I stared at him, my eyes prickling with fear.
Jeb yawned. “Sun won’t be up for another hour or so,” he said. “Try to get some more rest.”
“We need to go,” I said. “Now.”
Jeb motioned to quiet me. “Shhh. The others are sleeping. We don’t need to—”
“Everyone up!” I yelled. “Now! We’re leaving!”
CHAPTER FIVE
KADEN
Find her. Don’t come back without her. Alive or dead, I don’t care. Kill them all. But bring her back.
There wasn’t much else to occupy my thoughts but what may have very well been the Komizar’s last words. He needed her head as evidence. A way to quell the unrest once and for all. The random slaughter of cheering clans in the square hadn’t been enough for him.
I looked back at the perilous footbridge we had just led our horses over. “I’ll do it,” I told Griz, grabbing his ax from him. He started to protest but knew it was no use. He couldn’t lift his left arm without paling. What would have taken him a dozen swings when he wasn’t injured took me more than twice that, but finally the stakes toppled free and the chains jangled into the water below. I stowed the ax and helped Griz back onto his horse. The trail ahead was thick with snow, and we had no tracks to follow. All we had to go on was a hunch of Griz’s and a faded memory.
I pulled my cloak tight against the cold. Conniving, all of them. I should have known Governor Obraun was part of her plotting. He gave in too easily during our Council negotiations because he knew he would never have to follow through with giving tithes at all. And the prince. Damned liars, he was the prince. My fingers were stiff in my gloves as they gripped the reins. It all added up now. Every detail added up, all the way back to the beginning in Terravin. He was a trained soldier just as I had suspected—probably with the very best training Dalbreck could offer. When Griz confessed to having known his identity all along, I wanted to kill him for his treachery. In turn, he reminded me of my own treasonous ways. I couldn’t argue with him. I had betrayed my oath months ago when I hadn’t slit her throat as she slept in her cottage.
Bring her back.
The Komizar would see her dead one way or another for what she had done. For what they had all done. But his preference was to get her back alive—and then make her suffer publicly in the worst possible way for her betrayal.
Find her.
And with my last Vendan breath, that was just what I would do.
The winds bore down, the heavens raged,
and the wilderness tested the Remnant
until the last of the darkness spilled into the earth,
and Morrighan charged the Holy Guardians
with telling the stories, for though the devastation
was behind them, it should not be forgotten,
because their hearts still beat with the blood of their forbears.
—Morrighan Book of Holy Text, Vol. II
CHAPTER SIX
RAFE
We startled awake, alarmed by her shouting, jumping to our feet, drawing swords, looking for imminent danger.
Jeb was saying it was a false alarm, that there was nothing wrong, but Lia had somehow gotten to her feet on her own, her eyes wild, telling us we had to leave. A relieved breath hissed between my teeth and I lowered my sword. She’d only had a nightmare. I stepped toward her. “Lia, it was just a bad dream. Let me help you lie back down.”
She hobbled backward, determined, sweat glistening on her face, and her arm stretched out to keep me at a distance. “No! Get ready. We leave this morning.”
“Look at you,” I said. “You’re tottering like a drunk. You can’t ride.”
“I can and I will.”