of amusement. Lucian didn’t like his expression.
“Deep down,” the Charynite said, looking at Perri and speaking Charyn slowly, “you don’t honestly believe Lumateran blood runs through his veins, do you?”
Phaedra translated his words nervously to Perri.
“I understood exactly what he said.” Perri’s tone was ice-cold and deadly.
“Did you really believe that I traveled through five provinces and failed to find a Charynite lad capable of impersonating a last born and killing a king?” Rafuel asked.
Perri leaned forward, his face less than an inch away from Rafuel’s.
“I’m not going to have to kill you, am I, Charynite?” he asked quietly. “Because I’ll do it in a heartbeat, regardless of who sits at this table.”
“What is the truth, Charynite?” Yael asked. “What is it you know?”
“Froi wasn’t impersonating a last born,” Rafuel said.
Lucian was confused now, and he could see the others were as well. Except for Phaedra. He saw the realization on her face.
“He is a last born,” she said, stunned.
“Not just one,” Rafuel said. “He’s the very last of them — I’m sure of it. He could easily be the one to break the curse.”
“You believe all that talk,” Lucian scoffed, “about lasts and firsts? It’s the talk of a mad princess.”
“As I’ve said before, I believe it in the same way you believed that your queen could walk the sleep of her people trapped inside your kingdom,” Rafuel said.
“How did you find him?” Tesadora asked.
Rafuel had the good sense not to look away when speaking to her.
“I knew that the last born was smuggled into Sarnak as a child. I knew his name was Dafar.”
“But here we are in Lumatere,” Perri said. “And our lad’s name is Froi.”
“It’s all fate, and hunches,” Rafuel said. “I was a soldier, you see. Forced into the army. Placed at — what did you call it, Mont, that day three years ago when my lieutenant took your people hostage at the Oste
rian border? The arse-end of the land.”
Perri was quick, his hand around the Charynite’s neck.
“Let him speak!” Tesadora shouted, peeling Perri’s fingers from where they gripped Rafuel.
“You were on the Charyn border when we rescued Froi from the barracks there?” Lucian demanded, but the answer was on Rafuel’s face. Worse still, Lucian remembered the comfort of that day, the knowledge that his father was walking down that Osterian hill to save the exiles. A week later, his father was dead.
In an instant, his fist connected with Rafuel’s face and the Charynite was on the ground. Lucian grabbed his father’s sword hidden against the leg of the table and swung it above his head, ready to strike. He felt Phaedra’s trembling arms around him, holding him back. “Please Luci-en. Please,” she begged, weeping.
“Lucian,” Yael said quietly.
Phaedra’s hand pressed against the thump of his heartbeat. A small hand, but strong.
“I fell into the hole they dug into the ground,” Lucian said, “where our people would have been buried. Forgotten. Do you remember, Perri? You and Trevanion helped Finnikin drag me out that night.”
Lucian’s eyes bore into Rafuel’s. The Charynite’s mouth was bleeding.
“You were going to slaughter our people,” Lucian said. “You were one of them.”
“Perhaps,” Rafuel replied. “Perhaps I would have followed orders. Perhaps I would have walked away and caught an arrow in my back for deserting my post. I’ll never know. You all turned up, and I thought the gods were smiling in the favor of good men for once.”
Lucian could still feel Phaedra’s trembling arms around him. He remembered what she had witnessed days before in the valley. He lowered the sword.
Rafuel sat up, wiping the blood from his mouth.
“Our squad leader at first believed your lad was the lost heir of Lumatere,” Rafuel said. “Because of the ruby ring and the words he was shouting. Our men beat him up enough to discover that he was no one but a Sarnak thief named Froi.”
Rafuel looked at Tesadora.
“A thief with strange un-Sarnak eyes and a very un-Sarnak name that reminded me too much of Dafar of Abroi, the last born of Charyn, known only to the priests and those who smuggled him out of danger on the first day of weeping eighteen years ago.”