The Beauty of Darkness (27 page)

“Your king is where he should be, tending to the needs of his kingdom. And I'm doing what I need to do. It's as simple as that.”

“I know he made promises to you about Terravin.”

She hadn't answered him. She'd only looked back at the disappearing caravan and tugged on her gloves, flexing and shoving her fingers deeper into them and said, “Let's ride.”

Rafe's expression on that last night when he threw me up against the barracks wall stayed with me. He had been wild with fear—afraid to let her go—but he did. Something I hadn't done, no matter how many times she'd asked me to free her as we crossed the Cam Lanteux. The thought turned in my head over and over again.

*   *   *

We were camped in a thin scrabble of beech, tucked up close to an outcropping of boulders. A shallow brook ran close by.

Lia sat off by herself, but not too far from the camp. We all still looked over our shoulders and slept with our weapons ready. We knew there could be more out there. Eben's account of who he had seen leave the Sanctum, while helpful, could not include who he might not have seen.

I knew what would come next. Once she finished her remembrances, she would sharpen her knives, check her horse's hooves for stones, scan the trail behind us, or scratch in the soil with a stick, then erase the marks with her boot. I wondered what she drew. Words? Maps? But when I asked her, she only said,
Nothing.

I had thought this was all I ever wanted. To be with her. On the same side.
She's with you Kaden. That's all that matters.

“I'm going to start dinner,” Orrin said, casting a wondering glance Lia's way. He walked over to the firewood I had gathered and set his spit, spearing the pheasant he'd already gutted and cleaned.

Tavish returned from washing up in the brook. His thick black ropes of hair dripped with water. He followed my gaze, looking at Lia, and offered a quiet grunt. “I wonder what drill she'll put one of us through tonight.”

“She wants to be prepared.”

“One person alone can't take on an entire kingdom.”

“She has us. She's not alone.”

“She has you—and that's not saying a lot. The rest of us turn around once we reach the Morrighese border.” He shook out his hair and pulled his shirt over his head.

The first few days riding with Rafe's loyal trio had been tense, but for Lia's sake, I held back my tongue, and a few times my fist, too. Now they seemed to accept that I wasn't along to whisk Lia back to Venda and that I had retired my former title of Assassin, at least until Lia was back in Morrighan. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, they were useful too. I knew hundreds of trails along this southern route, but every Rahtan knew them too. These three had surprised me with a few trails that wound through hidden box canyons where I had never traveled before. And with Orrin along, we never had to eat snake. He was able to draw an arrow and bring down game from his saddle while barely slowing his pace. His skill and passion were perfectly matched.

“Have you noticed,” Tavish asked as he shook out his saddle blanket and hung it over a low branch, “every dusk when she says her remembrances, the wind stirs?”

I had noticed. And wondered. The air seemed to thicken and come alive, as if she were summoning spirits. “Could just be the natural shift of air as the sun goes down.”

Tavish's eyes narrowed. “Could be.”

“I didn't think you Dalbretch were the superstitious sort.”

“I saw it back at the Sanctum too. I was there watching from the shadows, and I heard everything she said. Sometimes it felt like her words were touching my skin, like the breeze was carrying every single one past me. It was a strange thing.” I had never heard Tavish ruminate on anything beyond trails and suspicions of my true motivations, which had almost brought us to blows. He blinked as if catching himself. “My watch,” he said, walking away to relieve Jeb. He stopped after a few steps and turned.

“Just curious. Is it true you used to be Morrighese?”

I nodded.

“That's where you got all the scars? Not in Venda?”

“A very long time ago.”

He eyed me as if trying to figure out how old I must have been.

“I was eight the first time I was whipped,” I said. “The beatings lasted for a couple of years until I was taken to Venda. It was the Komizar who saved me.”

“Being the fine fellow that he is.” He studied me, chewing the corner of his lip. This revelation probably didn't improve his regard for me. “Those are deep scars. I'm guessing you remember every lash. And now you suddenly want to help Morrighan?”

I leaned back on my elbows and smiled. “Always suspicious, aren't you?”

He shrugged. “Tactician. It's my job.”

“Tell you what, I'll answer your question if you'll answer one of mine.”

His chin dipped in agreement, waiting for my question.

“Why are you really here? Your king could have sent any squad to escort the princess to the border of her kingdom. Why his top officers? Was it only so you could escort her back to Dalbreck once she came to her senses? And if she didn't, to force her back?”

Tavish smiled. “Your answer isn't so important to me after all,” he said, and left.

As Tavish walked away, I watched Lia stride toward me, with dusty riding leathers and a smudged face. Three weapons hung from her sides, and she looked more like a soldier than a princess, though in truth, I wasn't even sure what a princess should look like. She had never fit any image I had conjured of one.
Royal.
How easily I had disparaged the title when the only nobility I had ever really known was my father, the esteemed Lord Roché of County Düerr. His line went all the way back to Piers, one of the first Holy Guardians, affording him an elevated status and special favor among nobility, if not the gods themselves. My mother had told me of my ancestry once. I had worked hard to forget it and prayed I had gotten all of her blood and none of his.

Lia paused, lifting Walther's baldrick over her head and laid it down on her bedroll, then unbuckled her other belt that held two knives, dropping it with the rest of her gear. She stretched her arms overhead as if she was working a knot loose in her back, then surprised me by plopping down beside me. She gazed across the hills and woods that obscured the horizon and setting sun, as if she could see all the miles that still lay ahead of us.

“No knives to sharpen?” I asked.

Her cheek dimpled. “Not tonight,” she said, still gazing out at the hills. “I need to rest. We can't keep this pace up, or the horses will give out before we do.”

I looked at her skeptically. Jeb and I had said almost those exact same words to her this morning, and she had only answered us both with a scathing look of contempt.

“What's changed since this morning?”

She shrugged. “Pauline and I were terrified when we rode from Civica, but eventually we stopped looking over our shoulders and started looking for the blue bay of Terravin. That's what I need to do now. Only look forward.”

“It's that simple?”

She stared through the trees, her eyes clouded in thought. “Nothing is ever simple,” she finally said. “But I have no other choice. Lives depend on it.”

She shifted on the blanket and faced me fully. “Which is why we need to talk.”

She shot questions at me, one after another, a methodical urgency to them. Now I knew at least some of what occupied her thoughts as she rode. I confirmed her suspicion that the Komizar would begin marching after first thaw. As I doled out answers, I realized how little I actually had to give her. It made me see that, for all of my conspiring with the Komizar, he had kept me in the dark more than he had confided in me. I had never been a true partner in this plan of his, only one of many to help him accomplish it.

“There must be other traitors besides the Chancellor and Royal Scholar. Didn't you deliver any other messages?”

“I only delivered the one message when I was thirteen. He mostly kept me out of Civica altogether. I tracked down deserters, or he sent me to deliver retribution to outlying garrisons.”

She chewed on her lip for a moment, then asked me something odd. She wanted to know if we would pass any place where messages could be sent.

“Turquoi Tra. There's a relay post of messengers there. They're fast but costly. Why?” I asked.

“I might want to write home.”

“I thought you said the Chancellor would intercept all messages.”

A fierce glint shone in her eyes. “Yes. He will.”

 

CHAPTE
R
THIRTY-
N
I
N
E

On the fourth day, we hadn't gotten far when Kaden said, “We have company.”

“I saw,” I answered sharply.

“What do you want to do?” Tavish asked.

I kept my eyes straight ahead. “Nothing. Just keep going.”

“She's waiting for an invitation,” Jeb said.

“She's not going to get one!” I snapped. “I told her she couldn't come. She'll turn around.”

Orrin smacked his lips. “If she made it through three nights alone, I doubt she'll give up that easily.”

I growled with all the fury of Griz, and snapped my reins, turning my horse around to gallop back toward Natiya. She stopped her horse when she saw me coming.

I came alongside her. “What do you think you're doing?”

“Riding,” she said defiantly.

“This is no holiday, Natiya! Turn around! You can't come with me!”

“I can go where I want.”

“And it just happens to be in the same direction I'm going?”

She shrugged. Her audacity appalled me. “Did you steal that horse?” I asked, trying to shame her.

“It's mine.”

“And Reena said you could come?”

“She knew she couldn't stop me.”

She was not the same girl I had met in the vagabond camp. I hated what I saw in her expression. Her cheerful innocence was gone and replaced with alarming hunger. She wanted more than I could give her. I needed her to go back.

“If you come along, you're probably going to die,” I told her.

“I heard you're going to do the same. Why didn't that stop you?”

Her eyes were clever and sharp like Aster's, and I looked away. I couldn't do this. I wanted to strike her, shake her, and make her see how very much she was not welcome here.

Kaden rode over. “Hello, Natiya,” he said, and nodded like we were all out for a spring ride.

“Oh, for the love of gods! Tell her she has to go back! Make her listen.”

He smiled. “The way you listen?”

I looked back at Natiya, a bitter gall climbing up my throat. She met my stare, unblinking, her decision shining in her eyes. Moisture sprang to my face and I was afraid I might lose my morning meal. She was so young. Almost as young as Aster and far more naïve. What if—

I wiped the sweat from my upper lip.

“Come along!” I snapped. “And keep up! We aren't going to coddle you!”

 

 

Journey's end. The promise. The hope.

                  
Is this the place of staying Ama?

A vale. A meadow. A home.

A scrabble of ruins we can piece together.

A place far from the scavengers.

The child looks at me, her eyes full of hope. Waiting.

         
For now
, I tell her.

The children scatter. There is laughter. Chatter.

There is hope.

But there is still no promise.

Some things will never be as Before.

Some things you cannot bring back.

Some things are gone forever.

And other things last just as long.

Like the scavengers.

One day, they will come for us again.

—The Last Testaments of Gaudrel

 

CHAPTE
R
FORTY

RAFE

The sun.

Had I mentioned the sun?

Maneuver your opponent so the sun is in his eyes, not yours.

Dodge and undercut.
I hadn't gone over that. But it wasn't as if she didn't already have good sword fighting skills.
Maybe I should have given her a lighter sword.

There were so many things I could have said—and not just about swords.

I knew I was second-guessing myself. I had been for most of the journey.

“Your Majesty, we're almost there. I've been talking for twenty minutes, and you haven't heard a word I said.”

“I heard you say it yesterday, Sven. And the day before. Kings do this, they don't say that. They listen, they weigh, they act. They take, but they give. They push but aren't pushed. Does that sum it up? You're acting as if I didn't grow up in court.”

“You didn't,” he reminded me.

I frowned. For the most part, he was right. Yes, I'd had weekly meals with my parents, and I was included as a matter of protocol in most official functions, but for the many years I was under Sven's tutelage, I had lived with cadets, pledges, and most recently, with other soldiers. Dalbreck's kings were soldiers first, and I had been raised no differently from how my own father had been raised, but in the last year, he had been pulling me closer into the fold. He had me sit in on high-level meetings and counseled me on them afterward. I wondered if he had seen his reign coming to an end.

“We're still a good ten miles out,” I said. “I'm ready, I promise you.”

“Maybe,” he begrudged me. “But your mind is elsewhere.”

My hands tightened on my reins. I knew he wouldn't let this go.

“You did what you had to do,” he went on. “Letting her go was an act of courage.”

Or stupidity.

“She's on her way to a kingdom riddled with traitors who want her dead,” I finally blurted out.