“So did everyone for a few years. And then we all lost hope. Wherever he is, he’s passed our reach,” Wing Ivo said distractedly. “It’s been more than a decade since he was taken. Even if he lives, he is lost to us.”
“He lives,” I said firmly. My visions of the Hissan had been real.
“Then let him keep living – and let us keep living, too, and for that, we must flee.”
“Osprey will catch us eventually,” I said, my belly rolling at the nerves that washed over me just from speaking my fears aloud. “It’s amazing that he hasn’t caught us already.”
Ivo said nothing, but Zayana shifted her weight uncomfortably.
“I want to have accomplished something before I’m dragged off to be married to the crown prince,” I said stubbornly.
“Married?” Ivo’s head whipped around.
“That’s what he said he’d do after he was done torturing me.” I couldn’t keep the acid out of my voice. “He wants my bees.”
“You are the fiancée of Le Majest?” Zayana asked in awe.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to be.”
“But he said it was so?” she pressed.
I shrugged, refusing to say it aloud. It would feel too real if I admitted it a second time.
“Then you are,” she said, her eyes huge. She took a step back as if she was too nervous to be close to someone as honored as me. Juste should have chosen her. She would have given him all the respect and attention he craved.
Ivo’s brow furrowed for a long moment, his eyes turning inward and then he nodded slowly. “If we want to find your general, we need to know where to look. I wasn’t there when he was taken and rumors are twisty things. Who knows where they have curved into lies? We’ll need to go read the records of the battle for Karkatua.”
“Does that mean we need to go back to Karkatua?”
“No. The records are kept in the city of Glorious Ingvar in the Oriole Monastery. We’ll have to go there.”
The door swung open suddenly and a young man hurried in. “Master Alson says to put these on. Hurry.”
He handed us dark cloaks – far too warm for the weather. I put mine on anyway, pulling the deep hood up to cover my face.
We followed him out the door to where three horses were being hurriedly saddled. A man in fishing garb looked up, nodded sharply to Ivo, and then returned to his work as he spoke.
“It’s all I could spare. Even the horses ... well, it’s a lot to ask, friend.”
“By the time we are finished, there will be more asked,” Ivo said grimly. “We will all be asked for our blood – rich and red – and only those who pay in suffering will still stand.”
His friend made a sad sound of agreement and then motioned to us to mount. “Be safe. Be fast.”
And then he and the young man disappeared into the wharf house and Wing Ivo motioned to us to hurry.
None of the horses looked like they were very high in quality. They were nags meant to pull fish carts, not fine racers, but they were better than nothing. My horse had a paint coat that was rough and shaggy and smelled strongly of fish. She rolled her eyes at the sight of me and I narrowed mine in return.
“Hurry,” Ivo reminded. “And try not to be seen.”
We mounted quickly and set out, following his shaggy black horse down the docks and skirting the small fishing town beyond. I’d never been to this town – whichever it was – and it seemed I wouldn’t be going into it today, either.
Ivo set a punishing pace to the road and once we were on it, he kicked up his horse. There was no talk. No discussion. Just silence.
We could all feel the pressure of the chase and the burden of the hopes of people like that fisherman. Urgency lit the hooves of our horses aflame and we rode fast and hard. And fear pressed down on me, like a leaden weight that would not let up until it drove me into the ground.
I kept feeling for the feather in my wristband, but though I was certain that Osprey was right behind us, it remained still and cool to the touch.
Chapter Two
THE HOURS SEEMED TO pass at a snail’s pace as we watched the road and sky with equal worry. The sides of the road showed no sign of the Forbidding, but that didn’t make me feel safe. I’d grown too used to seeing trouble there and the fact that there was no tangle of dark magic to hack at only made me feel more and more that there would be one coming soon.
I asked Ivo for my short sword – still strapped to his waist – but he refused me.
“I can wear one since I am a Wing, but anyone else wearing a sword will only draw suspicion. We need to avoid attention at all costs.”
And avoid attention, we did, sticking to the road and keeping our eyes down as other travelers passed. Any one of them could report seeing us to Le Majest. Any one of them might already be looking for us. It wasn’t long before a trickle of travelers on the road grew to a steady stream and we found ourselves passing hay wains, farmers with goats they were herding to market, carts laden with salted fish, and high-sided wagons that jingled with the sounds of bottles.
Exhaustion ground down on us. I hadn’t slept more than a few hours in the past two days, and despite my gnawing anxiety, I could barely keep my eyes open as the steady movement of the horse rocked me. Every bone and muscle in me ached – my injured eye and belly most of all. I kept pulling the hood of my cloak forward, hoping no one would notice my eye.
At one point, a vision rocked me – my bee watching as a healer dressed wounds. Which bee was this? The one I’d left with Juste? But Juste had no wounds to dress and that skin was too dark. It took me a moment to realize it must be Osprey – that these were the stab wounds he’d inflicted on himself in his insanely noble effort to save me from harm. There were so many of them – some deeper than others – and I flinched as salve was applied and torn skin stitched.
I should be grateful for surely this would slow him down – even if he was getting help in a town along the way it would still delay him for long enough to bind these wounds. But I was not grateful for that. With every stitch applied I felt a mirrored pain. He’d done all of that to try to keep me safe.
When the vision vanished, I found my eyes stinging and wet. I dried them hastily, hoping the others wouldn’t see.
We reached another town after an hour of traveling out of the fishing village, and another an hour after that. I swallowed at the sight of so many people – dozens on the road and hundreds in some of the towns we passed. Some of them peered curiously toward us and I quickly looked away, keeping my hood pulled low and my face in shadows.
When I accidentally met Zayana’s eye, her look of scorn made my face burn hot. So what if I wasn’t used to all the people yet? So what if they made me nervous? What special use did so many people have that it was a good thing to be among them?
An army, I decided. They would be good for an army.
After that realization, I watched with different eyes. Instead of looking at the sheer numbers and strange Houses represented, I saw men eyeing the forest just as nervously as I did, feeling at an empty spot on their belts and then clenching their jaws. Instead of women with new hairstyles, I saw how their shoes were worn, the toes almost broken through and no money to replace them. Instead of watching the sheer number of livestock we passed, I noticed how they seemed thin, their eyes spooked as they rolled past.