Amarande pointed Mira’s sand-dusted nose to the north and west, back along the dragon’s spine, which was now splitting the sun’s rays in equal measure. Noon.
Accounting for the fight and the cleanup after, she’d likely lost all of the time she’d gained over the course of the night and into the morning. Fifteen hours riding, yet still three hours behind. Maybe more.
But she’d get that time back.
As the sheer umber face of the long spine of plateaus neared, Amarande searched the ground for any hint of the three horses of the bandits carrying her love. The winds had whipped the trail clear, fresh red dirt blanketing what was there only an hour earlier. It became obvious to the princess after about a mile of combing along the rock wall as she’d done previously that the trail was gone. There was nothing now, not even an oat.
For the first time, panic clawed at Amarande’s throat.
The princess swallowed and shut her eyes for a moment. She was not helpless. It was not hopeless.
Again, her father came to her. A warrior made is a warrior alive.
The tenet was an obtuse one, but said plain, the meaning was: Use what you have to your advantage to survive.
The princess’s eyes sprang open.
She had herself. She had Mira. She had the terrain.
Cobble them into an advantage, Ama.
She blinked again at the tail of the dragon’s spine. Yes. That was it.
She would guide Mira up the narrow rock ledges until they either reached the plateau or could go no farther and search the horizon. Whatever she saw there had to be more informative than what was left down below.
Amarande and Mira made the turn to climb, angling for the first ledge leading up the mass of rock, the heavy light casting the path in little relief. Which was when Amarande realized there wasn’t enough room for them to safely maneuver. The ledges grew increasingly thin toward the top, a true path crumbling into a careful hop and skip.
There was no way they were making it together.
Amarande peered at their surroundings. She didn’t have the perspective she craved, but she had enough of a view to see they were alone.
“Don’t worry, I’ll only be a moment.”
She looped Mira’s reins around a craggy thumb of burnished rock and edged her way around the filly, to the first gap between ledges. It was just short of a full split leap’s distance, and the princess leaned hard against the rock face as she tested the weight of a single foot against it—a fall would be another disaster.
But her weight held, and she hugged the rock face, skirting around, picking one ridge and then another, boot tips freeing fresh red dust with every side step and balance check.
The fourth ledge was the leanest—the width of an Itspi windowsill, and at the height of three of Luca’s best stallions placed one atop another. Her fingernails clawed at porous stone, combing for every available groove. Her grip wasn’t the best, bruised knuckles smarting, functional but cranky. But she was spry and had plenty of childhood moments spent in trees—most of them with Luca, of course. Picking lemons to deliver to the kitchens along with a heavy-handed suggestion that they’d go to rot if someone didn’t make cake. Rescuing a gray tabby who’d chased a bird too far. Spying on Koldo’s meticulous methods of reducing new recruits to tears.
By the sixth ledge, she had the top of the plateau within literal reach. Sweat slid down her temples; her hands were wet, too. She dried her palms one by one on her dress, the coating of russet dust adding much needed grit to the slick. She shoved her kerchief up from her nose almost to her hairline, blotting sweat before it could sting her eyes.
She wiped her palms one more time, hooked her hands at the wrists above, and dug her grip into the windblown rock of the top. Amarande closed her eyes. Her breath came in puffs. She could do this.
To the top or not at all.
Her father had never said such a thing, not to her, but the sentiment fit with everything he taught her.
The princess opened her eyes. Readied her worn arms above her head. Squatted as deep as her balance dared. And sprang for the top.
The upward momentum gave lift she wouldn’t have had from a dead hang. Her fingers gained tenuous purchase on the plateau, just deep enough that she was able to drive her left elbow into the graveled skin of the flattop, lace shredding as the bent joint skidded to a delicate halt.
For one sick moment, her entire body weight, plus the heft of her crossed swords and her boots with their hidden knife, was suspended on three points.
With everything she had left, Amarande’s right hand left the safety of her grip and shot forward, her elbow jutting out and catching the plateau’s lip.
Teeth grinding, she hauled her upper body toward the bend of the edge, and swung her right leg on top, and then rolled onto the table of rock.
Breathing in ragged kicks and starts, she lay on her back, swords pressed in an unforgiving cross over her spine. The air she sucked in was sweet and clean, even mingled with a harsh cut of new perspiration from under her arms.
She made it.
A smile touched Amarande’s lips as she sat up and opened her eyes, eager to peer over the edge, hoping for three horses at a distance and therefore more pointed guidance on the correct direction. The barest sign of water along the same general path would be even more desirable.
So much to gain. But when she stood, something came that she didn’t expect.
The sudden sensation that she wasn’t alone.
The princess immediately extracted both swords and whirled a quarter turn to her left, Egia and Maite out in a high blocking cross.
Between the intersection of glinting Basilican steel, the princess saw a ghost.
A wolf as black as night.
Her breath caught and her swords quivered.
Dehydration might kill a person in three days, but the princess knew not how long a person could go without water and maintain sanity.
This couldn’t be real.
There were no black wolves left in the Torrent or anywhere else in the Sand and Sky. All had been famously murdered and their pelts made into various fluffy gifts to the Warlord. The symbol of the Otxoa, eradicated right along with the family that held it dear.
Yet the wolf’s eyes narrowed.
Its canines flashed, the length of her hand from wrist to middle finger.
It took a step forward, onyx paw landing in a whisper of cinnamon dust.
Amarande’s mind raced. This was the face of something that didn’t exist. “Extinct” didn’t mean lying in wait atop a plateau the height of the Itspi’s tallest tower.
“You’re not real.”
The wolf took another step, its carriage lowering, power coiled in its hind legs.
“You’re not real,” the princess repeated, this time a whisper. An appeal to the stars. Amarande couldn’t attack an actual black wolf. She couldn’t. She had her swords, yes. But this creature might be the last of its kind.
Like her.
The wolf’s grin spread, snout crinkled. Yellow pupils just slits now. It didn’t howl, and it wouldn’t, not if it was real. Real wolves attacked in silence. In packs, too—if a lone wolf was spotted, more were near.
But here? On top of the worst part of the world? How could there even be one, let alone a pack?
Amarande backed up on a curve. In her periphery, there was a mass of some kind—a crush of rocks. Koldo’s voice stuck in her head, the advice the same for any fanged beast: Cover your flanks. She needed protection on one side, and without a tree—ideal—anything upright would do. Looking bigger than she was would help. Her left hand scrabbled at her skirt, pulling the fabric out to the side.