The Kiss of Deception (29 page)

I emerged from the shadows. They would have killed me by now if they intended to. What were their intentions if not to murder me? I sat down on a low rock and looked at the foothills, maybe a mile away. Or three? Distance was deceptive in this shimmering hot flatland. After dark would I be able to see my way well enough to escape there? And then what? I at least needed my canteen and knife to survive.

“Lia?”

Kaden sauntered around a boulder, his eyes searching the rocks in the fading light until he saw me. I stared at him as he walked closer, his duplicity hitting me deeply and sorely, not with the wild anger of this morning but with a gripping ache. I had trusted him.

With each step he took, all of my thoughts about him unfurled into something new, like a tapestry being flipped to its backside, revealing a tangle of knots and ugliness. Only a few weeks ago I had nursed his shoulder. Only a few nights ago, Pauline had said his eyes were kind. Only two nights ago, I had danced with him, and just yesterday, I had kissed his cheek in the meadow.
You’re a good person, Kaden. Steadfast and true to your duty.

How little I had known what that meant to Kaden. I looked away. How could he have so completely and utterly duped me? The dry sand crunched under his boots. His steps were slow and measured. He stopped a few feet away.

The ache reached to my throat.

“Tell me this much,” I whispered. “Are you the assassin that Venda sent to kill me?”

“Yes.”

“Then why am I still alive?”

“Lia—”

“Just the truth, Kaden. Please. I kept my word to you and came along without a struggle. You owe me that much.” I feared that something worse than death was still in store for me.

He took another step so he was standing directly in front of me. His face looked more gentle and recognizable. Was it because his comrades weren’t here to see him?

“I decided you’d be more useful to Venda alive than dead,” he said.

He decided.
Like a distant god. Today Lia shall live.

“Then you’ve made a strategic error,” I said. “I have no state secrets. No military strategies. And I’m worthless for a ransom.”

“You still have other value. I told the others that you have the gift.”

“You what?” I shook my head. “Then you lied to your—”

He grabbed my wrists and yanked me to my feet, holding me inches from his face. “It’s the only way I could save you,” he hissed, keeping his voice low. “Do you understand? So
never
deny that you have the gift. Not to them. Not to anyone. It’s all that’s keeping you alive.”

My knees were as thin as water. “If you didn’t want to kill me, why didn’t you just leave Terravin? Tell them the job was finished, and they’d be none the wiser.”

“So you could return to Civica and create an alliance with Dalbreck? Just because I don’t want to kill you doesn’t mean I’m not still loyal to my own kind. Never forget that, Lia. Venda always comes first. Even before you.”

Fire surged through my blood, my bones; my knees became solid again, tendon, muscle, flesh, hot and rigid. I pulled my wrists free from his grasp.

Forget? Never.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

RAFE

I looked everywhere along the highway for any sign of her, circling over to two nearby farmhouses in case she had stopped for water or they had seen her pass by. They hadn’t. By the time I rode down the main street of Terravin, I was certain she still had to be at the inn.

As I rode up, I saw the donkeys, loose and unstabled, wandering around outside the tavern. The front door was open, and I heard commotion inside. I tied off my horse and ran up the porch steps. Pauline sat at a table, trying to catch her breath between sobs. Berdi and Gwyneth stood on either side, attempting to calm her.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Berdi waved her hand at me. “Quiet! She just got here. Let her tell us!”

Gwyneth tried to give her some water, but Pauline pushed it away.

I dropped to my knees in front of Pauline, grabbing her hands. “Where’s Lia, Pauline? What happened?”

“They got her.”

I listened as she told me the details between sobs. There were five of them. One was Kaden. I didn’t have time to get angry. I didn’t have time to be afraid. I just listened, memorized every word, and questioned her for the important details she didn’t mention.
What kind of horses, Pauline?
Two were dark brown. Three were black. All solid. No markings. The same breed as Kaden’s.
Runners built for endurance.
But she wasn’t sure. It all happened so fast. One of the men was big. Very big. One was only a boy. They spoke another language. Maybe Vendan. Lia had called them barbarians.
How long ago?
She wasn’t sure. Maybe three hours. They headed east.
Where did they stop you?
At the dip in the highway just north of the yellow farmhouse. There’s a small clearing. They came out of the scrub.
Anything else I need to know?
They said if anyone followed, Lia would die.
She won’t die. She won’t.

I gave orders to Berdi. Dried fish, dried anything that was quick. I had to go. She went to the kitchen and was back in seconds.

There were five of them.
But I couldn’t wait for Sven and the others. The trail would cool, and every minute counted.

“Listen carefully,” I told Pauline. “Sometime after nightfall, some men will come here looking for me. Watch for them. Tell them everything you told me. Tell them where to go.” I turned to Berdi and Gwyneth. “Have food ready for them. We won’t have time to hunt.”

“You’re not a farmer,” Gwyneth said.

“I don’t care what the hell he is,” Berdi said and shoved a cloth sack into my hand. “Go!”

“The leader is Sven. He’ll have at least a dozen men with him,” I called over my shoulder as I walked out the door. I still had six hours of daylight. I filled my bota at the pump and grabbed a sack of oats for my horse. They had a long lead. It would take a while to catch up with them. But I would. I’d do whatever it took to bring her back. I found her once. I would find her again.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

I woke to a grinning face and a knife at my throat.

“If you have the gift, why didn’t you see me coming in your dreams?”

It was the boy, Eben. He had the voice of a girl, and his eyes were those of a curious waif.
A child.
But his intent was that of a seasoned thief. He intended to steal my life. If the gift was all that was keeping me alive, Eben didn’t seem to have gotten the message.

“I saw you coming,” I said.

“Then why didn’t you wake to fend me off?”

“Because I also saw—”

He was suddenly catapulted through the air, landing several feet away.

I sat up, looking at Griz, whom I had seen glaring over Eben’s shoulder. While he wasn’t fond of me, Griz also appeared not to tolerate rash independent decisions. Kaden was already on Eben, yanking him from the ground by the scruff.

“I wasn’t going to hurt her,” Eben complained, rubbing his bruised chin. “I was just playing with her.”

“Play like that again, and you’ll be left behind without a horse,” Kaden shouted, and shoved him back to the ground. “Remember, she’s the Komizar’s prize, not
yours.
” He walked over and unshackled my ankle from a saddle, a precaution he had called it, to make sure I didn’t try to make a run for it during the night.

“And now I’m a prize?” I asked.

“The bounty of war,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I wasn’t aware we were at war.”

“We’ve always been at war.”

I stood, rubbing my neck, so often abused of late. “As I was saying, Eben. The reason I saw no need to wake was because I also saw your dry bones being picked at by buzzards, and me riding away on my horse. I guess it could still turn out that way, couldn’t it?”

His eyes widened briefly, contemplating the veracity of my vision, and then he scowled at me, a scowl laced with too much rage for his tender years.

The day passed as the one before, hot, dry, grueling, and monotonous. Past the foothills was another hot basin, and another. It was the road to hell, and it afforded me no chance of slipping away. Even the hills were barren. There was nowhere to hide. It was little wonder that we passed no one. Who else would be out in this wasteland?

By the third day I stank as badly as Griz, but there was no one to notice. They all stank too. Their faces were streaked with grime, so I assumed mine looked the same, all of us becoming filthy striped animals. I tasted grit in my mouth, felt it in my ears, grit everywhere, dry bits of hell blowing on the breeze, my hands blistering on the reins.

I listened carefully to their grunting babble as we rode, trying to understand their words. Some were easy to decipher.
Horse. Water. Shut up. The girl. Kill.
But I didn’t let on that I was listening. In the evenings, as discreetly as possible, I searched the Vendan phrase book inside my bag for more words, but the book was basic and brief.
Eat. Sit. Halt. Do not move.

Finch often filled the time whistling or singing tunes. One of them made me take note—I recognized the melody. It was a silly song from my childhood, and it became another key to their Vendan babble as I compared his Vendan words to the ones I knew in Morrighese.

A fool and his gold,

Coin piled so high,

Gathering and hoarding,

It reached to the sky,

But nary a coin,

Did the fool ever spend,

While his pile grew high,

The fool only grew thin.

Not a pittance for drink,

Nor a pittance for bread,

And one sunny day,

The fool found himself dead.

If only these fools appreciated a bit of coin, I’d be out of this blasted heat by now. Who was this Komizar who instilled loyalty in the face of riches? And just what did he do to traitors? Could it be worse than enduring this scorching purgatory? I wiped my forehead but felt only sticky grit.

When even Finch fell silent, I passed the time thinking about my mother and her long journey from the Lesser Kingdom of Gastineux. I had never been there. It was in the far north, where winter lasted three seasons, white wolves ruled the forests, and summer was a brief blinding green, so sweet that its scent lingered all winter. At least that’s what Aunt Bernette said. Mother’s descriptions were far more succinct, but I saw her expressions as Aunt Bernette described their homeland, the creases forming at her eyes with both smile and sadness.

Snow.
I wondered what it felt like. Aunt Bernette said it could be both soft and hard, cold and hot. It stung and burned when the wind pelted it through the air, and it was a gentle cold feather when it drifted down in lazy circles from the sky. I couldn’t imagine it being so many opposite things, and I wondered if she had taken license with her story as Father always claimed. I couldn’t stop thinking of it.

Snow.

Maybe that was the smile and sadness I saw in my mother’s eyes, wanting to feel it just one more time. Touch it. Taste it. The way I wanted to taste Terravin just one more time. She’d left her homeland, traveling hundreds of miles when she was no more than my age. But I was certain her journey was nothing like the one I was on now. I looked out at the searing colorless landscape. No, nothing like this.

I uncapped my canteen and took a drink.

How I would ever get back to anywhere that was civilized now I wasn’t sure, but I knew I’d rather die lost in this wilderness than be on exhibit among Vendan animals—and they
were
animals. At night when we made camp, except for Kaden, they couldn’t even be bothered to walk behind a rock to relieve themselves. They laughed when I looked the other way. Last night they had roasted a snake that Malich killed with his hatchet, and then smacked and belched after each bite like pigs at a trough. Kaden ripped off a piece of the snake and offered it to me, but I refused it. It wasn’t the blood dripping down their fingers or the half-cooked snake that killed my appetite—it was their coarse vulgar noises. It was apparent very quickly, though, that Kaden was different. He was
of
them, but he wasn’t
one of them.
He still had truths he was hiding.

With their chatter quieted, all I had heard for miles now was the maddening repetitive clop of hoof on sand and occasional body noises from Finch, who now rode on my other side instead of Eben.

“You’re taking me
all
the way to Venda?” I said to Kaden.

“Taking you halfway there would serve no purpose.”

“That’s on the other side of the continent.”

“Ah, so you royals know your geography after all.”

It wasn’t worth the energy to swing my canteen at his head again. “I know a lot of things, Kaden, including the fact that trading convoys pass through the Cam Lanteux.”

“The Previzi caravans? Your chances with them would be zero. No one gets within a hundred paces of their cargo and lives.”

“There are the kingdom patrols.”

“Not the way we’re going.” He was quick to quash every hope.

“How long does it take to get to Venda?”

“Fifty days, give or take a month. But with
you
along, twice that.”

My canteen flew, hitting him like lead. He grabbed his head, and I got ready to swing again. He lunged at me, pulling me from my horse. We fell to the ground with a dull thud, and I swung again, this time with my fist, catching him in the jaw. I rolled and got to my knees, but he slammed me from behind, pinning me facedown against the sand.

I heard the others laughing and hooting, heartily entertained by our scuffle.

“What’s the matter with you?” Kaden hissed in my ear. His full weight pressed down on me. I closed my eyes, then squeezed them shut tightly, trying to swallow, trying to breathe.
What’s the matter?
Did that question really require an answer?

The sand burned against my cheek. I pretended it was the sting of snow. I felt its wetness on my lashes, its feather-light touch trailing across my nose. What’s the matter? Nothing at all.