At least that’s where she thought they were going.
It made no sense, but she followed. It didn’t matter the kidnappers’ destination—they wouldn’t get there with Luca.
The sun was barreling toward the horizon now. Sunset was still hours away, but with each passing moment the lack of sleep pressed deeply into Amarande’s eyelids. Her father had trained her to track prey like her life depended on it, yes, but he hadn’t simulated the other parts of a journey like this—she’d always gotten as much sleep as she needed.
In the new light, the sands changed, too, the flowing seas of dust and earth becoming more irregular. Shrubbery brave enough to survive here poked up toward the coming night. She’d been told the Torrent was nothing but sand and sky and plateaus for miles on end, but this vegetation multiplied with each horse length. Amarande squinted ahead and saw the cut of a clear path through the scrub as it grew thicker, and the smudge of trees on the horizon.
The watering hole, the innkeeper, and now a change from the endless red dirt. What else would she find?
The wind kicked up and brushed a fine spray of sand into her eyes. Mira halted, her nose peeled back against the gust, her own eyes tightly closed. Amarande pulled her cowl up tighter and waited for it to pass, tears sticking in her eyes as her body sagged with exhaustion. Her stomach rumbled once again—if her adrenaline failed, at least her hunger would keep her awake. Like sleep, food was something of which she’d never been deprived, even in her training.
A weakness among many. She’d been highly trained, yes, but she was still completely unprepared.
When the air quieted down and it was safe to open her eyes, the princess did so, blinking to reorient herself before moving on. Mira waited patiently for her nudge.
Home, in the gray shadows of mountains to her right.
The Port of Torrent, somewhere up and to the left.
And there, angling toward the thick stain of trees on the horizon, were three little specks.
CHAPTER
23
BY the time the sun was beginning to set on another day and twilight fell in a silver cloud over the rushing red dust, the first thread of doubt looped its way around Luca’s heart.
Amarande still hadn’t come.
A second full day had passed now—Luca could no longer be ignorant to the length of time that had expired between his kidnapping and the present.
He pictured the princess as he last saw her, in the arena, jaw set, appeal unwavering as it lifted above the crowd. That girl wouldn’t give in to bribery. She wouldn’t trust the words of some unnamed letter writer to ensure the safety of her best friend. Deep down, that thread plucked itself into something resembling a sound, a fiddle string loose and thumping.
Luca glanced over his shoulder. Ula was riding beside him—he’d been pawned off on Urtzi in the late afternoon. Beyond her, the world was growing dark. The distant mountains to the east—Ardenia—had swallowed the last vestiges of the sun there, darkness consuming them. To the west, the last hour of light. Behind them, the wind shifted the dust in swirling clouds that gave the appearance of travelers on the horizon where there were none. Before them, their path was opening toward a thin ribbon of trees, jutting up from the earth like fingers pointed crooked toward the darkening sky. In this landscape, it almost appeared to be a forest, though nothing so robust was supposed to exist in the Torrent.
“She’s not there, Luca.” This came from Ula, who didn’t glance his way, nor did she bother to look behind her to confirm what he wasn’t seeing.
“Oh, but she is, Ula.”
Ula’s golden eyes slipped into their periphery. After a moment of watching silvering night, she looked back to Luca, trying to read his face across the distance. Luca wasn’t sure what exactly she was trying to deduce, other than possibly to see if his viewpoint would project itself across his features for her.
“My princess is one of the best-trained hunters in the Sand and Sky. She won’t let herself be seen.”
At this, Ula shook her head, the linen she had wrapped around the fall of her long dark hair snagging gently against the pommel of the curved sword, which was slung across her back without Luca in the saddle. “Your confidence in her is more than I have in the sun continuing to rise.”
“I—” Luca started, only to be cut off by a guffaw from up ahead.
“To the stars, you are the absolute sappiest male in our entire species. Stableboy, why are you still looking for her?” Dunixi wrenched his whole body around, his neck red enough again that clearly it hurt too much to fold the skin with a turn of his head. The linen had done little to protect his skin, which was still a vibrant pink beneath the cloth and in the waning light. “Your princess may be different, but she’s not coming, because she doesn’t care.”
“I would like to remind all of you,” Urtzi said, voice proud and projected from his spot inches from Luca aboard a honeyed-butter palomino named Ferri, “that I thought we’d snatched the wrong boy. And perhaps we did. The stableboy isn’t her love.”
“If she doesn’t care, and I’m not her love, then you must let me go,” Luca argued, knowing quite well that his cheeks were pinking at the thought of Amarande’s heart finding him so. “I’m not worth it for you to drag around. I’m a liability, even—your man will be very disappointed that you’ve been hauling around no one of value. Return me and I’ll help you find your rightful hostage.”
Dunixi laughed again, but it was stiff, his shoulders still so as not to disrupt his neck. “Nice try, stableboy.”
The trees they’d been pointed toward were suddenly upon them. No water here, but shade, not that they needed that now—the sun had dipped below the western horizon, the mountains’ shadows falling long across the bowl of the Torrent.
Though this copse of trees was a respite from the wind and exposure, there were no other people in sight. Wherever they were going, whether it really was toward an actual ship or somewhere else entirely, was not somewhere many people seemed to want to go.
Near the middle of the strip of trees, Dunixi slowed his ghostly gelding, Boli, and swung a leg around. “Urtzi, rustle up our meal and secure the perimeter while you’re at it. Ula, graze the horses and double-check that bonehead’s perimeter work. Boy, sit down and watch me cook a meal you won’t enjoy.”
“Is that because you’re an awful cook?”
Dunixi grunted. “No, it’s because though we’ll give you enough water to keep you around, the truth is you can survive weeks without a morsel to eat.”
Luca decided not to remind the boy that Ula had given him dates for breakfast both this day and the last, plus part of her meal the night before. Perhaps the pain from his sunburn was making him forgetful.
The light died faster than Luca felt it ever had in the Itspi, the trees and high western mountains leeching it out in record time as the blond boy piled together sticks for a fire. Luca was surprised that he’d go to the trouble but didn’t question it—maybe Dunixi believed they weren’t being followed, that nobody cared that they were there, but Luca wouldn’t stop the boy from announcing their presence with flame and no protection such as what they’d had the night before.
Ula returned first and tied the horses in careful intervals around the camp, a makeshift fence against the interests of the night. Urtzi returned almost a half hour later, four dead hares hanging by their ears in his huge hands.