She was not their queen or Komizar, and she was not a soldier.
The sooner I could get her safely to Dalbreck, the better.
CHAPTER FOUR
One by one, they dropped to a knee, offering formal introductions. Though they had all already seen me half naked and held me down in the most familiar ways while I was stitched, perhaps this was the first time they thought I might actually live long enough to remember any of it.
Colonel Sven Haverstrom of the Dalbreck Royal Guard, Assigned Steward of Crown Prince Jaxon. The others laughed at that title. They were free with their jest and jabs, even with an officer who outranked them, but Sven gave it back as good as he got it.
Officer Jeb McCance, Falworth Special Forces.
Officer Tavish Baird, Tactician, Fourth Battalion.
Officer Orrin del Aransas, Falworth First Archer Assault Unit.
I bit the corner of my lip hesitantly and raised my brows. “And I can trust those are your real names and occupations this time?”
They eyed me uncertainly for a moment, then laughed, realizing I was jesting along with them.
“Yes,” Sven said, “but I wouldn’t trust that fellow you’re leaning on. Claims he’s a prince, even though he’s nothing but a—”
“That’s enough,” Rafe said. “Let’s not wear the princess out with your mindless yammering.”
I smiled, appreciating their levity, but I sensed a certain unease behind it, an effort to mask the grimness of our situation.
“Food’s ready,” Orrin announced. Rafe helped me sit down against a makeshift backrest made of saddles and blankets. In the process of sitting, I bent my leg and a fiery jolt shot through it as if I was being pierced with an arrow all over again. I bit back a groan.
“How are the back and the leg?” Tavish asked.
“Better,” I answered once I caught my breath. “I guess you need to add skilled Field Surgeon to your list of titles.”
Orrin watched me eat as if every bite I took measured his cooking skills. Besides the roasted meat, he had also made a soup from the carcass and some turnips. Apparently Jeb wasn’t the only one who had stowed some luxuries in his saddlebag. The conversation centered around the food and other game that they had spotted for future meals—deer, possum, and beaver. Gentle topics. Not at all like their plotting this morning that they had tried to keep from my ears.
I finished my meal and turned the conversation to a more pressing topic. “So, it sounds like we have a week’s lead,” I said.
They paused from their eating and glanced at one another, quickly assessing how much had been said this morning and what I might have overheard.
Rafe wiped the corner of his mouth with the side of his hand. “Two weeks’ lead with the heavy snowfall.”
Sven cleared his throat. “That’s right. Two weeks, Your—”
“Lia,” I said. “No more formalities. We’re well beyond that by now, aren’t we?”
They all looked at Rafe, deferring to him, and he nodded. I had almost forgotten he was their sovereign. Their prince. He outranked them all, including Sven.
Sven confirmed with a single nod. “Very well. Lia.”
“At least two weeks,” Orrin agreed. “Whatever Rafe put in the gears of the bridge did the job.”
“Lia gave it to me,” Rafe told him.
They looked at me, surprised, perhaps wondering if I had conjured some sort of Morrighese magic. I told them about the scholars in the caverns below the Sanctum who were unlocking the secrets of the Ancients and had devised the powerful clear liquid I gave to Rafe. I also described the Komizar’s hidden army city and the things I’d witnessed—including the charging brezalots that carried the packs that exploded like a firestorm. “The Komizar was planning to march on Morrighan first and then the rest of the kingdoms. He wanted them all.”
Sven shrugged and marginally confirmed my story, saying the Komizar talked up the power of the army that the governors and their provinces were financing. “But at least half the governors were skeptical. They thought he was inflating the numbers and their capabilities to get greater tithes out of them.”
“Did you see the city?” I asked. “He wasn’t overstating his claim.”
“I didn’t, but the other governors who had still weren’t won over.”
“They probably only wanted him to sweeten their own stakes. I know what I saw. There’s no doubt that with the army and weapons he was amassing, Venda could easily quash Morrighan—and Dalbreck too.”
Orrin snorted. “No one can beat Dalbreck’s army.”
I looked at Orrin pointedly. “And yet Morrighan has done so many times in our rocky past. Or do you not study history in Dalbreck?”
Orrin glanced at me awkwardly, then back down at the tin of soup in his hands.
“That was a long time ago, Lia,” Rafe intervened. “Long before my father’s reign—and your father’s. A lot has changed.”
His low opinion of my father’s rule didn’t escape me, and strangely, it made a defensive spark ignite within me. But it was true. I had no idea what Dalbreck’s army was like now, but in the past several years, the Morrighese army had shrunk. Now I wondered if that was by the Chancellor’s design—to make us an easier target—except I wasn’t sure that as overseer of the treasury, he alone could make that happen, not even with the Royal Scholar’s help. Was it possible that more in the cabinet conspired with him?
Rafe reached out and rested his hand on my knee, perhaps perceiving the harshness of his comment. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “If such an army does exist, without the Komizar’s calculating ambition, it will fall into disarray. Malich doesn’t possess the wit to lead an army, much less keep the loyalties of the Council. He may be dead already.”
The thought of Malich’s arrogant head rolling across the Sanctum floor warmed me—my only regret being that I wasn’t the one who had sent it rolling. But who else might step into the powerful shoes of the Komizar? What about Chievdar Tyrick? Governor Yanos? Or maybe Trahern of the Rahtan? They were certainly the most nasty and driven of those left on the Council, but I was sure none possessed the cunning or finesse to secure the loyalty of the entire Council, much less follow through with the Komizar’s staggering ambitions. But with so much at stake, was that an assumption that any kingdom could afford to make? Morrighan needed to be warned of the possible threat and be prepared for it.
“Two weeks easily,” Jeb said, trying to return to the more positive subject of our ample lead time. He tore off another piece of the badger meat. “The Sanctum was in chaos when we left, and with more grabs for power, they may not set out for the lower river at once.”
“They will.” Sven eyed Rafe with cool gray eyes. “The question is not how soon but how many will they send? It’s not just her they’ll be after. You’ll be a highly sought prize too. The crown prince of Dalbreck has not only stolen away with something they value but has no doubt greatly injured their pride with his deception.”
“It was the Komizar’s pride,” Rafe corrected him, “and he’s dead.”
“Maybe.”
I looked at Sven, incredulous, and my heart squeezed to a cold knot. “There’s no maybe about it. I stabbed him twice and twisted the blade. His guts were in pieces.”