The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles 1)

“Search for a sign again?”

“Which direction, Sven? From this point, there are a dozen routes they could have taken.”

“We could split up.”

“And that would cover about half the possibilities and leave us one man against five if we happened to pick the right one.”

I knew Sven wasn’t seriously suggesting any of these things, and he wasn’t worried about my father or his neck. He was pushing me to make the final hard decision.

“Maybe it’s time to admit she’s out of our grasp?”

“Stop goading me, Sven.”

“Then make your decision and live by it.”

I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her in the hands of barbarians for so long, but it was all I could do. “Let’s ride. We’ll get to Venda before they do.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

KADEN

I’d had a hole burning in my gut since we left Terravin. I didn’t expect her to be pleasant with me after what I had done. How could she understand? But I didn’t have the choices of the nobly bred. My choices were few, and loyalty was paramount to them all. It was all that had ever kept me alive.

Even if I’d been able to disregard loyalties and hadn’t brought her with us, someone else would have been sent to finish the job the way it was meant to be done. Someone more eager, like Eben. Or worse, someone like Malich.

And of course I would be dead—as I should be for my betrayal. No one lied to the Komizar.

Yet that’s exactly what I’d be doing when I told him she had the gift. She might be able to fool the others—Griz and Finch were from the old hill villages where spirits and the unseeable were still believed in—but the Komizar wasn’t a believer in magical thinking.

Unless he saw visible proof of the gift, he’d find her presence useless. She would have to up her game. Still, I was sure the Komizar would forgive me this one lapse in making the decision to bring her back instead of killing her. He knew of my beginnings and the role the unseeable had played in my life. He also understood the ways of so many Vendans who still believed. He could twist it to his purpose.

I rubbed my chest, feeling the scars anew now that she had seen them, thinking how they must look to someone like her. Maybe they just completed the image of an animal. I was afraid that was all I was to her now.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

It was only midday, but I sensed we were getting close to something, and it made me nervous. Finch had been whistling nonstop, and Eben kept riding ahead, then circling back. Maybe they were invigorated by the change in weather. It was considerably cooler, and the soaking rain last night had pelted away a layer of filth from all of us.

Malich was his usual glum self, only changing his expression to shoot me occasional suggestive glances, but Griz began humming. My hands tightened on my reins. Griz never hummed. It was too soon to be arriving in Venda. I couldn’t have lost track of that many days.

Eben came galloping back again. “Le fe esa! Te iche!” he shouted multiple times.

I didn’t try to hide my alarm. “He sees a camp?” I said.

Kaden looked at me strangely. “What did you say?”

“What camp is Eben talking about?”

“How did you know? He spoke in Vendan.”

I didn’t want him to know how much Vendan I had picked up, but camp was one of the first words I had learned. “Griz grumbles iche every night when he’s ready to stop for the day,” I explained. “Eben’s enthusiasm told me the rest.” Kaden still didn’t answer my question, which only made me more nervous. Were we entering a barbarian camp? Would I now be surrounded by hundreds of Vendans?

“We’ll be stopping ahead for several days. There’s some good meadowland, and it will give the horses a chance to replenish and rest. We’re not the only ones who’ve lost weight, and we still have a long way to go.”

“What kind of camp?” I asked.

“We’re almost there. You’ll see.”

I didn’t want to see. I wanted to know. Now. I forced myself to think of the upside of any kind of camp. Besides being out of the blistering heat, the next biggest blessing would be to get off the back of this dragon horse for a few days. Sitting on something besides this stone-hard saddle was a pleasure I had imagined more than once. And maybe we’d even get to eat more than one meal a day. A real meal. Not a bony, half-cooked rodent that tasted like a stinking shoe. I had forgotten what a full stomach felt like. It was true, we had all lost weight, not just the horses. I could feel my trousers riding down around my hips, slipping lower each day with no belt to hike them up.