Marcel’s expression in the lantern light was aghast. “Sit still while I tie you to the saddle, boy. I don’t dare risk you falling off, not with your eyes and hands bound like that. Skies and stars, if what you say is true then she shouldn’t treat you like this and you shouldn’t be talking about killing her. And I, oh I should be dragging you both off to the Skybinder, middle of the night as it may be, and brother waiting for you as he may be.”
“My brother is waiting?” I asked, anxious now. “He was supposed to go on without me!”
“Enough of that now,” he said briskly. “We’ve a long way to go yet tonight and here’s the lad swaying in the saddle like he might pass out at a moment’s notice.”
I walked to the other side of the pony and reached up to support Osprey. He really was swaying and starting to slump now that he’d used all that energy. I felt a tiredness creeping over me, too, that might have been from the energies the bee was drawing on. Or maybe I was just tired of being hunted.
Osprey slumped against me, his head lolling enough to tell me he’d passed out again. I kept pace beside the pony, propping him up.
“We need to be silent now,” Marcel said as the trail moved to a fork where it widened. “There are many eyes and ears about.”
I nodded wordlessly, forcing my feet to follow the path and keep pace with the pony. My lack of sleep was catching up with me and I was finding it hard to remember to pay attention to the night around me. My head bobbed as I walked as if it, too, wanted to drift off. I didn’t know how much time passed, but the moon was still up when we found Marcel’s cart on the road. His draft horse was tied to a tree and he stamped impatiently as Marcel and I dragged Osprey off his pony and into the back of the cart. It was loaded high with straw. We tucked Osprey under the straw, wrapping a horse blanket around him, and then buried him under enough straw to disguise him.
Marcel moved to tie the pony to the cart and he gestured to me. “Get under the straw, too, girl. You’re the one we most need to keep out of sight.”
I nodded my agreement and crept under the straw in the narrow cart. To get in the right place that I could be hidden meant tucking myself tightly against Osprey’s side. I tried not to think about how I was married to someone else as I shut my eyes and let myself drink in his warmth, ignoring the pain in my chest, and very promptly fell asleep.
Elsewhere in the Winged Empire ...
GENERAL PETREN STARED at the tiny scrap of paper in his hands. He knew this writing – knew it like he knew his own name and yet he’d never received a message like this from this hand. Worse, he had another, similar scrap – this one worn and frayed and so water-logged that it was almost impossible to make out the writing.
The wet one was from the son of his heart – if not of his body. It read:
I beg you one thing, father, if I may dare. Take the children from the Winged Empire. Leave as soon as you read this message. Disaster comes on swift wings. – VP
The other message was even stranger because it mirrored those sentiments exactly:
Petren. You have been loyal. In gratitude, I give you this warning. Flee the Empire. Do not Delay.
There was no signature. There didn’t need to be one. Klavov Petren would have known the handwriting of the Emperor of the Winged Empire no matter where he saw it. Every order he had ever received as General had been written in that handwriting.
He froze for only a moment before tucking both notes away and calling for his guard.
“Get my steward,” he ordered.
He’d need a ship. Maybe more than one. And supplies. On short notice. It would cost all he had – more if he wasn’t careful. And yet, to be warned by two such disparate sources. He could not ignore it. He shook his head and made the sign of the bird as he noted that two different spiders had woven webs in the corner of the room. If that wasn’t a sign, then nothing could be. He must act – now – before he fell into an inescapable trap.
Chapter Four
I WOKE IN A COCOON of warmth that I didn’t want to leave. When I blinked my eyes open, I was nose-to-nose with Osprey. His breathing was not the steady, deep breathing of sleep. Warm light filtered in through the straw and little threads of steam rolled up from the wagon into the crystalline air above. The sun was hot and bright, and the wagon rumbled and bounced over the uneven roads. I hadn’t even asked Marcel where he was taking us. That seemed like an oversight now, but I’d been too exhausted to even think.
The dappled light filtering through the straw made a pattern across Osprey’s face. Gently. I tugged his blindfold up a little and met his bright blue eyes. His smile still caught me by surprise.
“How are you this morning?” I whispered.
“Better. I have watched the day dawn through the light and shadow of this blindfold.” His voice was a bit husky. “You talk in your sleep.”
I felt my cheeks growing hot. “How could you know that?”
“Only you would mutter about giving your husband to the Forbidding as you slept.”
That wasn’t helping with the hot cheeks. I huffed a laugh.
“I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this false marriage,” I whispered, my hand finding the place on my chest that still burned and burned, trying to tug me back south again. You could almost navigate by that tug. “I don’t want to be married.”
“You don’t want to be empress?” he whispered back. “Some people might.”
“You should know better than that,” I jabbed him lightly with a finger. “You should know that I want nothing from the Winged Empire except to be left alone.”
“I know.” And he sounded like he did – in fact, he sounded like he liked it.
“And what about you?” I whispered. “Do you want to be emperor?”
“No.”
“When my bees set you free, what will happen? Will it be like you have died?”
“I don’t know,” his voice sounded afraid.
“I know that if Juste dies, you inherit everything, which means that if you die, he inherits everything. So, if my bee breaks that tie, it might be like you have died and he will immediately inherit the kingdom. Is that possible?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“What happens if your father dies?”
“I cannot say.” There was a rustle in the straw as he shifted positions.
“But you know.”
“Yes.”
I let that go for now. “If my bees can really set you free, what will you do?”
“I’ll fight,” he said, earnestness setting his face hard. “I’ll fight to free you from their clutches and to free this colony. I’ll be the best defender you’ve ever known.”
“And the children?” I asked because I knew that even with the tie broken, he was going to want to save them. And how could he do that?
“There will be a way,” he said grimly. “I will find a way.”
We rode like that for many hours as Osprey struggled through waves of immobilizing agony followed by spells where he breathed a little easier and clutched at my hands.
Twice, Marcel let us out from under the straw for a quick break and to eat and drink. Both times he rushed us in again with worried glances the moment the sound of other travelers reached our ears. He informed us he was taking us north to a place where my brother was waiting. That was all he would say on the matter and though I wanted to press him more, I didn’t. We needed his help and since he was constantly impatient with us, I was afraid he’d leave us on the road if I said the wrong thing.