By the gods. It couldn’t be.
I hobbled forward, but Rafe stretched his hand out to stop me.
Orrin and Jeb had their bows drawn, arrows aimed with razor-sharp concentration at Kaden’s and Griz’s hearts as they walked them into our camp. It was as if they didn’t trust a sword to bring down Griz and a safe distance was their best strategy. Sven had already relieved them of their weapons.
Rafe approached them, eyeing Kaden. Kaden returned his frigid stare. My breath froze in my chest. Nothing had changed between them. Their gazes were heavy with threat, though Kaden was in no position to threaten anyone.
“So we meet again, Prince Jaxon.”
“So we do,” Rafe replied, his voice as brittle as the air. “But it looks as if you’ve traveled a long way for nothing. Stupid sot.”
Kaden’s nostrils flared. He hadn’t missed the irony of his own long-ago words being thrown back into his face.
“What should we do with them?” Tavish asked.
Rafe stared at Kaden for what seemed an eternity, then shrugged as if it was of little matter. “Kill them,” he said.
I jumped forward grabbing his arm. “Rafe! You can’t kill them!”
“What am I supposed to do, Lia? Take them prisoner? Look at the size of that one!” he said, pointing at Griz. “I don’t even have enough rope to go around him.”
“There’s rope in their gear,” I countered, waving my hand at a coil hanging from the back of Griz’s horse.
“And then what? Tie them up so they can wait for the opportunity to slit all our throats and take you back to Venda again? What do you think they’re here for? Just to say hello?”
Kaden stepped forward, and both Orrin and Jeb yelled at him to hold his position, pulling their bows taut with threat. He stopped. “We don’t want to take her back,” he said. “We’re only here to escort and protect her. A squad of Rahtan and First Guard are charged with hunting her down. They could be here any time.”
Rafe laughed. “You, escort and protect her? Do you take me for a fool?”
A smile lit Kaden’s eyes. “That’s beside the point, isn’t it? What’s more important, your pride or Lia’s life?”
“And that’s why you were stalking us? To protect her?”
“We were watching for the Vendan riders, hoping to intercept them before they reached her.”
“And yet, the only Vendan riders I see are you.”
I didn’t blame Rafe for balking at Kaden’s claim. I questioned his motivations as well. Escort me? When he had claimed that I belonged in Venda with him? When he had assured me at every turn that there was no way for me to escape? There clearly had been. He had found another way across the river. My distrust simmered.
I limped forward, sidestepping Rafe’s efforts to stop me. I kept a safe distance but looked sternly at Griz. “Put your hands behind your back. Now.”
He eyed me uncertainly, but then slowly did as I instructed. “Good,” I said. “Now, after they tie you up, you must give me your word you won’t try to escape, and if Kaden should try, you must promise that you’ll strike him down.”
“How would I do that with my hands tied?” he asked.
“I don’t care how you do it. Fall on him. That should stop him. Do I have your word?”
He nodded.
Rafe grabbed my arm and began to drag me away. “Lia, we’re not going to—”
I twisted my arm free. “Rafe! We are not going to kill them!” I looked accusingly back at Kaden. “Yet,” I added. I ordered him to put his hands behind his back too. He didn’t move, only stared, his eyes drilling into me, trying to thrust guilt back on me for deceiving him. “I’m not going to ask you a second time, Kaden. Do it.”
He slowly put his hands behind his back too. “You’re making a mistake,” he said. “You’re going to need me.”
“Tie them up,” I said to Tavish and Sven. Neither one moved, deferring instead to Rafe for an answer.
Rafe’s jaw was rigid with anger.
“Rafe,” I whispered between gritted teeth.
He relented and signaled to Sven and Tavish, then pulled me over behind the horses, his fury mounting. “What’s the matter with you? Griz’s word is worth nothing, and Kaden’s even less. How are we going to travel with them? Griz will break his word the first time we—”
“He won’t break his word.”
Exasperation flashed across Rafe’s face. “And how would you know that?”
“Because I commanded it, and he believes that I’m his queen.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Valley of the Giants wasn’t what I expected. In the lush basin below us, enormous boxy temples covered in green and gold snaked for miles in neat rows, like a giant’s stash of moss-covered trunks. Sven said legend claimed it to be a marketplace of the Ancients. What treasures had been so grand and immense that structures of equal stature had been required? They lined a path that wound through the valley and finally disappeared behind low hills. Trees with golden leaves sprouted between them, and emerald moss and vines covered their walls. Even though some had fallen into rubble, many were eerily intact, just like in the City of Dark Magic, almost as if the Ancients still roamed there. Even from afar, I could see the remnants of signposts that had once marked the way. Why had this city been spared the ravages of the devastation and time?
It made me wonder if this was another place that Griz and his cohorts had avoided, fearing that the dark spirits of the Ancients held up the walls. He and Kaden walked ahead of us, traversing the twisting trail down the side of the mountain. Rafe wouldn’t let them ride. He said it was safer to have them walk just ahead of Jeb and Orrin, who still had their bows at the ready, even though Kaden’s and Griz’s hands were firmly tied behind their backs.
“Would you really have killed them in cold blood?” I asked.
“It’s no less than what he ordered for me.”
“Tit for tat? Is that how this soldiering stuff works?”
An annoyed hiss escaped through Rafe’s teeth. “No, I wouldn’t have killed them on the spot. I probably would have waited for Kaden to do something stupid in the heat of the moment—which he surely will—and then I would have killed him. Oh, wait, excuse me! I forgot. We’re all in good hands. Griz promised to fall on him if he got out of line. Do I have that right?”
I returned his sarcasm with a steely glare. “Next I’m going to order him to fall on you. Save your cynicism. All I needed to know was that you wouldn’t kill them in cold blood.”
Rafe sighed. “But it doesn’t hurt for them to think that I would. I don’t trust either of them, and we still have a long way until we reach the safety of the outpost.”
“How long have you known they were following us?”
“I’ve suspected for a few days now. I saw white smoke early one morning. A campfire being doused, I guessed. What I can’t figure out is how they caught up with us so fast.”
“I know.” As soon as the last knot was tied on his hands, Kaden’s long-ago explanation, no other way, pinched inside me. It was another of his lies. At the very least, he had deliberately painted a picture that made me assume things.