* * *
The next morning, Vilah, Adeline, and Madam Rathbone brought more dresses to my tent trying to find something for me to wear for the party the next evening. After much fussing, they settled on a deep blue velvet dress—Dalbretch blue—with a silver sash. “We’ll put together the other accessories,” Vilah said. “Unless you’d prefer to?”
I left it to them to figure out as Vilah suggested. I liked a beautiful gown as well as anyone, but it was probably obvious to all of them that I didn’t fuss over the particulars of fashion.
“Do you mind if I ask—” Adeline blushed. “Never mind,” she said, shaking away her question.
“Please,” I said. “Speak freely.”
“It seems that you and King Jaxon have genuine feelings for each other, and it just made me wonder…”
“Why did you run from the wedding?” Vilah finished for her.
“They claim it was a deliberate snub planned by Morrighan all along,” Adeline added.
I refrained from rolling my eyes. “That is just bruised egos speaking,” I answered, “and a court full of men who couldn’t believe a girl could derail all their plans. The Morrighese cabinet was just as angry as Dalbreck’s. My departure wasn’t nearly as dramatic as a conspiracy. I simply left of my own accord because I was afraid.”
Adeline twisted the silver sash in her hand. “Afraid of the prince?”
“No,” I sighed. “The prince was probably the least of it. I was afraid of the unknown. I was afraid of the sham and the gift I thought I lacked. I was afraid of all the lost choices I would never be able to make, and that for the rest of my life someone would always be telling me what to do or say or think, even when I had better ideas of my own. I was afraid of never being anything but what suited others and being pushed and prodded until I fit the mold they shoved me into and I forgot who I was and what I wanted. And maybe most of all, I was afraid I would never be loved beyond what a piece of paper had ordered. That’s enough fear to make any girl jump on a horse and ride away, princess or not, don’t you think?”
They stared at me, and I saw the understanding in their eyes. Madam Rathbone nodded. “Enough and then some.”
* * *
I walked, trying to ignore the rattle of the belts and weapons of the guard escort trailing behind me. They reverberated like an entire marching army in the midst of the peaceful marketplace of wagons, but the king’s orders were to be followed to the letter, six guards and not one less. I stopped to check on Dihara first, then went in search of Natiya.
Like Dihara, Natiya had been orphaned when she was a baby. Her parents’ wagon had lost a wheel and tumbled down a mountainside. By some miracle Natiya had been spared, and together the tribe had raised her. Dihara, Reena, they had all been her mothers.
I found her down at the river’s edge, alone, staring at the calm rippling waters, supervising a bevy of fishing lines thrown into the water. The guards hung back, and I sat down beside her, but her focus on the river remained constant, as if it flowed with dreams and memories.
“They told me you were here,” she said, still staring straight ahead.
“Thanks to you,” I answered. With a single finger, I gently turned her chin so she had to look at me. Her large brown eyes glistened.
“I frightened a man twice my size with that little knife. He had hurt a small child, and I threatened to cut off his nose. You took a stand, Natiya. It helped me to take one too.”
She looked back at the river. “My stand didn’t go well.”
“Neither did mine. That will never stop me from taking them. Once we fear to take a stand, tyranny will have won.”
“Then why do I feel that we’ve lost everything?”
I pulled in a slow, shaky breath, feeling the price she had paid. “There are more battles to be fought, Natiya. This isn’t the end.”
Tears trickled down her cheeks. “It is for Dihara.”
A sickening twinge wrenched my chest. This was Natiya’s reality—and mine. Were any losses worth the gains? I struggled with the same doubts I saw in her eyes. Dihara had sent me here to speak to her, but really, what did I have to offer? I was still trying to find my own way.
“Once, when I was feeling despair over bad fortune, Dihara told me we’re all part of a greater story—one that transcends even our own tears. You’re part of that greater story now too, Natiya. You listened to the truth speaking within you. It may not seem like it right now, but you’re stronger today than you were yesterday. Tomorrow, you’ll be even stronger.”
She turned to look at me, the same defiance in her face as the day I’d left her in the vagabond camp. “I want to go with you,” she said.
My stomach gripped. I wasn’t prepared for this. I saw the hunger in her eyes, but I also saw Aster. It filled me with fear and renewed grief. I wouldn’t let this part of the story be hers.
“Not yet, Natiya. You’re too young—”
“I’m thirteen now! And a woman—the same as you!”
My blood rushed and my thoughts tumbled like a thousand tiny stones in a swollen river. “Cha liev oan barrie,” I said. “Your time will come. I promise. For now, your family still needs you. Be strong for them.”
She stared at me and finally nodded, but I was certain she remained unconvinced, and my own shortcomings seemed evident again.
A fishing line tugged, and she jumped up, giving it a sharp jerk to snag the hook deep in the fish’s mouth.
* * *
I sat on the watchtower wall looking out at the rolling plain. An orange ball of fire settled into the earth, the rippling line of the horizon slowly swallowing it up as if it were nothing, as if all the sun’s timeless power were merely warm frosted confection. Gone in a single bite.
All that was left in its wake was an orange glow that lit the edges of spiked ruins in the distance. Rafe said legend claimed the ruins were what remained of a great stronghold that once held all the wealth of the Ancients. Now the works of the demigods were little more than scars on a landscape—reminders that even the great, with all their wealth and knowledge, can fall.
Somewhere beyond all that, on an unseeable horizon, was Morrighan and all the people who lived there, going about their lives, unaware. My brothers. Pauline. Berdi. Gwyneth. And more patrols like Walther’s who would meet their deaths, as unaware as I had once been.
I want to go with you.
Where I was going was no place for Natiya. It was hardly a place for me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
RAFE
“May I have a turn?”
I wiped the sweat dripping from my face with my sleeve. I knew a crowd was watching my sparring exercises with other soldiers, but I hadn’t known Lia was among them. I turned, following the sound of her voice. She hopped down from the paddock rail and walked toward me. I waved off the soldier who was poised to spar with me next.
I had seen her use a sword in our escape from the Sanctum, but that was in surprise attacks, and I didn’t know how well she really knew how to spar. It wouldn’t hurt for her to expand her skills.
“All right,” I answered.
“I could use the practice,” she said as she approached. “I had training with my brothers, but they emphasized dirty fighting.”