Tenovia was not a land filled with light and sunshine and flowers. Tenovia was nothing but black trees as thick as castle keeps, knotted roots that clawed their way from sticky dirt, and shadows that seemed to shift and crouch in the darkness.
“Father Garius told us to stay north whenever possible,” Oliver reminded me. “That road heads south, which would eventually take us to the Burning Desert and slavers waiting to sell us to the highest bidder.”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “But that road also seems more traveled. Safer.”
“How is that?” he asked with genuine curiosity.
“There’s light.” And there was, even if it was minimal.
“Where?”
I shifted on my feet. “Well, maybe not light exactly. But I can see flowers. And if there are flowers, there has to be light. At least some of the time.”
“We are not picking our road based on… on… weeds. We need to take the north road. Less chance of running into Vorestran hordes.”
“More chance of running into rebel armies.” I pushed down a fresh wave of fear.
He murmured, “Father Garius said to stick north. We need to stick north. Either way is dangerous.”
He was not wrong.
I jerked my chin toward the northern road and moved forward. “You’re right. We can take care of ourselves. You said it, remember?”
I heard him swallow but didn’t spare him another glance. I would lose my nerve if he gave me any reason to.
We had a rough map that Father Garius had given us to navigate the journey, but it didn’t include every road we’d encountered so far, and nothing we’d run into lately seemed right. We were either on a totally different path than we’d started out on or this map needed to be rewritten.
Which was completely possible.
Father Garius had only ever left the Temple of Eternal Light once and he’d ended up with me as a parting gift.
It was no wonder he’d never wandered from the Temple’s gates again.
Goosebumps pebbled my skin as the temperature dropped. The tree trunks stretched over the ground as thickly as the Heprin cottages we’d left behind and rose to where I could have sworn they touched the sun. Their heavy branches wound around each other, tangling to make an impenetrable canopy.
“This feels ominous,” Oliver mused with a chuckle. “It was a pleasure knowing you, Princess.”
I ignored him.
We walked for another twenty minutes in silence before Oliver couldn’t stand it anymore. “What is it about the Vorestran hordes that make them better than rebel armies? I never quite grasped the different degrees of ways-to-die from all of our potential threats.”
“If the Vorestran hordes were to catch us, they would cut off our heads, mount them on spikes outside of the walls of their city, and eat our hearts raw.”
“Dragon’s blood!” Oliver cursed. “Simply for trespassing?”
“For survival,” I told him. “The heads are to keep away the night dragons and slavers. The hearts are delicacies.”
“Dragons,” Oliver gasped. “And you prefer Vorestra over Tenovia? Are you out of your mind?”
“We would have stayed along the border, reducing our risk of being caught. But you’re right. It probably wouldn’t have worked. I heard that the hordes watch their borders closely these days.”
“Every kingdom is watching their borders closely these days.”
An emptiness filled me. I ached for this realm, this realm that used to be united and prosperous. This realm whose people trusted each other. My need to change it now bloomed into an intense sense of purpose. It started in my toes and bubbled through me, rushing through my veins, filling my blood with intention and my bones with determination.
Oliver spoke again, unable to let the peaceful silence remain. “At least the rebels won’t eat our hearts."
“No, they’ll just use our appendages as kindling so they don’t have to cut down their holy trees to make fires.”
Oliver’s sharp intake of breath was the last sound I heard from him for hours.
“We should stop for the night,” I told him when the dim light of day had faded into the haze of early evening. “Now, before it gets any darker.”
“Do you mean for us to sleep in the open?” As hard as he tried to keep his voice even, I heard the tremor. Sleeping in the open had not bothered us in Heprin. But now that we’d crossed the border into Tenovia it was impossible not to fear the unknown.
“I see lights up ahead.” I pointed toward a bend in the road. “They’re bright enough to be a tavern. Let’s hope they don’t charge too much.”
I dropped my hands and let my fingers curl around the strap of my satchel. I couldn’t decide if it was more dangerous to face people or to try to avoid them. But Oliver’s fear had been well placed. We couldn’t sleep out in the open in these woods. Not if we wanted to wake up with all our appendages attached.
We walked in silence to the door of the inn, slipping inside and finding a small table in the back of the room. I wanted more than anything to grab Oliver’s hand and hold on, but I couldn’t let strangers see these nerves. I had to do whatever it took to protect the crown I carried.
It was odd to be surrounded by people after spending so much of the last fortnight in isolation. The hearth fire warmed my chilled skin. I kept my satchel in place across my torso, where it had become an extension of my body.
I glanced wearily from face to face as I looked about the room. It felt as if every eye turned and recognized me. I resisted the urge to smooth my hair. None of the faces were familiar and I wasn’t entirely sure why I would have expected to meet someone I knew. But my senses were buzzing with paranoia.
I couldn’t help but feel as though there were watchful eyes on me. That they somehow saw me. Saw what I carried. That they were, even now, planning the best way to kill me.
My family had been betrayed and murdered by people we could not yet name. They had escaped without punishment. They roamed the realm free to live as they pleased.
I shook my head. It had been eight years. I’d been a child. Now I was a woman, grown and different.
Nobody would recognize me. It wasn’t possible.
“What do we do?” Oliver whispered a bit frantically.
I looked into his wide brown eyes and shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure. I’ve never been to a tavern before.”
He leaned forward, his fingers gripping the edges of the small table. “Me either!”
“What? How is that possible?”
Exasperation colored his cheeks. “I’ve lived at the monastery since I was a baby. When would I have had the opportunity to visit such a place as this?”
I leaned in and dropped my voice to a murmur. “I grew up in a palace! Why would you think I have experience that you don’t?”
He growled at me, his features transforming from freckled monk to feral ferret. “So what are we going to do?”
“You’re going to have to ask for a room,” I told him.
“Me?”
“Well it can’t be me! I’m a woman.”
His sigh would have made Father Garius proud. “If I die up there,” he gestured toward a long counter where a burly man with small eyes and no neck stood pouring tankards of ale, “Tell my mother I went valiantly, on a quest to save a princess.”