Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf 1)

“Believe me, you are far from alone.”

Nathaniel reined his horse in. “Stop. Do you hear that?”

“The river?” I asked, but he’d already dismounted and was leading his horse quietly through the undergrowth.

“Wake up, Conrad,” I whispered as I softly shook my brother from his doze.

He stirred, rubbing his eyes. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” I said. Ahead, Nathaniel put his finger to his lips. Shhhh. I dismounted but let Conrad stay in the saddle as I brought our roan up next to Nathaniel’s bay mare.

Nathaniel pointed. “Look, there. In the valley.”

The first things I saw were blue flags emblazoned with the silhouette of a white winged horse: the standard of Renalt. Beneath the pennants stood a cluster of tents and dozens of horses, all bearing the regalia of the Renaltan military.

“Are they friends or foes?” Nathaniel asked.

“In Renalt it’s always hard to know.” I squinted while I scanned the encampment, then gasped. “There.”

Beneath one of the blue flags waved a smaller white one, bearing the circular, spread-branched hawthorn seal of the Greythorne family.

I leaped back onto the horse behind Conrad and snapped the reins. With my heart pounding in time to his hoofbeats, we sailed down the embankment toward the camp. I had no backup plan, no strategy for escape if these soldiers had come at Toris’s behest. My only thoughts were of a white flag and a hawthorn tree.

The soldiers saw us coming. By the time we reached the encampment, the men in blue uniforms were lined up in a defensive formation, swords drawn.

“Halt!” one of them cried as we approached. “State your name and your business.”

Head high, I said, “I am Aurelia, princess of Renalt. I bring with me my brother, Conrad, high prince and future king of Renalt.” Nathaniel cantered in behind us. “And Nathaniel Gardner, our valued ally and friend.”

A murmur went up among the men as Conrad and I were scrutinized. We were dirty and disheveled, with bags under our eyes and little bits of straw stuck in our clothes. I didn’t blame them for doubting our claim.

“Can anyone here speak to the truth of her words?” the man asked.

Suddenly a voice rang out from behind the line. “She is who she says! I can testify on her behalf! I’ll vouch for her, and I’ll stand with her, and I’ll fight anyone who gets in my way.”

“Kellan?” I asked, hardly daring to breathe.

He pushed his way out of the crowd. “As I always have. And always will.”

* * *

In the largest tent, a makeshift table was made from a scavenged flat-topped stone. Not everyone could fit inside, so half the men stayed outside, on guard, and the other half lined the inside of the canvas.

Kellan’s explanations were hasty: after he’d fallen into the river, his memories were vague, little more than impressions of washing ashore, then being moved, and careful hands dressing his wounds. He was still in the haze of fever when his brother, Fredrick, found him delivered to the Greythorne estate’s front door with no sign of his benefactor. Just Kellan and, in the distance, a watchful yellow-eyed fox.

Wisely, Fredrick kept Kellan’s sudden appearance a secret. He ministered to his younger brother himself, keeping vigil by his bed for two days, until the fever finally broke. Finally lucid, Kellan was able to relay what had happened to us in the woods at Toris’s hands. In turn, Fredrick’s news of the queen in the capital was equally perplexing: it seemed that though my mother had been taken as a royal hostage in Syric, the Tribunal had then made no further moves to consolidate their power. But something was simmering; everyone knew it. The only question was: What was stopping them? What were they waiting for?

I provided that answer. The Tribunal was waiting for Toris to destroy Achlev’s Wall.

What they had planned after that, I hoped we wouldn’t have to find out.

Now, inside the tent, Fredrick Greythorne was standing behind Kellan, dressed in the livery of their family. He looked like Kellan in nearly every way except the hair; where Kellan had a wealth of tight, corkscrew curls, Fredrick kept his hair closely shorn, skimming his deep brown skin, but not so close that he could hide the hints of iron gray at his temples. He was fifteen years Kellan’s senior, and watching him made it easy to imagine how Kellan would look fifteen years from now: handsome, with a wide, well-cut jaw and fine, crinkly lines around his mouth and eyes.

It had been Kellan’s idea to infiltrate Syric and rescue the queen, and Fredrick’s plan that had made it happen.

“My mother is free?” I asked, jubilant for the first time in what felt like years. “Where is she? How was it done?”

Kellan was slowly pacing; it was clear from his movements that he was still feeling the effects of his injuries. “The castle was completely locked down. The Tribunal was in total control, and even though they maintained that the queen was in good health, Onal was the only person Simon allowed to go in and out of the room, to bring them food and the like.”