Riot of Storm and Smoke Page 13

  Clever girl. I smile. I’ll be able to trade for necessities. Unlike me, Aleta’s handy with a needle and thread. She must have sewn some jewelry and currency into the fabric.

  Still… Even with all of this on my side, I worry my bottom lip. I should be able to catch my own food, but it’s cooking it that I worry about. We don’t have a flint among our supplies. We’d relied on Aleta and Tregle’s abilities there.

  I shake my head. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, and I’m wasting time. The longer I take, the harder they’ll be to intercept.

  And, of course, there’s still Nereidium to consider. Maybe I’m not ready to admit to anyone I’m their princess, but they’ve no clue the trouble the king plans to bring to their shores. Their usual defenses won’t be enough. They’ll be vulnerable. I ease out a breath.

  That won’t happen. Not if I can help it.

  With renewed determination, I collect the few supplies left to me and shove them inside Aleta’s old pack. And then, Makers help me, I head off.

  “If you feel that poorly about this, isn’t it best we turn around?” Lilia keeps her voice to a whisper, so as not to alert the troops. Her sword is drawn as we trek up the mountain pass to Jospuhr’s stronghold.

  “No,” I tell her for the umpteenth time. I motion one of the commanders to ride their troops ahead of us. The horses cantering past sound uncannily like war drums—or a death knell tolling.

  But it’s foolhardy for all of us to go into the gates of Jospuhr. There will be none left if he’s against us and we’re ensconced behind the walls, safely in his grasp.

  “You’ll stay behind,” I tell Lilia. “You and the company.”

  She scowls. “I’ll not let you leave me here because I’m of the fairer sex, Caden.”

  “You are not of a fairer anything,” I tell her emphatically. “Just think. I have to go inside. If these efforts have any chance of succeeding, I need to be the one to speak to him. Provided the negotiations go well, we’ll double our troops. We’d not only stand a chance against my father, we’d stand a good chance.”

  “And if they go badly?” she asks softly, eyes searching.

  I tighten my lips, roll my shoulders back, and lock my gaze on the horizon. “Then nothing you or I could do inside will prevent it. But Lilia, promise me—if they go badly, promise me you’ll find Princess Aleta and the others and help them get to Nereidium.”

  “I’m not fighting for Nereidium, Caden. I’m fighting for Egria.”

  “Then continue to fight for Egria,” I say, frustrated. “The fall of Nereidium is to everyone’s detriment. Egria. Clavins. The rest of the world. Keep my father from gaining even more power. Keep Nereidium from his clutches. If he succeeds with the Reaping there…” I shake my head, unwilling to let my imagination blossom over the idea.

  She pulls up on her reins and kicks her heels into her horse’s side, riding forward and cutting off my path. She looks at me solemnly, holding my gaze so I understand the gravity of her words. “I will.”

  But I need more. I draw back, pausing for an instant. “Swear it.”

  “I swear. On my honor. On Egria. May the Makers drown me in a river and burn me to ash if I lie,” she says solemnly.

  I am on edge from the moment I set foot onto Jospuhr lands. The guards must have been instructed to let a lone rider like myself pass, but the archers keep their crossbows trained on my back as I pick my way across the land to the front gates.

  “Your Highness.”

  My shoulders hunch of their own volition at the sound of Macon Jospuhr’s voice. He makes my skin crawl. He always has, even when I was a child at court. My old nurse told me that the first time I met Macon, I’d burst into tears.

  I’d only done it the one time. I expect it had been impressed upon me that princes do not weep upon meeting their subjects. My father had issued enough similar statements in the past that the memory does not particularly stand out for me.

  Jospuhr straightens from his bow. I stand taller than him now, but I still can’t describe exactly what it is that has always put me off of him.

  Part of it is his smile. It’s wide—too wide. The suspicion sounds absurd in my mind, overly paranoid, but it’s true. It stretches over his skin like a mask he’s put on to convince me of his sincerity.

  I return Jospuhr’s bow. “Lord Jospuhr, thank you for your hospitality.”

  “It is I who should thank you for gracing us with your presence, Your Highness.” I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but his smile widens. “It does make things so much easier.”

  Cautiously, I take a step back, my hand hovering over the hilt of my sword.

  He laughs boisterously, splaying his arms wide to show himself unarmed. “Your Highness, you misunderstand. I mean only that it makes it easier to assure you of my loyalty to the crown.”

  As I do not wear the crown, this does nothing to allay my fears. Jospuhr spans the distance between us in three steps and slings an arm about my shoulders. “Come,” he says. “If we’re to speak of war and alliances, I should hate to do it on an empty stomach.”

  Dinner is a blunt and tense affair. Archers fill the balconies that overlook the dinner table and still more of Jospuhr’s men line the wall.

  “At this juncture, my forces remain allied with the monarchy of Egria,” he says, almost immediately after we are seated. He bites with gusto into a turkey leg and gestures to the full table. “Please,” he says. “Eat.

  I eye the feast with trepidation. Dining with the Masonstone sisters, I’d had no fear of poison. Here, the threat of it is heavy around me.

  My stomach grumbles its discontent, but I abstain. “I ate a hearty meal just before arriving at Your Lordship’s estate.” I lean back from the table and clear my throat. “Though I thank you again for your hospitality.”

  “It is the least that I can do.”

  How very true.

  He mirrors me by leaning back in his seat and swills his wine, studying me. I hold the gaze steadily as he sips and purses his lips. “You are stiller than His Majesty,” he says finally.

  “Am I?” My mouth is dry. I could do with a sip of that wine, but it would be a foolhardy risk. It may be safe. It’s equally likely it isn’t.

  Jospuhr nods. “You have always been so. You studied the people at court, even as a child. Studied texts, in your spare time, holing yourself up with books—” He holds up a hand, a smirk sliding onto his face. He’s foreseen my queries, though I restrained myself from asking how, exactly, he knew that. “I have eyes at court, Highness. And I was not always absent.”

  His glass settles against the table. “Your father, though—always moving, that one. From the time he was a boy, immediately after losing his parents and taking the throne, he set about building his army and conquering, putting his eyes first on Clavins.”

  “Clavins is still a sovereign nation, sir.”

  “Are they?” He shakes his head. “You know better, Highness. Paying a tax to a king who is not their own, pledging Adepts to his armies, supplying his troops with ships—certainly sounds like a conquest to me.”

  “It sounds like a bargain,” I say. Is that what he’s getting at? He wants to forge a deal? “They keep their lands, their trade, and Egria declares the war over. No more battles. No more attacks.”

  “Hmm,” he says noncommittally. “And after Clavins, the king wanted Nereidium.”

  This, I know well enough. “My betrothal is something of a sham,” I confide. Perhaps offering this information as a token of trust will help sway Jospuhr to my side. “He was delighted to hear of it when word reached him that the Nereid Queen was with child. He announced our betrothal when the princess was still in the womb, but the Nereids never agreed to it.” I deliberately let my attention wander to the banners draped over the walls and relax my shoulders.

  Ancient, most of them, I think with an appraising look. The colors are faded, worn from the sunlight. Except for the vibrant greens and canary yellows in the Jospuhr house cr
est.

  One of the oldest houses of nobility in Egria, they’d once had a queen on the throne and their coat-of-arms had held threads of violent purple. As the generations passed and Father’s claim on the color became what it is, I can see why it was weeded back out. It’s safer that way. A statement of passivity.

  “Makes it all the more important for your father to keep hold of the victory he already has, then.”

  That pulls my attention back to Jospuhr. Clavins, I think. And then, unbidden, Bree. Clift had guessed that she, Aleta, and Tregle would head for Clavins to find passage on a ship.

  “It does make me wonder,” Jospuhr says. “When one is still, like yourself—unaccustomed to quick moves—I wonder how it will compare to someone who has spent their entire reign quick on their feet.”

  He is talking about Clavins. And my father—or, at least, his troops must be on their way there.

  I can only hope he hasn’t armed them with Ruin’s Reaping. Their subjugation of the country will be bad enough without it. Quickly, I picture the map and do some quick calculations. We can be in Clavins in a four days if we ride hard. We’ll have to eat only our dry stores and stop only to water the horses, but we can do it. With some persuasion, we’ll be able to gain an audience with the Clavish senators in their capital in a day more.

  It would be worth it, I think. We may not recruit forces of any more Egrian nobility, but the Clavish would be foolish not to pledge their arms to our cause if we ride to their rescue.

  I rise and look coolly down at Lord Jospuhr. “Perhaps my father has grown tired, sprinting about like that. And perhaps I have been conserving my energy for such a moment.”

  His smile curves his lips, and he tips his glass toward me. “Then, Your Highness, I shall keep my seat. And enjoy the race.”

  Elsbeth (and Dorna, who I know reads this over her shoulder),

  I can’t tell you where we ride. I have no idea when I will be back. But I will return. Take care of each other until then.

  I love you both dearly.

  Lilia

  I get lucky and find evidence that the bandits left behind not much further up the river. They hadn’t gone far, perhaps preferring to rest after my “death.”

  Thank the Makers for small favors. They—we—seem to be heading north. They chose Clavins, then. I won’t make the same mistake we made by camping out in the open. That’s how the bandits found us the last time, and I’m sure more than a few questions would be raised by the fact that I’m alive and apparently unharmed. I find a tree with low enough branches that I can haul my body up and secure myself. I’d often played in the woods around our tavern as a child, spent more than one occasion hiding from Da in the trees when I was angry with him. Scaling the branches and limbs turns out to be a useful skill now.

  But that’s as much as my luck gets me. I’m no hunter, and try as I may to find some sign of them, the trail goes cold for me the next day.

  I have to face it, I think as I loosen myself from the tree the next morning. I hop to the forest ground. I need a map. Perhaps even a compass. I can’t depend on finding moss on the side of a tree to get north. Maybe I can find a path. Find some towns where I can slip in long enough to swipe some food, get a heading.

  I head back to the river, figuring it’s my surest bet to find civilization, and sure enough, I wind up at a cluster of buildings that is unmistakably a town square.

  Grabbing a passerby by the elbow, I make my voice gruff and ask, “Inn?”

  He shakes himself free, pointing up the street, and hustles off. The inn turns out to boast a tavern as well, and I fight back the painful reminder of The Bridge and Duchess. Instead, I order a quiet dinner at a back table, parting with some of my precious coin. My mouth waters at the thought of hot food in my belly.

  I eat slowly so as to savor it. My spoon clatters in the bowl when a man bumps into my table. I look up warily.

  “Sorry,” he says and then catches my stare. He grins. “Wantin’ company?”

  I withdraw Meddie’s knife from my pack, nonchalantly thrust it into the wood of the table, and smile sharply. “Wanting to keep your fingers?”

  He flees, and I take the opportunity to inquire with one of the barmaids about arranging a room for the night.

  I’d nearly forgotten what it was like to sleep in an actual bed, and with only a moment’s guilty pause beforehand, I fall into it in relief.

  I wake when I crash onto the floor, and it grinds into my hip. I’m sweating beneath my cloak.

  Da. I’d dreamt of him again.

  Like all of the others, it was a distorted dream. Da spoke with the king’s voice. One moment he was wiping down the bar in Abeline; the next, his hand was around my throat and a high-pitched shriek of laughter that sounded as though it belonged to Kat bounced around us.

  Trying to eradicate the images from my mind’s eye, I press my hands to my eyes.

  Until Da’s death, I hadn’t been a vivid dreamer. During waking hours, I bury my thoughts in a deep grave, but all of them live again in my dreams. My grief. My doubts. My anger. And when the room is silent, the air still but for my harried breaths, I can’t put the memories to rest.

  I’d retired long before the pub called for its patrons to settle up, and from the sounds of it, the merriment has continued without me. The sounds of laughter and conversation wheel their way through the night.

  I twist my hands in my sleeves. They’re trembling.

  It’s not only the dream that shakes me. Awake, with adrenaline rushing through me, I’m terrified of what arriving in Clavins—and then Nereidium—will bring. Because I have the strangest confidence that I’ll find my friends and then we’ll be racing for my kingdom—Aleta’s kingdom—once more.

  I sigh, thinking of it. This is the constant confusion in my mind: is it my name or Aleta’s name? Her kingdom or mine? And her aunt… She’s my aunt. The castle we’ll be visiting is where I dozed as a babe. I think of the dream I had the other night—a man and woman with my eyes and my hair. Her parents or mine?

  I want Nereidium for Aleta. I do. But with Da gone, so is my family. So is the truth to my past. Selfish as it may be, I want her aunt for my aunt.

  I want a family again. But first, I need to get my friends back.

  I stare up at the ceiling, at the beams that line the roof of my little room.

  Maybe another drink will pass the time. Stretching, I stand up and head back to the pub. Makers know I’m not going to get any more sleep tonight.

  The crowd’s grown since I left. I’d guess that for every person who was there for dinner, at least two have replaced them for an evening drink.

  I won’t be here long, but I could use something to remind me of home. I take a seat at the bar, shouldering my way between a couple of women in breeches and a group of men who look (and, I find when I get a bit too close, smell) as though they’ve not had a bath in months.

  The bar is crowded, and three barkeeps hustle to and fro, shoving drinks into waiting hands. Those who joined a gaggle of waving hands never caught my attention when I worked the bar at The Bridge and Duchess, so I push my coin forward, keeping an eye out for clever hands that might want to deposit it in their pockets.

  It’s swiped from counter to apron in a blink, and the barmaid wags her finger at me. “Nearly lost that coin for the both of us. What’ll you have?” She makes a rude gesture toward a patron who shouts what he’d like to have.

  “Ale. Cheapest you’ve got.”

  She nods and the flagon is deposited before me hastily. I stare into its murky depths, already knowing that it won’t be the taste of home I so crave right now. Our ale was pale and watered down. Theirs is dark. And they probably don’t water it down with river water.

  I drink it anyway for something to do. It’s got a nutty taste, and there’s just a hint of the taste of wood from its cask.

  A commotion at the other end of the bar catches my attention as I sip my ale. There’s a group of people, no rowdier or dirtier than
some others here, but something about them puts me off. Most of them have a hand at their hip. Where a sword would be.

  Makers. I’m stunned, shocked, unable to look away from them. I may as well have been frozen into a block of ice for all I can move from the bar right now. My fist tightens around the handle of my drink, and the noise of the pub fades to a dull roar. I catch the glint of chainmail as one man pushes back a sleeve. I see the crinkle of a black hood tucked behind a collar.

  “Buy the whole bar a round!” one shouts, ribbing the man who must be their leader. “It’s on the king tonight!”

  My heart stops, and I whirl away, bringing the flagon to my lips with shaky hands.

  That melts the ice at my feet. I need to leave. Now. Immediately. I don’t know that these men are a hunting party looking for me, but I’m certain the king’s had long enough to send riders bearing our descriptions and a bounty for our return to the capital.

  I drain my glass as casually as I can and slide from the barstool like my bones have gone soft. Weaving through the crowd, my heart is in my throat.

  A hand grips my upper arm, creating concaves in my flesh. “Leaving already?”

  I release a shaky breath when I see only the patron who’d interrupted my dinner earlier. One by one, I pry his fingers off my arm, laughing lightly. “Had a restless night, but I think I can get back to sleep now.” My eyes land on one of the knights behind us. He’s set his glass down and is frowning this way, brow furrowed.

  Don’t look over here. I turn so the knight can’t see my face. Like a vice, the man’s hand closes around my arm once more.

  “Sure you won’t have one more with us?” He jerks his head to where a group sits in the corner. One woman waves jauntily, and a man with a mop of corky black curls nods at me as he bites his thumb.

  I push him off. “Maybe I wasn’t clear that it was a ‘no’ the first time.”